WWI Highlights: "Shots of the World War 1917-1918" (~ 1921) US Army (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

'Date: ca. 1921

This film is silent.

Scope & Content: Reel 1 shows freighters sinking after a U-boat attack; Pres. Wilson at his desk and in the U.S. Congress declaring war on Germany; recruits arriving at a reception center and drilling; 29th Div. maneuvers and a review at Camp McClellan; Gen. Pershing aboard the transport Baltic; 1st Div. troops boarding the liner Leviathan at Newport News, Va.; depth charges being dropped from a destroyer in a convoy; Pershing conferring with Gen. Joffre; Fr. refugees clogging roads; 2nd Div. troops entering trenches and firing railroad guns; and 103rd Inf. troops attacking. Reel 2, a Ger. airplane crashes after setting an observation balloon afire 35th Div. artillery shells Sultzeren. Pershing views the battlefield. An artillery barrage is laid down and troops begin the St. Mihiel Offensive. Civilians welcome troops at Mont Sec. Troops advance under artillery support in the Meuse. Argonne sector. Eddie Rickenbacker enters an airplane and flies over Ger. lines. An ammunition dump explodes. Buzancy is shelled. Shows Armistice celebrations in New York and Paris; Pershing decorating troops; and the 42nd Div. passing in review.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Forces

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The American Expeditionary Forces (A.E.F. or AEF) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The AEF was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing... The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at the Battle of Château-Thierry and Battle of Belleau Wood) in the summer of 1918, and fought its major actions in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the latter part of 1918...

President Woodrow Wilson initially planned to give command of the AEF to Gen. Frederick Funston, but after Funston's sudden death, Wilson appointed Major General John J. Pershing in May 1917, and Pershing remained in command for the entire war...

The first American troops, who were often called "Doughboys", landed in Europe in June 1917. However the AEF did not participate at the front until October 21, 1917, when the 1st Division fired the first American shell of the war toward German lines, although they participated only on a small scale. A group of regular soldiers and the first American division to arrive in France, entered the trenches near Nancy, France, in Lorraine.

The AEF used French and British equipment. Particularly appreciated were the French canon de 75 modèle 1897, the canon de 155 C modèle 1917 Schneider, and the canon de 155mm GPF. American aviation units received the SPAD XIII and Nieuport 28 fighters, and the U.S. Army tank corps used French Renault FT light tanks. Pershing established facilities in France to train new arrivals with their new weapons. By the end of 1917, four divisions were deployed in a large training area near Verdun: the 1st Division, a regular army formation; the 26th Division, a National Guard division; the 2nd Division, a combination of regular troops and U.S. Marines; and the 42nd "Rainbow" Division, a National Guard division made up of soldiers from nearly every state in the United States. The fifth division, the 41st Division, was converted into a depot division near Tours...