Errico recently joined WBGO’s Doug Doyle to talk about the special concert that’s a tribute to love and sacrifice and her special connection to her Aunt Rose, a Ziegfeld Follies star and Italian immigrant living through World War I. Watch the interview here, and learn how Errico hopes the WWI-era music will “connect us to the past” and the men and women who served their nation in The Great War.

On May 25, 2025, at the National Museum of the United States Army in Fort Belvoir, VA, a new unit tribute plaque will be dedicated to the WWI U.S. Army Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit, known popularly as the “Hello Girls.” They were the first all-female unit in the US Army, and the first to directly contribute to combat operations in France and then post-war occupied Germany. A reception will begin at 1:30 in Veterans’ Hall, followed by a ceremony at 2 p.m., and an unveiling of the unit tribute along the Wall of Honor. WWI music will be performed by members of the Doughboy Foundation’s AEF Headquarters Band. Read more about the event, and RSVP to attend. People wishing to attend the event must RSVP by May 10, 2025. Please note that the Museum has several policies and procedures to which all visitors must adhere.

Some 100 people braved 40-degree temperatures on a damp day at Arlington National Cemetery to watch, as speaker after speaker put it, Pfc. Adolph Hanf and Pvt. David Moser “come home.” Neither of the Jewish soldiers, who served in World War I and have been dead for more than 100 years, underwent a geographic relocation. But with the help of Operation Benjamin, a donor-supported nonprofit, Moser (1898-1919) and Hanf (1884-1918) received new gravestones with Stars of David rather than Latin crosses. Read the whole story, and learn how “thanks to the efforts of Operation Benjamin and their team, we can better appreciate the shared Jewish sacrifice in the cause of democracy and freedom.”

On Memorial Day, May 30, 1925, a large crowd gathered for the dedication of the Joan of Arc statue that graces Coe Circle in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of Portland, OR. It was erected to honor American infantrymen and the United States’ long-standing alliance with France. The story told back then was that along with the French forces, the WWI Doughboys viewed Joan of Arc as their patron saint and it is said they would sing  “Joan of Arc, They Are Calling You” as they would march into battle. This year on Friday, May 30, 2025 — exactly one hundred years later — a rededication celebration where  the community will gather once again to celebrate the statue’s centennial will take place. Learn more about the event that will “honor our French-American alliance, the Doughboys, Joan of Arc and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reached out to about 100 property owners to determine if further environmental cleanup is needed after a huge munitions plant explosion more than a century ago. The Oct. 4, 1918 explosion, just a month before the end of World War I at the Morgan Depot, an artillery shell loading plant, killed about 100 people and injured hundreds more, forcing the evacuation and reconstruction of Sayreville, South Amboy, and Laurence Harbor. A century later, the Corps of Engineers wants to make sure that the area is free of contamination and potentially dangerous material.

Representative Vince Fong of California posthumously awarded a Purple Heart to the family of deceased service member Private First Class Andreas (Andrew) Cagoulides, U.S. Army. Cagoulides was born in 1892 and immigrated to the United States in 1913. He voluntarily joined the U.S. Army in 1918, where he served in the 315th Infantry with Company I during World War I. Read more about Cagoulides, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, was injured during the line of duty, and was honorably discharged in 1919. An active member in the Veterans of Foreign Wars for over 50 years, he died in 1984.

More than a century after the fighting stopped, the U.S. Army’s First Division has not fully faded from memory in Cantigny, the tiny hilltop village in northern France that it helped to save in World War I. Now a local history teacher has hatched a plan to try to keep the communal memory alive. He has led his high school students through a study of the battle, and in led a group of them to Washington, D.C., to honor its significance. Learn how teacher Louis Teyssedou to and his students came to Washington with an old U.S. battle flag and a plan to rekindle memories of the American soldiers who rescued their region during World War I.

Bombs, death, trench warfare — all of the experiences as an Italian military chaplain would forever shape Father Angelo Roncalli’s future life and ministry as a priest, bishop and eventually as Pope John XXIII. That’s just one of the many facts that visitors to the National World War I museum in Kansas City, Missouri can learn at the Sacred Service exhibit. Opening in May 2024, the Sacred Service exhibit commemorates and educates visitors on the critical service that chaplains played during the First World War. Find out more about this upcoming new exhibit, which “is an effort to tell those stories through the lens and experiences of military chaplains, through the experiences of these religious leaders who often were just as unprepared for the war as of the men whom they were ministering to.”

During WWI, Black newspapers weren’t just sources of news—they were lifelines for Black communities. At a time when mainstream white newspapers ignored or distorted Black experiences, Black-owned publications told the truth, exposing racial injustice, challenging the government’s treatment of Black soldiers, and giving Black Americans a voice in a country that often tried to silence them. But that voice came at a cost. The U.S. government saw Black newspapers as dangerous. The federal government viewed their reporting as “disloyal” and a threat to the war effort. Learn how Black journalists who dared to expose discrimination in the military and the unfair treatment of Black draftees found themselves under surveillance, threatened, and even prosecuted.

Join nationally renowned author, James Thompson, at the Norwalk Historical Society’s Mill Hill Historic Park on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 7:00pm for an introspective look at World War I artists, most specifically Norwalk artists, Harry Townsend and F.C. Yohn. WWI Illustrators of America: How Harry Townsend and F.C. Yohn Helped Win the War is part of the Norwalk Historical Society’s World War I Centennial Lecture Series.  World War I posters on loan from the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, CT and Townsend and Yohn’s art work from the City of Norwalk Collection will be on display. Find out more about this event, where Thompson will explain how Uncle Sam used the art of men like Harry Townsend and F. C. Yohn to win the war, and how the images they created reshaped the way Americans perceived themselves. 

The National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, is getting a facelift. Opening over Memorial Day weekend, the museum’s latest exhibit, “Encounters,” will take viewers through the lives of 16 individuals that include: Allied and Central Power combat soldiers; British colonial Indian soldiers; women working in munitions factories; and dissenters arrested and tried for anti-war stances. Find out how “Encounters” will include state-of-the-art media displays that will feature 1.25 mm Pixel Pitch LED Display technology from Nanolumens — first installation of its kind in a museum in the U.S.

Imagine a folding table sitting under a pop-up canopy in a driveway somewhere in Indiana. On it, between a box of kitchen tools and a plastic snowman, lies a bayonet. Rusted a bit. Wrapped in a yellowing cloth that was once white. It’s real, though. A WWI artifact. And someone, maybe even the person selling it, doesn’t know where it came from – only that it’s been in the attic, or basement or a box marked “Dad’s stuff.” The question isn’t just how it got there. It’s why and exactly how sacred WWI artifacts end up on folding tables at all. That question doesn’t have a single answer. Read more, and learn how “the path from sacred to surplus usually involves misplacement, misremembering, and the plain fact that people die.”

War brings out the best and worst in its participants. One seldom knows what qualities one brings onto the battlefield until a situation arises when that service person has to make a fateful choice. In the case of William Shemin, World War I presented more than one call beyond duty. Though recommended by members of his division for the Medal of Honor for his performance during the Second Battle of the Marne, Shemin was denied the MOH because he was Jewish. Learn how Shemin, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1919, finally received the Medal of Honor almost 100 years after his heroic actions, due to his  supporters who kept up the appeal for an upgrade after his death in 1973. 

Writing for the Swedes on The Western Front website, Jocke Hallberg explorers the story of a Swedish journalist who spent a lot of time in France during the First World War. Gunnar Cedershiöld met a lot of soldiers with Swedish background, or connection to Sweden, on the battlefields of France, including Swedes serving in the American Expeditionary Forces, as well as the French Foreign Legion. Read more about Cedershiöld’s many interviews, including those with Swedes in the AEF who “signed up the first day possible, many of them were very young, but also farmers who left their farms to do what they could do for their new country.”

Resting beneath the surface of Lake Michigan is a 185-foot German U-boat—an unexpected find, especially since no German submarines ever operated in the Great Lakes during either World War. So how did a U-boat end up thousands of miles from the battlefields of Europe? The journey of this submarine from the depths of the Atlantic to the heart of America is one of the most fascinating—and unlikely—stories from the aftermath of World War I. Find out how “some people saw an opportunity. The war had left the U.S. with a big national debt, and one creative proposal suggested using the captured submarines to raise money.”

Sculptor Sabin Howard’s amazing A Soldier’s Journey at the national World War I Memorial continues to draw attention to him and his work. On the Daily Signal website, Howard shared with writer Rob Bluey his remarkable journey from college dropout to national monument maker, in an interview titled Sculptor Sabin Howard Battles Modernists to Create Classical WWI Memorial.  Speaking for himself on the Modern Age website. Howard takes a hard look at Why America Builds Monuments, And on an episode of the PoliticIt Podcast, sculptor Sabin Howard shares “his journey from a young artist in New York to becoming a modern-day Michelangelo, capturing the spirit of humanity through monumental art” in The Renaissance of American Art: Sabin Howard and the Grand Liberty Arch, A Monument for Our Time.

April 25 is National Lingerie Day in the United States – but it could just as easily be celebrated on November 3. That’s the date on which Mary Phelps Jacob, an American socialite credited with popularizing the modern bra, received a U.S. patent for her ‘backless brassiere’ in 1914. Although Jacob herself reaped limited financial profit from her creation, the onset of World War I that same year ultimately provided the springboard for the bra’s widespread adoption. Learn why it is Jacob’s invention that is deemed chiefly responsible for launching a bra industry that was valued at some $60 billion worldwide in 2024.

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is Lieutenant Walter Craig, born on January 5, 1892, in Climax, Pennsylvania. He graduated from New Bethlehem High School in 1913, where he was an active member of the school basketball team. Walter came from a family with a long tradition of military service dating back to the Revolutionary War. His grandfather died as a Prisoner of War at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War. When the U.S. entered the war on April 6^th, 1917, Walter was a sophomore at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Eager for active duty, he enlisted in the Army and attended officer training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, in December 1917. In April 1918, he was assigned to Company K, 59th Infantry Regiment, 4^th Division as a Second Lieutenant. That same month, Walter married Phyllis Thompson of Alexandria Bay, New York. He sailed for France the following month. On July 19, 1918, Lieutenant Craig was wounded during the Aisne-Marne Offensive.

Lieutenant Craig’s entire story.

Would you like to be involved with solving the case of Lieutenant Walter Craig, and all the other Americans still in MIA status from World War I? You can! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization today, and help us bring them home! Help us do the best job possible and give today, with our thanks.  Remember: A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

100 Cities 100 Memorials is the first book to salute America’s official centennial World War One memorials. As selected by the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, Chicago, the Congress-appointed World War I Centennial Commission, these 100 diverse monuments represent equally varied and moving stories of dedication, sacrifice, and heroism. With more than 230 archival images, vintage posters, and new photographs, this richly illustrated volume journeys from Hawaii to Maine, Idaho to Florida, and Arizona to Illinois to celebrate tributes formed of metal, stone, and memory. The compelling text provides a deeper understanding of each memorial and salutes the many organizations today that bridge past and present to maintain and honor these expressions of the nation’s heritage. “100 Cities 100 Memorials” is much more than a picture book. Through the powerful and personal narratives it tells, this volume stands as an eloquent testament to those who answered the call of duty and shaped one of the most consequential eras in American history. Purchase a copy of this amazing book now.

Lest We Forget: The Great War World War I Prints from the Pritzker Military Museum & Library. One of the nation’s premier military history institutions pays tribute to the Americans who served and the allies they fought beside to defeat a resourceful enemy with a lavishly illustrated book.  It is an official product of the United States World War One Centennial Commission and is a tribute to those who served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and what would become the Air Force. It serves as a lasting reminder that our world ignores the history of World War I (and the ensuing WWII) at its peril―lest we forget.

Honoring the Doughboys: Following My Grandfather’s World War I Diary is a stunning presentation of contemporary photographs taken by the author that are paired with diary entries written by his grandfather, George A. Carlson, who was a soldier in the U.S. Army during World War I. Jeff Lowdermilk followed his grandfather’s path through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany and returned with these meticulously crafted photographs and his own engaging stories that bring the diary to life for contemporary readers. Lowdermilk’s passion for World War I and military history began as a young boy when he listened to his grandfather tell his stories about serving as an infantryman– a “Doughboy”–in Europe during the Great War.

In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War

This notable 2-volume work has been included in the Doughboy Shop for awareness. $2 from every copy sold in the United States will go to the Doughboy Foundation. Throughout history, all wars have been given names. But not the one to which Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy’s two-volume book is dedicated. It was simply called the Great War. The events of 1914–1918, also referred to as the First World War or World War One, and the sacrifices made by our forebears a century ago should always be remembered because peace can never be taken for granted. Understanding the reasons, circumstances, and the consequences of the First World War will help us to prevent the Third World War.

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