Doughboy
Doughboy (in German: "dough boy") is an outdated, slang term for an infantryman in the United States Army . This designation, first used in the Mexican-American War , was mainly used in the First World War . In the USA, the appropriately designed sculpture The Spirit of the American Doughboy was at times extremely popular after the World War.
Concept history
It is certain that the name Doughboy for US infantrymen has been passed down in war reports , field post letters and memoirs from the post-war period of the Mexican-American War and was created at this time.
The exact origin of the term is unclear. It is often said that the US infantry was constantly covered with chalky dust during the marches in the dry terrain of northern Mexico during the Mexican-American War , which is why an infantryman looked like unbaked dough because of the adhering white dust.
Another version says that the name was derived from the way US soldiers prepared their field rations in the 1840s and 1850s. These consisted of flour dough and rice mixes that the soldiers baked in the ashes of campfires. However, this does not explain why only infantrymen (and not also cavalrymen and artillerymen ) were so named.
A third explanation is that before the American Civil War, catlinite , a substance that looks like dough, was used by soldiers to clean the white belt or belt buckle.
In common parlance, Doughboy became a synonym for an infantryman only through the First World War by the American Expeditionary Forces . The crews and NCOs called themselves Doughboy and the term was widely used in contemporary media in the United States and Europe . First in the American Expeditionary Forces, the infantry was called this, later the term was applied to the entire US troop contingent, much to the annoyance of the US Marines ( marine infantry ), who after their alleged German nickname Teufel Hunden (or, more correctly, Teufelhunde ), in English Devil Dogs , called and later called Leathernecks , i.e. leather necks , during World War II .
During the Second World War, the name Doughboy was gradually replaced by GI , Dogface or Troop .
After the Second World War, the house-to-house fighting facility on the Parks Range training area of the US Army Berlin Brigade was also known as Doughboy City in the American sector of Berlin .
See also
- GI : common, slang term for a US soldier
- Landser : slang term for a German soldier
- Poilu : in France , a slang term for a French soldier, during the First World War
- Tommy : slang term for a British soldier
literature
- William Durie: The United States Garrison Berlin 1945–1994 , photo-durie.com, 2014, ISBN 978-1630685409 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana: Monterrey Is Ours! The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant NJT Dana, 1845-1847. University of Kentucky Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8131-1703-8 ; Samuel Chamberlain: My Confessions: Recollections of a Rogue. Texas State Historical Association, Austin, TX 1965.
- ↑ Michael E. Hanlon: The Origins of Doughboy. IN: Worldwar1.com , June 16, 2003.
- ↑ Hyde Flippo: German Myth 13: Teufelshunde - Devil Dogs. german.about.com, accessed on September 16, 2014 .
- ↑ Parks Range / Doughboy City photo collection in the museum-digital: berlin