GENE FAX

History of War

“Here the Hundred Days Offensive is told through the eyes of the new kids on the block. Gene Fax’s book is a masterpiece of narrative history, focusing on one of the first American divisions to join the war effort and giving an invaluable look into the formation of the American Expeditionary Forces.  The training and experiences of the 79th Division make for compelling reading, and the book continually surprises (when it left for France, for instance, half the division had received no training.) It’s a brilliant look inside the workings of a World War I division.”

—History of War

Author Gene Fax
Gene Fax

My grandfather fought in the 313th Infantry Regiment of the 79th Division. When my brother and I were young, he would regale us with old-soldier stories. Sometime in the 1980s I tried to get his war service record, only to find that most of the personnel files from World War I were destroyed in a fire in 1973. As a substitute I read a history of his regiment, which first made me aware of the assault on Montfaucon; I learned that Company G, my grandfather’s company, had been the first to gain the top of the hill. Digging further, I discovered that little had been written about that bloody and important engagement, save for one or two pages in general histories of the AEF and a few articles in old, obscure military journals.

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