World War One History Links
For a rich resource of World War One history, try the excellent World War One Document Archive.
The only historical facility in the United States totally dedicated to World War One is the Liberty Memorial Museum in Kansas City, Mo.
Becky Staley of Arizona has posted an interesting collection of letters from her grandfather, Lloyd Staley, while he was stationed in France during World War One.
Marv Cruzan from Shell Knob, MO, has his father's diary online. It gives an engrossing account of life with the famed 89th Division during World War One.
One of the more engrossing sites I have seen lately is Rob Ruggenberg's The Heritage of the Great War. It is an unusual website in many ways because it doesn't stress the history of the war nor its military theory as much as it provides varying opinions on the war. Perhaps that's more understandable when you factor in that Ruggenberg is a long-time Dutch newspaperman and dedicated to open exchange of ideas. The site has many pictures. Text is mostly in English and includes a section on the exploits of the American Expeditionary Force.
Tom Caulley has a nice gallery of Camp Funston pictures, including the artillery range, firing range, marching, and just goofing off.
Major General Frederick Funston is the man Camp Funston is named after. 2nd Lt. Dave Young of the Kansas Air National Guard has prepared an interesting site on this colorful figure.
My Mother's War, a tribute to World War One Army Nurse Helen Burrey, gives interesting first-hand accounts of events on a Medical Train.
For a war perspective from a Louisiana French Cajun soldier, read The Diary of Arcille Guillory. Arcille lived in Evangeline Parish. Local historian Lisa McCauley, who put his diary online characterized it this way: "Arcille's writing is spectacular in its own way...a half-illiterate Cajun trying to express complex emotions in a foreign language."
Lisa has also put together a beautiful site of her Grandfather's experiences in World War One. Through the Valley of Death recounts his life with the 89th Division.
The Otis Historical Archives of the National Museum of Health & Medicine provides an awesome collection of historical photographs dealing with the 1918 Influenza pandemic.
Trenches on The Web is probably the preeminent source for World War One history on the Web.
Dan Fisher, in upstate New York, is constructing a site about the 29th Field Artillery which was constituted in 1918 at Camp Funston.
Bob Swanson has done some fruitful research on the development of the postal system in the early years of this country. He has come up with some interesting graphic material in First World War Images.
If you have letters, manuscripts, or other documentation of your family's history, visit Nancy Pengra's Center for Life Stories Preservation. She gives specific suggestions for capturing those stories for posterity, so others can appreciate the history your loved ones have experienced.
In a similar vein, Past Voices gives exposure to online collections of letters as well as an impressive group of links for geneaological research.
U.S. Army Military History Institute is a rich source of history and pictorial records.
In mid 1919 the Army initiated the first of two transcontinental convoys. The purpose was two-fold: to test recently developed trucks (some of which had been developed too late to actually use in the war), and to see if the juggernaut that had brought the Axis powers to defeat could actually traverse its own country. One of the observers along on that trip was a young lieutenant colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1919 Transcontinental Convoy recounts how the experience left an indelible mark on Eisenhower, who, 30 years later, became the architect for today's Interstate Highway system.
"From Dense Ignorance and Otherwise" is a rather humorous look at what it terms the "100 year war with Europe" over highway bragging rights. It has some impressive pictures of cloverleaf exchanges that existed in Europe in the 1930s.
James Lin, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at CalTech, has a treasure trove of historical information online regarding The Lincoln Highway, the first major effort at building a continuous highway across the United States.