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Battles of the First World War Podcast

The US Marines at Verdun in 1918: A Discussion with James Gregory

Battles of the First World War Podcast

Mike Cunha

History

4.8812 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

University of Oklahoma PhD candidate James Gregory joins us on the podcast to discuss a forgotten front of the First World War: the US Marines’ time in the trenches of the Toulon sector in early 1918. 

 

Marine Corps History Journal:

 

https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/798

 

Through the Eyes of a Marine: The World War I Photographs of Sgt. Clarence H. Douglass

By James Gregory:

 

https://www.lulu.com/shop/james-p-gregory-jr/through-the-eyes-of-a-marine/hardcover/product-enek7p.html?page=1&pageSize=4

 

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 Twitter at @WW1podcast, the Battles of the First World War Podcast page on FaceBook, and on Instagram at @WW1battlecast. Not into social media? Email me directly at [email protected]. Please consider reviewing the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes. 

 

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey folks, this is Mike from Battles of the First World War podcast. I'm here today with James Gregory, returning to the podcast again for the fourth time, beating out Rob Laplander, who's only been on the podcast three times. That's an inside joke because we are petty people when we're not being recorded. And even now

0:24.1

being recorded, we're still kind of petty. All right. So James, would you go ahead and introduce

0:30.1

yourself to us again, for anyone who's just joining us for the first time? Sure, sure. I'm James Gregory,

0:36.7

currently PhD candidate, University of

0:39.9

Oklahoma, and today we'll be talking about my article on the Marines in the Adver Dunn and the

0:45.8

Toulogne sector, and the article will be published in the winter 2022 Marine Corps History

0:51.6

Journal. Awesome. By any chance, do you have, you don't have a link to that yet, do you?

0:57.0

No, I mean, I can give you the link to their website, and it'll be, it's free online, but it comes out at the end of December.

1:03.8

Okay, awesome, awesome.

1:04.8

I'll get that into the show notes when we release.

1:09.9

So, all right. So, yeah, so we're talking about Marines,

1:12.9

U.S. Marines at Verdun in the Verdun sector. Of course, this is not during the Battle of Verdun

1:20.8

in 1916. This is in 1918. So, James, I guess we'll just hit up these questions here. So let's go to the beginning. What brought this episode of Marine Corps history to your attention?

1:37.8

Well, this piece is just one that in my previous works, there's always a section about them, especially the

1:45.7

Marines that go through the whole war start in Quantico. They all went through the Verdun sector,

1:51.9

and it's a period of their training. And it always kind of stood out to me, one, because no one

1:57.9

had ever really focused on writing about it. But two, it's so counter to what happens to them in June when they go to Bella Wood.

2:05.4

This is the one moment where you do have the stereotype of American in the trench, right?

2:12.1

Most people think of World War I, trench warfare, when the reality is most American troops never stepped foot in a trench for more than a day or two.

2:20.6

And even then, it was just like the night before a battle.

2:23.6

Right.

2:24.1

Yep.

...

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