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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations to Vice Admiral William S. Sims, Commander, United States Naval Forces Operating in European Waters

<Cablegram     May 28, 1918>

OL-6607       

OPERATIONS.

VICE ADMIRAL SIMS

OPNAV 6607   (BOX)  Please inform Pershing1 following marine personnel embarked in USS HENDERSON2 comma First Machine Gun Replacement Battalion3 Seventeen officers five hundred fifty-six men comma Casual Replacements Eight officers Ten hundred nineteen men4 comma observers Six officers total officers thirty-one men Fifteen hundred seventy-fiveperiod Stores One hundred forty-seven thousand pounds occupying ten thousand cubic feet Acknowledge 22028.5

Opnav.             

5/28/18            

COPY

Source Note: Cy, DNA, RG 45, Entry 517B. Identifier in top left-hand corner: “OP-23-M.”

Footnote 1: Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing, Commander, American Expeditionary Forces.

Footnote 2: Henderson was a troop transport built expressly for the Marine Corps. DANFS.

Footnote 3: This unit was replacing the original First Machine Gun Battalion, which had been re-designated the Sixth Machine Gun Battalion. Naval History.Net, Accessed 16 May 2018, http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyUSMC-aChronology.htm.

Footnote 4: This was designated as the Second Casual Replacement Battalion. Ibid.

Footnote 5: Henderson left New York on 26 May, rendezvoused with a convoy, and sailed to France, arriving at Brest on 8 June. DANFS. Under agreement with the French and British it was decided that during the month of June the shipment of “infantry and machine gunners” should have absolute priority. Foch, Pershing, and Milner to Woodrow Wilson, 2 June 1918, United States Army in the World War, 2: 445.

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