Looking back on those who served in World War I
Robert Dever of Washington holds a photo from World War I.
This doughboy statue stands outside Canonsburg Middle School on East College Street. It was dedicated by the Mothers of Democracy and people of Canonsburg to the soldiers of the Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War I.
This German World War I poster from the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow, Scotland, quotes the Biblical First Epistle of John: “We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”
This Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster of August 1914 alludes to threats to British naval supremacy. It is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Had it not been for World War I, we might still be calling the holiday that serves as the unofficial opening of summer “Decoration Day.”
Honoring the dead by decorating their graves became common after the Civil War.
“It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars,” according to the website of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May, as were some other federal holidays.
A local publication that resembles a yearbook, “Washington’s Part in the World War,” lists 41 Washingtonians as “men who gave the supreme sacrifice.” In addition to unspecified wounds, their causes of death included death by pneumonia, diphtheria, scarlet fever, unnamed disease, blood poisoning, wounds, killed in bombardment, plunged to death in an “aeroplane” accident, pierced by machine-gun bullet, killed in action, death by sniper, bursting shell, drowning while bathing and “lost overboard.”
One especially poignant entry is that of George Wallace McAdams, who volunteered before the United States’ entry into the war. He enlisted in July 1916 in the Canadian Mounted Rifles and was sent to France. McAdams contracted typhoid fever and was hospitalized for several months. He then joined the British Royal Flying Corps, training at Oxford, and was killed as he was making his graduation flight July 26, 1918. “Per Ardua ad Astra,” which means, “through adversity to the stars,” remains the motto of the Royal Air Force, its successor.
A more comprehensive count by the Washington County Office of Veterans Affairs tallied the number of World War I dead from Washington County at 105.
Robert Dever of Washington, in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War I this spring, brought to the newsroom a photograph of Company H, 110th Infantry, 28th Division, made up of local soldiers including his grandfather, Kersey R. Dever, who survived the war. The photograph was taken at Camp Hancock near Augusta, Ga., which was one of 16 U.S. Army National Guard mobilization and training camps established in 1917 to train and integrate National Guard units for service in a U.S. Army division and, eventually, France. According to the WorldWar1centennial.org website, “The 28th distinguished itself in combat, fighting sometimes hand-to-hand. The 28th suffered heavy casualties, including 2,531 killed.”
Yellowed clippings from the Washington Observer, the morning newspaper, and its afternoon counterpart, the Washington Reporter, continued to tell of the war’s toll long after hostilities ended. Here is information about a few of those who lost their lives due to World War I.
• July 3, 1920: Headline: “No trace ever found of New Eagle boy who was missed in Argonne.” According to the news account, “Every government source has been applied to for assistance in an effort to determine just what fate befell David Richey. Two years will soon have passed without a word from him. It does not seem probable he was taken prisoner.”
• March 21, 1921: The body of Sgt. Paul Streator arrived at New York from France. “He was with the U.S. Marines and was killed on the morning of the Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, in an effort to obtain an objective before the fighting ceased. This was at 1:30 o’clock in the morning.”
• Aug. 9, 1921: A reporter wrote, “The body of First Lt. Edward D. Baker of the 96th Aero Squadron, who gave his life while doing his bit driving the Huns from France, was brought to Washington and consigned to the grave this morning.” The 96th Aero participated in the first daytime bombing on behalf of the American Expeditionary Force. Baker was killed in action near Verdun, France, Oct. 24, 1918, afer having taken part in 16 major air raids on German positions in the upper Argonne. He was buried in the American cemetery at Souilly in the Meuse sector. He had expressed a wish that he be buried in French soil and remain there, but through a mistake the body was returned to the United States. He was reburied at the family plot in Washington Cemetery.
• Sept. 5, 1921: Private William B. Barclay of Company E, 111th Infantry, who died Sept. 14, 1918, of wounds received seven days earlier in the Argonne Forest, was buried with honors in McDonald. He was born May 4, 1902, and when he enlisted July 9, 1917, was aged only 15. His mother, Mrs. William Barclay, went to France late in 1919 and visited the grave of her son in the American cemetery at Suresnes.
• Sept. 23, 1921: The first military funeral in Canonsburg for a soldier who fell at the front in France will be conducted. Private William F. McElraith, for 18 years a resident of Westland, was killed Oct. 28, 1918. In 1915, the year following the outbreak of the World War, McElraith went to England, shipping on a British merchant vessel from Newport News. Twice the vessels on which he was aboard were torpedoed, once in the Atlantic and again in the Mediterranean. Following the first torpedoing he was in the water some time before being picked up by a British trawler and landed at Holyhead. The brothers and sisters here do not know how he was rescued from the second torpedoing. The British army refused to accept him for military duty. He returned to Westland and then entered the national army, accompanying the 80th Division to France in May 1918.
• In 1922, Capt. James E. Gee, in command of Company A, 110th Infantry, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, requested that the county commissioners donate 50 headstone markers for soldiers killed in the World War and buried in Monongahela Cemetery. The 50th man, Edward Sleith, who was killed in action in France, was to be buried. The majority of the men were killed or died in France while in action on the battlefields, according to the clipping. More than 1,500 persons paid final tribute to Sleith, whose flag-draped casket was conveyed on a caisson drawn by a double team of horses. He was “returned to his native land after being interred nearly four years where Flanders’ poppies grow.”
• The body of Private George Raymond Craft, who died May 26, 1919, reached Lock Four on Jan. 29, 1922. According to the news account, “One day, after receiving a leave, Private Craft with a party of some 30 friends, started out in an army truck for an outing. Going down a rather steep hill, the driver attempting to avoid a collision with another machine going in the opposite direction, lost control of his machine and crashed into a stone house at the bottom of the hill, killing Private Craft and an army nurse. The George Raymond Craft Post at Lock No. 4 was named in his honor. Expecting to return home, Private Craft had sent his clothes. These had arrived and his family was daily expecting word of his arrival in this country when the message came announcing his death.”
• Feb. 23, 1923: Robert A. Fiori, aged 25, a well-known and highly respected young citizen of Charleroi, died at 5:30 o’clock Tuesday morning at San Jose, Calif., where he had gone in search of health. He succumbed to complications resulting from his being twice gassed during the World War. He was a member of the Michael Zippay post and St. Jerome Catholic Church.
• June 18, 1923, William Henry Beazell of Speers, victim of gas poisoning and shell shock, passed away in a Washington, D.C., hospital. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and served during the Boxer Rebellion in China. He also saw service in Mexico under General Pershing and went to France with the same general.