General of the Armies John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing GCB (September
13, 1860 â€" July 15, 1948) was a senior United States Army officer.
He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary
Forces (AEF) on the Western Front in World War I, 1917â€"18.Pershing
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, although some American divisions fought under
British command, and he also allowed all-black units to be integrated
with the French army.Pershing's soldiers first saw serious battle at
Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Soissons. To speed up the
arrival of American troops, they embarked for France leaving 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
salient â€" the encroachment into Allied territory â€" that the German
Army had held for three years. For the Meuse-Argonne Offensive,
Pershing shifted roughly 600,000 American soldiers to the heavily
defended forests of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard
fighting for 47 days, alongside the French. The Allied Hundred Days
Offensive, which the Argonne fighting was part of, contributed to
Germany calling for an armistice. Pershing was of the opinion that the
war should continue and that all of Germany should be occupied in an
effort to permanently destroy German militarism. John J. Pershing Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter