Easton Press: JOHN PERSHING: GENERAL OF THE ARMIES: WORLD WAR I: EUROPE

Description: Easton Press leather edition of Donald Smythe's "Pershing: "General of the Armies," a COLLECTOR'S edition, Period Photographs, Frontispiece portrait of Pershing, one of the LIBRARY OF MILITARY HISTORY series, published in 1995. Bound in deep hunter green leather, the book has camel tan French moire end leaves, satin book marker, hubbed spine, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, gold gilding on three edges---in near FINE condition---except for a 'blank' attached bookplate on second blank page. John Joseph Pershing, who lived from 1860-1948, was born in Laclede, Missouri, and graduated from WEST POINT. He was nicknamed "Black Jack" which was derived from his service with a black regiment early in his career and for his stern bearing, rigid discipline, and his "manly endowment." Pershing was drop-dead handsome, stood 6 feet two inches tall and was powerfully built with a rugged frame and a thick hairy chest. Women found him most handsome. He married and fathered four children, but his wife and three daughters died in a fire at the Presidio in San Francisco. Only his son, Warren, survived and grew to manhood. He was the senior American U.S. Army officer who served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary in World War I. Pershing resisted British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, essentially as replacement units. Although some American divisions fought under British command, notably in the Battle of Hamel and the breaching of the Hindenburg Line at St. Quentin Canal, resulting in the final German collapse. Pershing also allowed American all-Back units to be integrated with the French Army. Pershing's soldiers first saw serious battle at Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, and Belleau Wood on June 26, 1918, and Soissons on July 18-22, 1918. To speed up arrival of American troops, they embarked for France leaving heavy equipment behind, and used British and French tanks, artillery, airplanes and other munitions. In 1918 at St. Mihiel, the First Army was directly under Pershing's command; it overwhelmed the salient---the encroachment into Allied territory that the German Army had held for three years. For the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Pershing shifted roughly 600,000 soldiers to the heavily defended forest of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard fighting for 47 days, alongside the French. The Allied Hundred Days Offensive, of which the Argonne fighting was part, contributed to Germany calling for an armistice. Pershing believed that the war should continue until the German military was destroyed. Pershing was the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the U.S. Army. Pershing chose his own insignia, four silver stars. In 1937, Pershing created a custom full-dress uniform to attend the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. In 1946, he secretly married Micheline Resco, who had come to America with her mother when the war broke out in Europe inn 1939. Like many older men, Pershing lived increasingly in the past. He was a conservative---politically, economically, socially. To the end of his life he kept the West Point motto "Duty, Honor, Country" as his guiding beacon. His funeral in 1948 was memorable with some 300,000 lined up to watch the procession from the Capitol. Caught in a downpour General Eisenhower turned to General Omar Bradley to query him about taking refuge in the limousines provided for that purpose. "Brad, what do you think?" "For Black Jack Pershing I think it would be proper if we walked in the rain." Buried in the WW I section of Arlington Cemetery, Chaplain Luther Miller said: "His battles are all fought and his victories all won and he lies down to rest while awaiting the bugle's call." 399 pages, including Notes, a Bibliography and an index---military history at its finest! I offer combined shipping.

Price: 64.95 USD

Location: Walnut Ridge, Arkansas

End Time: 2024-11-29T19:12:46.000Z

Shipping Cost: 8 USD