First Over There, Matthew J. Davenport
First Over There, Matthew J. Davenport
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First Over There
The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I

Author: Matthew J. Davenport

Narrator: Mel Foster

Unabridged: 14 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/29/2016


Synopsis

At first light on Tuesday, May 28th, 1918, waves of American riflemen from the U.S. Army's 1st Division climbed from their trenches, charged across the shell-scarred French dirt of no-man’s-land, and captured the hilltop village of Cantigny from the grip of the German Army. Those who survived the enemy machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand fighting held on for the next two days and nights in shallow foxholes under the sting of mustard gas and crushing steel of artillery fire.

Thirteen months after the United States entered World War I, these 3,500 soldiers became the first “doughboys” to enter the fight. The operation, the first American attack ever supported by tanks, airplanes, and modern artillery, was ordered by the leader of America’s forces in Europe, General John “Black Jack” Pershing, and planned by a young staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall, who would fill the lead role in World War II twenty-six years later.

Drawing on the letters, diaries, and reports by the men themselves, Matthew J. Davenport's First Over There tells the inspiring, untold story of these soldiers and their journey to victory on the Western Front in the Battle of Cantigny.

About Matthew J. Davenport

In an effort to tell of the American experience in the First World War, Matthew J. Davenport has dug through archives and family collections coast to coast to consult the letters, diaries, reports, and memoirs of the doughboys who served at the front. His book First Over There, which tells the story of the first American victory in the trenches of the Western Front, was a finalist for the 2015 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History and has been heralded by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson as "military history at its best."

Matthew served in the Army Reserve and is a member of the American Legion, the Western Front Association, and the Military Writers Society of America. A native of St. Louis and a former prosecutor, he practices law in eastern North Carolina, where he teaches at East Carolina University and lives with his wife and two sons.


Reviews

This is a fast-paced, very readable account of the AEF's first offensive in the Great War. This is a ~300-page narrative of how the US Army's 1st Division - The Big Red One - attacked and held onto the small French village of Cantigny, France, May 28th, 1918. The battle demonstrated that the America......more

Goodreads review by Julian

What an intimate history of a group of men long forgotten. As Mr. Davenport says, the U.S. Army's 1st Division is long forgotten because of the sex appeal of WWII, Vietnam, and other conflicts, but it still serves a purpose in being one of the first groups to fight on foreign soil on a world stage.......more