In a letter to his mother composed five days after the Armistice was signed, Charles Stanley Lamb wrote, “Dear Mother: By firelight on the fought-over ground of this stricken country I pause to rush word to you of my safety + well being.” As Lamb’s letter indicates, keeping in touch with family members was of paramount importance to members of the American Expeditionary Forces stationed “somewhere in France.” While these letters were written to communicate with loved ones, for modern audiences, they provide vivid accounts of the war itself. Original photographs depict what might have been left out of personal correspondence—details of the experience considered too shocking or boring for those on the home front. These photographs offer a visual record of the war as it was experienced by American troops from a wide variety of vantage points: snapping away, they documented everything from captured German submarines to Italian ambulances to abandoned trenches.

Featured Story: Lucius Byron Nash

“The laying of this barrage has been the biggest thing the Navy has done, and the only offensive operation.”

(Letter to Parents, 11/19/1918)

A Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Navy, Lucius Byron Nash served aboard the USS Roanoke, a minelayer responsible for distributing mines across the North Sea to deter German U-boats from attacking the Atlantic shipping lanes. As he describes in his letters home, it was often a dirty, grueling job, demanding twelve-hour shifts spent on deck in the pouring rain. Luckily, he was able to break the monotony by taking shore leave in London and Scotland. His correspondence, along with the accompanying photographs of the Roanoke loaded with mines, offers a peek into the role of the Navy in World War I, an often-overlooked aspect of the war.