separate from and better than the rest of the Army. It was an elitism for which Somervell was perfectly suited. Besides, with projects such as building dams and canals, the engineers offered the most hope for an interesting career during the peaceful times most of the world enjoyed in the spring of 1914.
Touring Europe on two months’ graduation leave, Somervell wasted no time thrusting himself into great events. In August 1914, the German army crashed across the Belgian frontier near Liège, the beginning of a great, wheeling offensive into France. Somervell immediately reported to the U.S. Embassy in Paris, where he was named assistant military attaché and put to work aiding Americans trying to escape ahead of the advancing Germans. To speed the exodus, the battleship USS Tennessee was dispatched to France carrying a million dollars in gold stuffed into ten kegs. Young Somervell hired special trains and ships to rescue stranded Americans and distributed money to panicked tourists clamoring to get home. His handling of the crisis quickly earned him a reputation as a man who could size up a problem, find a solution, and drive it through to completion.
Reporting for duty in the United States, which was still years from entering the war, Somervell was sent to Texas to map the country along the Mexican frontier. It was a somnolent assignment at first, but adventure found him again. “I was hard at work when (Pancho) Villa raided the border and made it unnecessary to finish the maps,” Somervell later said. The Mexican bandit attacked Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, killing eighteen Americans and leaving the small border town a smoking ruin. A punitive expedition was launched by President Woodrow Wilson under the command of General John “Black Jack” Pershing, and Somervell, to his joy, found a new opportunity.
He wasted no time making a name for himself, displaying what became a lifelong knack for impressing his superiors while infuriating his peers. Reporting to duty at expeditionary headquarters two hundred miles into Mexico, he came bearing a large box of Havana cigars preferred by his commanding officer, Captain Ernest “Pot” Graves. Somervell was placed in charge of building and operating a section of highway for the truck convoys supplying Pershing’s cavalry with rations, grain, and water.
The Pershing expedition marked the first time the Army had used motor transportation of any significant amount in a military operation, and it showed. The Army old guard insisted mule trains were more reliable, and at times it seemed they indeed were. The motorized expedition was hampered by breakdowns in the supply chain. Somervell, assigned to a new job as regimental supply officer, struggled to get the tremendous amounts of gasoline and oil required to keep the trucks running.
Motoring down a rough trail one hot afternoon, Pershing came across one of his trucks stalled by the road. “Black Jack” was outraged to see the crew idling in the shade with no officer in view, and he sprung from his car. “Where is the officer in charge?” Pershing demanded.
“Here, sir,” a voice underneath the truck answered. It was Somervell. Covered with grease from head to foot, he crawled out from under the truck, stood, and saluted. Half-scowling and half-smiling, Pershing silently returned the salute and drove on.
Somervell’s performance in Mexico won him a spot in the first Army engineering detachment sent to France after America entered the Great War in 1917. Assigned to the 15th Engineer Regiment—with Pot Graves again his immediate superior—Somervell landed in France with the unit on July 25. Now a captain and soon to be a major, Somervell constructed a great munitions dump at Mehun-sur-Yèvre, a hundred miles south of Paris, and then was sent to straighten out a mess near Dijon at Is-sur-Tille, where poorly trained engineer troops building an advance depot were floundering. Somervell shook the troops from their