On June 26, 1917, during World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops set foot on French soil, arriving at the port of Saint-Nazaire. Plans to keep the landing location hidden from German submarines quickly fell apart — a large and enthusiastic crowd had gathered to greet them, making secrecy impossible. Sadly, these American "Doughboys" were far from battle-ready. Not only were they untrained and lacking real combat experience, but they also didn't have the equipment necessary to face the brutal realities of the Western Front.
The task of establishing a training operation in France fell to U.S. General John J. Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Force. His orders were clear: build training camps on French soil and develop the supply and communication networks needed to support the effort.
Still, it would be another four months — not until October 21 — before American soldiers actually saw combat. When that moment finally came, it was the U.S. Army's First Division stepping into the Allied Trenches near Nancy in Luneville, France. American troops were paired with specific French teams, working side by side in joint operations.
Two days after American forces entered the fighting, Corporal Robert Bralet became the first U.S. soldier to fire a shot in the war. Serving with the Sixth Artillery, he made history by discharging a bullet from a French 75mm gun, sending it half a mile into a German trench.
Tragedy struck on November 2 of that same year, when America suffered its first combat deaths of the war. Corporal James Gresham and privates Merle Hay Thomas Enright, all of the 16th Infantry, were killed after German forces attacked the American Trench in Bathelemont, France.
After four years of grinding stalemate, the arrival of America's well-supplied forces proved to be the turning point the Western Front desperately needed, breaking the bloody deadlock at last. By the time the war concluded on November 11, 1918, American had sent more than two million soldiers to serve on the battlefields of Western Europe. Of those, more than 50,000 lost their lives in the conflict.