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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Online Library of Selected Images -- Picture Data

Photo #: NH 82704 (extended caption)

USS Louisiana (Battleship # 19)

Arrives at New York City with a load of troops from France, 1919.
Photo printed on a stereograph card, published by the Keystone View Company.
See below for the text printed on the original stereograph card's reverse side, concerning the achievements of U.S. Troops on the Western Front in World War I.

Courtesy of Warren S. McEachern, 1974

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 125KB; 640 x 675 pixels

A stereo pair version of this image is available as Photo # NH 82704-A

Online Image of stereo pair: 78KB; 675 x 355 pixels

 

Text printed on the reverse of the original stereograph card:

Happy Homecoming Soldiers on Deck of U.S.S. Louisiana

The homecoming American troops have every right to be happy. It is "over, over there," and our soldiers played a glorious part. The Germans believed that their long and thorough military training had made their troops invincible. In America, the best fighting troops on earth were developed and trained in modern warfare in six months. The Americans excelled in fighting in small units and in individual fighting. In individual against individual, small group fighting with small group, the Germans were no match for the Americans. It was this sort of fighting that enabled the "Lost Battalion" to hold their own in the Argonne Forest. The reduction of the Saint Mihiel salient, which was held by the Germans, proved to the Germans that the Americans were able to beat them at their own game of efficiency. The Americans were capable engineers, builders and machinists back of the lines. One American aviation school was the biggest in the world. At Chateau-Thierry, the nearest point to Paris which the enemy reached, the Americans checked the enemy and then threw them back. This was the turning point of the war.
President Wilson says of the American soldiers "our men went in force into the line of battle just at the critical moment, and threw their fresh strength into the ranks of freedom in time to turn the whole tide and sweep of the fateful struggle--turn it once for all, so that henceforth it was back, back, back for their enemies, always back, never forward." "No soldiers, or sailors, ever proved themselves more quickly ready for the test of battle or acquitted themselves with more splendid courage and achievement when put to the test."

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5 June 2001