Jim Little

Fathers of the Greatest Generation Jim Little

Almost every account of the greatest battles of the Great War fails to give proper credit to two divisions of Americans who fought with the British for over six months in 1918. In late September of that year, the Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth divisions, American, were told to attack, penetrate, and hold the impregnable Hindenburg line--a feat at which the British and French forces had failed over four bloody years of trench warfare. The Americans were ready; the Germans were ready; this battle would hasten the end of the war. These same men had served on the U. S.-Mexican border in 1916 while General John Pershing pursued Pancho Villa in Mexico. They were National Guardsmen who spent six months there and, upon their return home, were mustered into the National Army then sent to fight the Germans in France. They were hometown boys destined to fight one of the greatest battles of World War One and win it, only to see the credit taken by the British and Australians. They fought and died but their deeds were almost forgotten until now. They were The Fathers of the Greatest Generation.