author

William Elmer Bachman

1894–1966

A Pennsylvania newspaperman and World War I veteran, he is best known for a vivid regimental history that follows Battery D, 311th Field Artillery through training, combat, and remembrance. His writing has the plainspoken, firsthand feel of someone recording the lives of the men beside him before their story could fade.

1 Audiobook

The Delta of the Triple Elevens : $b the history of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery, United States Army, American Expeditionary Forces

The Delta of the Triple Elevens : $b the history of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery, United States Army, American Expeditionary Forces

by William Elmer Bachman

About the author

Born in 1894 and later based in the Hazleton, Pennsylvania, area, William Elmer Bachman wrote The Delta of the Triple Elevens in 1920. The book was published in Hazleton and presented as a history of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery, part of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I.

What makes Bachman's work stand out is its closeness to the people it describes. Rather than feeling distant or official, it reads like a record shaped by shared service, local memory, and respect for fellow soldiers, including those who did not return. That gives the book both historical value and an emotional pull for modern listeners.

Later in life, Bachman worked in journalism; contemporary memorial records describe him as an editor of the Standard-Speaker early edition in Hazleton. He died in 1966, but his best-known book remains a useful and human-scale account of one American artillery unit in the First World War.