Writing the AEF: 3rd Division

So we've been working on a chapter about the American 3rd Division on the Marne in 1918. Specifically we've been focusing on the Marne crossing operation launched on 21 July. This is interesting because commanding general Joseph Dickman conducted this operation in a very systematic manner. Cross and advance, cross and advance, sweep the north bank clear, push on northeast to the eventual target of Roncheres.

Now we had only one real source for this, Dickman's own memoirs which are as methodical as his campaign. However, we felt this lacked some detail, and as noted before we found an online a copy of the 3rd Division's official history.

This is where writing history sometimes gets hard. We had the rough based on Dickman's memoirs. Then we went back and re-wrote it using the official history. Within  the book each of the division's sub-units has its own chapter so the narrative became a bit disjointed. That is, it was hard to synchronize the movements of say, the 7th Infantry with those of the 30th Infantry. So then we went back and used Dickman's memoirs to rewrite the rewrite we rewrote with the official history. Finally, to add a few details we went back over it again with the official history.

Following me, here? Heh.

Overall we're please with what's coming together. First a background on the division and Dickman. A brief description of the training in France. Then a brief description of the famous Rock of the Marne fight. Finally this Marne crossing operation.

We hope to have the rough of this project completed by the end of the year.

Writing the AEF, 3rd Division

So we've been writing about the 3rd Division along the Marne during July of 1918. This includes the Rock of the Marne battle of course. But far more interesting we think is the Marne crossing operation mounted the next week. Basically the engineers got a couple of makeshift pontoon bridges across the Marne. Then each regiment made its away across and began a week long campaign sweeping the Germans off the north bank of the river.

As we said this is interesting but the only source we had was commanding general Joseph Dickman's memoir which gave us only enough detail for about 500 words.

Thanks to digitization we found the official history of the 3rd Division online and this contains individual accounts of each of the 3rd Division's sub units. This allows us to up the description to perhaps 2000 words.

Also we should also be able to expand the tail of the 7th MG company. Their action is also very interesting. As things were falling apart for the French on 31 May, the 3rd MG Battalion arrived at Chateau Thierry, at the tip of the Marne River and the salient the Germans had driven into French lines. Here the battalion deployed and spent most of the day fighting off German infantry.

The heroic action of the 7th MG Battalion was the first time American troops went into line in against a German attack.