National WWI Museum and Memorial

ABMC: Tours American Monument

Watercolor painting of a green field with an orange-blue sky and several structures in the distance.

Located in the city of Tours, France, this monument honored the systems and labor that sustained the American war effort far behind the battle lines. The Tours American Monument commemorates the approximately 650,000 servicemembers and civilians of the American Expeditionary Forces’ Services of Supply (SOS). Headquartered in Tours, the SOS organized railroads, warehouses, bridges, hospitals, transportation networks, and supply systems supporting more than two million Americans overseas.
Tours reflected a different kind of wartime service, one built through engineering, administration, medicine, transportation, and labor. Dedicated in 1937 near the Loire River, the memorial transformed wartime infrastructure into a permanent place of remembrance.
Building the war effort
Four sculptural figures atop the monument represent the principal divisions of the Services of Supply: Administration, Construction, Procurement, and Distribution.
This photograph shows engineers of Company A, 314th Engineers, building a bridge near Stenay, France on Nov. 11, 1918 – the day of the Armistice. Even as fighting ended, the infrastructure supporting the American Expeditionary Forces continued shaping movement, supply, and recovery across the war-torn landscape. Attribution: Object ID: 1926.28.198
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- By the Armistice in November 1918, the Services of Supply had constructed nearly 1,000 miles of railroad track, assembled locomotives and rail cars shipped from the United States, expanded port facilities, and managed hospitals capable of treating nearly 200,000...
- Much of this labor was carried out by engineers, railway workers, stevedores, medical staff, and support personnel, including thousands of African American service members whose work proved essential to sustaining the American Expeditionary Forces overseas. Attr...