The A. E. F.: With General Pershing and the American Forces

The A.E.F. by Heywood Broun is about the formation of the United States Armed Forces on the Western Front during World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of then-Major General John J. Pershing. Excerpt: «VOILÀ UN SOUSMARIN,» said a sailor, as he stuck his head through the doorway of the smoking room. The man with aces and eights dropped, but the player across the table had three sevens, and he waited for a translation. It came from the little gun on the afterdeck. The gun said «Bang!» and in a few seconds it repeated «Bang!» I heard the second shot from my stateroom, but before I had adjusted my lifebelt the gun fired at the submarine once more. A cheer followed this shot. No Yale eleven, or even Harvard for that matter, ever heard such a cheer. It was as if the shout for the first touchdown and for the last one and for all the field goals and long gains had been thrown into one. There was something in the cheer, too, of a long-drawn «ho-old 'em.»