[NeilE]

Correction Russ, all those prisoners and material were captured by Commonwealth forces - not the British as you say.

Personally the doings of F-111's are a world away from the time I like to study and I think I'd like to keep them there.

There is no doubt that the American people and some of their Great War Historians - or writers - take at face value the writings of their press at the time regarding the achievements of the AEF . There is no doubt that US journalists and some US Generals (or Generals to be), such as Pershing and Patton, talked up the achievements of the AEF, in a similar way to Bean for the Australians and others for most of the other combatants.

The propaganda laden portrayals of the actions of the AEF at the time were perhaps coloured in part by the need to justify US involvement in The Great War to a divided home front. It may have have been further coloured by notions of the 'sturdy frontiersman ethic vs decadent old world Europeans' and similar notions also (This may have something to do also with the empathy felt between Australian and American troops mentioned by some authors). Post-war, this mythology entered popular culture and grew from there, ultimately leading to uncritical replication by populist authors such as Shaara.

From what I have read - and I admit it is not extensive - the experience of the AEF in France in 1918 was little different to any of the other Allied combatants at the time. There were some differences of course. Both the French and British staff liaison officers attached to the AEF commented on the poor state of American staff work. particularly in the areas of munitions and supply, which they thought to be particularly sub-standard. Looking at it more objectively, it is probably likely that it was quite similar to that of the British in 1915, which experienced similar problems with shell and rations shortages.

Whether Pershing was the right man for the job of leading the AEF is perhaps debatable. Both the French and British found him hard to deal with, and very unwilling to adopt the lessons of four years of trench warfare learnt by the French and Commonwealth forces. His insistence on advances in line and that the American offensive spirit (his version of the "British spirit of the bayonet") would carry well sited and defended German positions led to the usual high casualty rates.

The notion that the AEF stopped the German offensives is, of course, just not true. They stopped some smaller offensive thrusts at Belleau Wood and elsewhere but the main, most threatening German offensives of the Kaiserschlact had been stopped months before by Commonwealth (mainly Australian) Forces at Villers Bretoneux and Hazebrouck.

Looking at the fighting at Belleau Wood for a moment, whilst it was certainly hard and in close, it was certainly not as intense at the two months combat over High Wood on the Somme in 1916 or the South African Brigade's experience at Delville Wood the same year where of the 3,433 men who entered the wood on the 14th of July 1916, only 768 remained unhurt when they were withdrawn on the 20th of July (with a ratio of 4 dead to one wounded - unlike the usual 1:3 ratio common on the Western Front).

St Mihiel, often lauded as THE innovative offensive of The Great War by some American writers, was in fact a variant on the infantry tactics and weapons combinations used in the Commonwealth offensives at Hamel and Amiens. St Mihiel was not as successful in scope as Amiens was either, with the AEF and French failing to capture Metz, the target of the offensive.

All this is not to downgrade the significance of these actions of the AEF, or those later on the Meuse-Argonne front, which have significance in the American history of arms in that they were the first times US forces were involved in conflict in Europe, and against a European power on equal terms. Thus their national significance cannot be discounted - though none of them have taken on the almost religious significance of Gallipoli or Villers Bretoneux (in recent times).