John Joseph Pershing

John J. Pershing took a small Regular Army and built the American Expeditionary Forces that fought as a separate U.S. army in France. From 1917 to 1919 he held the AEF command through Cantigny, the Marne fighting around Château-Thierry, the St. Mihiel salient reduction, and the Meuse-Argonne offensive — operations dated in AEF G.H.Q. orders and the American Battle Monuments Commission’s battlefield record. Congress later confirmed him as General of the Armies, a rank shared in U.S. history with only a handful of officers.

Philippine, Mexican border, and West Point chapters precede that war. This register files the AEF command: years, major offensives, independent American army status. Pershing died in Washington in 1948 and is buried at Arlington. The Library of Congress portrait on Wikimedia Commons is public domain. He is not listed as missing.