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John J. Pershing Military person

John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), was the general in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces to victory over Germany in World War I, 1917-18. He rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command when it was large enough. Before then he assigned American divisions to be under British and French command at the battles Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Soissons. He also allowed all-black units to be integrated with the French army. To speed up the arrival of the doughboys, they embarked for France leaving the heavy equipment behind, and used British and French tanks, artillery, airplanes and other munitions. In September 1918 at St. Mihiel the First Army was directly under Pershing's command; it overwhelmed the German salient which they had held for three years. This victory opened the way for the decisive Argonne offensive. Pershing shifted 600,000 American soldiers to the heavily defended forests of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard fighting for 47 days, alongside the Allies. They broke the Hindenburg Line, shattered the German field army. The Germans called for an armistice although Pershing himself wanted to continue the war, occupy all of Germany, and permanently destroy German militarism.Pershing is the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies He served as a mentor to a generation of generals who led the United States Army in Europe during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, and George S. Patton. Some of his tactics have been criticized both by other commanders at the time and by modern historians. His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other Allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been blamed for causing unnecessarily high American casualties.

Personal facts

Birth date	September 13, 1860
Birth place	Laclede Missouri
Date of death	July 15, 1948
Place of death	Washington D.C.
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery

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