Fighting the War

On December 13, 1914, the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cormoran, out of fuel and cut off from Germany by World War I, took refuge from Japanese warships in Guam. The ship spent the next two years interned in Apra Harbor. When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, the Cormoran's captain blew up the ship rather than let her fall into enemy hands.

One of Ellis Island’s most famous immigrants provided the soundtrack to America’s participation in the First World War. Irving Berlin, a popular songwriter, produced patriotic popular music to inspire soldiers and to divert those who needed a break from wartime concerns.

After years of fighting at home and abroad for a country that held mixed feelings for them, many expected the Buffalo Soldiers to be deployed to France in 1917 to help fight in WWI. However, the regular Army regiments of the Buffalo Soldiers would be found nowhere near France during WWI. Find out about the "other" Buffalo Soldiers who would take their place with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Some would even train at Ohio's WWI Soldier Factory, Camp Sherman.

In late 1914, Alice Longfellow donated to the American Field Service, funding the purchase and maintenance of a Ford Ambulance at the front. Ambulance No. 88 served at the front in France and Belgium from January 1915 through July 1917.

Long before serving as the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S Truman served his country on the front lines of World War I.

From the start, FDR worked to prepare the navy for the coming war, and was troubled that others did not see it his way. Time would prove him right.

General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing

His war experience affected the course of his life and influenced his rise to the presidency in two important ways: he discovered a leadership ability he hadn’t known that he possessed, and he garnered a significant political base that supported him in his rise though political ranks.

Sometimes the best offense is a good defense. Two sites that made up New York Harbor’s coastal defense system -- Fort Tilden and the Rockaway Naval Air Station, located in present-day Jacob Riis Park -- proved critical in this role during World War I. Part of a larger coastal defense system dating to the 18th century, Fort Tilden and Rockaway Naval Air Station helped protect the homeland during World War I against some of the most advanced weapons systems of the time.

For some US soldiers shipping off overseas, the journey to the European battle fields began with departure from the port of Hoboken, New Jersey, into New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty.