How America Went to War (Volume 2); The Road to France. 1921. 2 V. an Account from Official Sources of the Nation's War Activities, 1917-1920

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1921. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII ORDERS AND ITEM NUMBERS AT Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana were three bat J- talions of the 34th Regiment of Engineers, operating J. Jl a military supply train and a mobile repair shop. They numbered some 50 officers and 2,400 enlisted men, and every one of them was impatiently awaiting the order that would send them all overseas. Expectancy had been acute since the 14th of May, 1918, when the battalions had received from the Commander of the Port of Embarkation at Hoboken, New Jersey, the well-known and coveted form letter beginning: Instructions have been received from the War Department that your organization has been designated for service abroad. ... The letter went on to tell them what preparations they were to make for sailing. Except for its address, it was identical with the letters sent to all military units about to sail for France--the first harbinger of their embarkation. But it was now mid-July. Weeks ago the three battalions had followed the mimeographed instructions of the letter; weeks ago they had secured all of the prescribed paraphernalia that they could lay hands on. Two months had passed and brought no order to proceed to the port. The newspapers were black with headlines flaunting tremendous doings in France. The Germans were at the height of their successes; the Channel ports were threatened; Paris was under bombardment; and American soldiers by hundreds of thousands were in the thick of the fighting, writing their imperishable record on the pages of history. And out in this peaceful interior post, surrounded by a smiling Hoosier landscape that dreamed beneath a summer sun, lay these engineer troops, eating their hearts out with chagrin because of an order that never came. Washington had not forgotten them. Troops in cam...