Major General Joseph E. Kuhn
Commanding the 79th Division was Major General Joseph E. Kuhn. A West Point graduate, Kuhn had had a highly successful career in the peacetime army as a military engineer and had reached high-ranking positions such as Senior Instructor of Military Engineering at the Army Services Schools and, later, Director of Instruction at the US Army Command and General Staff College. Most importantly, however, Kuhn probably had more experience with both modern war and the German Army than any other officer in the United States. He had observed the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, attended the German Military Maneuvers of 1906, where he had discussed tactics and strategy with none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II himself and was even the American Military Attaché to Germany from 1914-1916 where he had witnessed fighting on the front lines. Together with his Chief of Staff Lieutenant Colonel Tenney Ross, who made up for Kuhn’s flaws with his many years of combat experience spanning from encounters with the Plains Indians to the Moros in the Philippines, General Kuhn was sent to Camp Meade, Maryland to oversee its construction and train the 79th Division’s incoming recruits.[1]
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General Kuhn (Courtesy of Gene Fax) [link]
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Citations
[1] History Committee, 79th Division Association, History of the 79th Division A.E.F. During the World War: 1917-1919, (Lancaster: Steinman & Steinman, 1922), 8-9; Fax, 74-75. [Hathi Trust Digital Library]