Battles of the First World War Podcast

New Ypres League member Christopher Sims joins the podcast to discuss his four decades of working for the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) as the Senior Cemetery Associate for World War I Flanders Field American Cemetery, in Waregem, Belgium. During his career with the ABMC, Christopher also authored a reference work titled "The Soldiers of the American Military Cemetery Flanders Field." 
 
Join us for a conversation on preserving the memory of the American fallen in Flanders Fields. 
 
ABMC's web page for Flanders Fields American Cemetery



Find out more about the New Ypres League in this episode:
 
The New Ypres League with Roger Steward & Prof Mark Connelly
 
Please consider joining the New Ypres League and supporting remembrance efforts:
 
www.newypresleague.com




The BFWWP is on Patreon! Give back to the podcast you enjoy.
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)

Lady Lucy French, great granddaughter of BEF commander Field Marshal Sir John French, Roger Steward, Chairman and co-founder of the New Ypres League, Ypres Battlefield Tours guide, and author, join the podcast to discuss the Ypres Day commemoration events scheduled for the weekend encompassing the 31st of October, 2026. 



Please consider joining the New Ypres League and supporting remembrance efforts:
 
www.newypresleague.com



If you're in Ypres, Belgium, contact Roger for tour details -
 
Ypres Battlefield Tours: www.ypresbattlefieldtours.be



The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)

Following the discussion of German plans for their next great offensive, we turn now to French and Allied plans to meet this next attack. 
 
Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch and French Army commander GEN Philippe Pétain intended to respond to this next attack differently: as soon as the Germans overextended themselves, a swift Allied counterattack would follow. 
 
The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or concerns.

***Technical note: My apologies on the audio reverb that may be heard in this episode. 
 
A concise history revealing New Jersey's vital industrial, military, and civilian contributions to America's World War I effort.
 
During World War I, New Jersey played a prominent role in the manufacturing of war-related munitions, created the infrastructure necessary to train and mobilize troops, and supplied a portion of the manpower necessary to fight overseas.
 
Without the support of New Jersey's industrial base, the war effort of the United States may very well have failed. Contributions from New Jersey ranged from artillery rounds from Amatol, fuses from Bloomfield, shells from Lyndhurst, gun carriages (Singer), aircraft engines (Duesenberg), Handley Page Bombers from Elizabeth, and ship building (New York Shipbuilding and ELCO).
 
Over 140,000 New Jerseyans served during the war, and the state was home to 38 military installations by the end of the war, including Camp Dix. Troops from New Jersey included National Guard units activated and assigned to the 29th Division that trained at Camp McClellan, Alabama, and National Army soldiers (draftee) assigned to the 78th Division that trained at Camp Dix. New Jersey-based units from the 29th and 78th Infantry Divisions would fight in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Women, too, underwent training in New Jersey, in preparation to serve in the Army Signal Corps, while women from the state volunteered to serve with aid organizations including the Red Cross, and raised money for the war effort.
 
In the post-war years, over 160 monuments were constructed across New Jersey to memorialize the war dead and honor the veterans who served in the Great War, including several of the famous "Spirit of the American Doughboy" statues produced by E. M. Viquesney. New Jersey mothers and widows would travel in pilgrimages to the battlefields and cemeteries of France, such as the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, as well as to Brookwood cemetery in Great Britain to visit the graves of their loved ones in the 1930s as part of the Gold Star Mothers and Widows Pilgrimage.
 
This book will for the first time reveal the full extent of New Jersey's pivotal role in America's war effort during the Great War, and will shed light on prominent figures and their connections to New Jersey, such as Dr. Fred Albee, the father of bone grafting, Cecil Dorrian, the first American female War Reporter in World War I, Amabel Roberts, the first American nurse from New Jersey to die during the war in France, and Lillian Marx, who danced and sang in Newark during war support donation events.
 
Where to buy: https://www.brooklinebooks.com/9781955041478/the-war-to-end-all-wars/



The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)

The story behind an often erroneously captioned photograph of the First World War, and remembering the man in it. 
 
The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at verdunpodcast@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or concerns.