First American Expeditionary Forces Arrive in France

While the youth of America were rallying to the colors in the spring of 1917, and preparations were under way to shape them into an invincible Army, France and England together were imploring the United States to dispatch troops across the sea without delay, for the moral influence their mere presence would exert upon the war-weary legions in the Western trenches. With the arrival of the French Mission in America, General Joffre added his personal prayer that America come quickly to the assistance of the sorely pressed Allied armies. Yielding to these entreaties, President Wilson, on May 19th, announced that one division of the Regular Army, together with nine regiments of Army Engineers, would be sent to France at the earliest possible moment. On the same day, the Secretary of the Navy announced that 2,600 Marines would accompany General Pershing.

Pershing a Full General

The command of this expeditionary force, numbering 30,000 men, was given to Major-General John J. Pershing, a distinguished officer who had won his laurels in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, and in 1914 commanded the American Expedition into Mexico which sought to capture Villa. By Congressional decree, on May 26, 1917, he was advanced to the full rank of General, an honor hitherto held only by Washington, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, and named Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. General Pershing was ordered to proceed to Europe in advance of the Expeditionary Force, select the ports of debarkation for the Army, and oversee the training areas.

Pershing Meets King George

With his staff of 53 officers and 146 men, including privates and civilian attaches, General Pershing secretly embarked on the White Star liner Baltic, sailing for England. Arriving at Liverpool, on June 6, 1917, he was received with much ceremony by General Sir Pitcairn Campbell, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and Admiral Spellman, then by special train to London. There he was received by Lord Derb...

On June 4, 1917, a small fleet of six yachts left the New York Navy Yard and steamed slowly down the stream. This force, a handful of converted pleasure vessels, bore the official designation of the U. S. Patrol Squadrons Operating in European Waters and constituted the first American naval participation in the Great War, actually to be established in French waters. The yachts were:

U.S.S. Kanawha
U.S.S. Vedette
U.S.S. Noma
U.S.S. Christabel
U.S.S. Harvard
U.S.S. Sultana

and also included in this force, but temporarily under the orders of Rear-Admiral Gleaves, were the U.S.S. Corsair and the U.S.S. Aphrodite.

For over a month work had been pushed to the utmost to prepare the yachts for foreign service. Furnishings and decorations of peaceful days were removed and stored in Brooklyn warehouses. White sides and glittering brightwork were hidden under coats of battle gray. Fore and aft, three-inch guns were mounted, and guns of smaller caliber were located on the upper decks. Cutlasses and rifles lined bulkheads of paneled oak or mahogany. Everywhere about the ships improvised quarters, in former smoking-rooms, libraries and sun-parlors, housed crews expanded by war-time necessity to four or five times the original quota required to operate the yachts in time of peace.

The six yachts anchored until the morning of June 9, 1917 off Tompkinsville, S. I., New York, and at 5: 30 A.M. stood out to sea at a standard speed of ten knots, en route to Bermuda. On the twelfth of June, the force arrived at St. George's Bay, coaled; on the sixteenth again got under way and shaped a course for the Azores.

The yachts arrived at Brest, France, on the fourth of July, after a relatively uneventful voyage, where they found the Corsair and the Aphrodite, which had arrived ahead of them due to their greater size which enabled them to lay a direct transatlantic course. On July 14, 1917, the squadron commander, Captain W. B. Fletcher, U. S. N., with hi...