In service from 1917 until 1919
Specification No’s 1257, 1258, 1269, & 1271
Official Name: Field Shoe
During the seven weeks between the time America declared war on April 6, 1917, and the day that General Pershing boarded the ocean liner that would carry him to Europe in May of that same year, the U.S. Army adopted a new field shoe. It was the shoe that would become known as the “Trench Shoe” because its design was tailored specifically for a new type of warfare that took place inside a network of trenches. It’s uncertain why the QTMC deemed the 1916 Heavy Marching Shoe and the 1917 Marching Shoe as being unsuitable for France at a time when neither one of them had ever seen service on the continent of Europe. Thus far, the only substantial information explaining why and how the Trench Shoe came to be, appeared in an article devoted to the development of the U.S. Army shoe:
Immediately after the entrance of this country into the war it became apparent that to meet the new conditions a heavier type of shoe was required. Accordingly, by enlisting the services of a number of the most successful tanners and shoe manufacturers and by utilizing the knowledge gained from the experiences of other countries already at war, the field shoe was developed and adopted by the War Department.
The Army Shoe Then and Now, Captain Charles G. Keene QTMC, The Quartermaster Review, Vol. 1 No. 1, July-August 1921, page 6, 7
And in a book whose subject matter consisted of the contributions made to the war effort by America’s industrial might:
The American Expeditionary Forces decided that our Army’s shoes were not heavy enough to be suitable for trench service. The British were using a shoe made of bark-tanned India kip, finished flesh side out in the natural color.* It was a shoe of this character which Pershing’s staff decided that we wanted. We had been using lighter chrome-tanned calfskin. The shoe committee of the Quartermaster Corps designed specifications for the American trench shoe and the section undertook to get the American tanneries to turn out a sufficient quantity of upper leather meeting the new specifications. The standard required was a bark-tanned or chrome-retanned “bend” of kip or calfskin of proper weight.
America’s Industry at War, Alexander Edward Powell, 1921, page 251
*Kip was the trade name of the hide from an adolescent cow. It is heavier in weight than that of calf skin, and lighter in weight than that of cowhide.
Conversely, every post war publication that dedicated any space to the subject of shoeing the AEF, managed to find room to mention that the marching shoes worn by the U. S. Army when it arrived “Over There” in June of 1917, did not measure up to what was expected of them. Regrettably, the only thing that those accounts had in common was a striking lack of detail, and the fact that each declared that the aforementioned shoes were neither strong enough, nor waterproof enough to contend with the deep mud and inclement weather that they were exposed to. On the other hand, the Doughboys that saw service in France in 1917, and later in 1918, freely expressed their opinions in respect to the shabby state of their shoes and the inescapable mud that earned a well deserved reputation as the enemy of both foot and footwear:
We hit two days of rain which cuts into this rotten soil making it much like thick mush, only several pounds of it would stick to the already too heavy boots we wear. It simply would not come off and after sitting down to carefully clean them; of course the next two steps filled them up again.
Private First Class George Stanley Lamb, Company B, 318th Engineer Regiment, 6th Division, AEF
Oh how I wished I was home, the soles were worn off my shoes, my clothing all torn and I was wet all through. That is what we get while training in France.
Private Theodore Kohls, Company A, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division, AEF
The mud in the trenches is knee deep which we were made to walk and stand in day after hellish day … In the mire and muck of this battlefield we saw boys sink to their waist in seconds. It was terrible beyond description to see some of our boys who had been hit and seriously wounded lying there in a pool of blood and mud.
Private Charles Dermody, Company F, 132nd Infantry Regiment, 33rd Division, AEF
The men are very dirty, their clothes are worn out, covered with grease and dirt, the most pitiful and unsightly bunch of men I have ever seen, either in the Army or out. A man found in this condition in civil life would be a case to be taken care of by a charitable organization. Two men, Thomas Harris and James R. McCabe, both privates in F Company, 165th Inf., told me they had only the clothes they were wearing on their person, having been left in the U.S. when their organization came over, and they were sent later with the 168th Inf. Reg. without overcoats, mess kits or blankets, which have not been supplied to them up to this date. They had not a change of underwear or uniform since leaving the U.S. on Oct. 28th, 1917 … One man had a blister on his foot and could not get his shoes on, and he was wearing one old worn out shoe on one foot and a wooden shoe on the other.*
Captain Thomas Burcham, Assistant Sanitary Inspector, HQ Detachment, 42nd Division, AEF
I crawled out and sank to my ankles in the ooze. Where upon I got back into the wagon. From here on, I may state for enlightenment of future historians of the World War, I intend to keep my feet and face out of the slime and when I die, I’ll die dry.
Captain Robert Joseph Casey, Battery C, 124th Field Artillery Regiment, 33rd Division, AEF
*Captain Burcham’s account of the appalling state of the men from the 165th Infantry Regiment dates to approximately January 29, 1918. It aptly described the AEFs acute shortage of both shoes and uniforms in late 1917 – a shortage which stretched well into the first half of 1918. The 42nd Infantry Division was particularly hard hit in that regard during the winter of 1917-1918. This was partially because a number of units in that division had been separated from their baggage and partially due to the numerous delays in the transportation of the errant baggage to the division’s present training sector. In addition, upon arrival to France, the “Rainbow” Division was ordered to turn over a large portion of the material that it had brought over, including its entire supply of 50,000 pairs of spare shoes. The goods confiscated from the 42nd Division were used by the AEF to resupply the 2nd and 26th Divisions, both of which were in dire need of replacement shoes and clothing.
Photo No. 85: An example of the deep mud and the three types of American marching shoes that were worn for field service by American Doughboys prior to the arrival of the Trench Shoe: right, from top to bottom, the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe, the 1916 Heavy Marching Shoe and the 1917 Marching Shoe.