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A History of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania Troops in the War
By John V. Hanlon (Copyright 1919 by The Pittsburg Press)
Introduction
(The Pittsburg Press, Sunday, Dec. 29, 1918, pages 55-57)
Names included in this chapter: Enright, Hay, Gresham, Scully, Brumbaugh,
Jadwin
This Dramatic Story of Splendid Achievement Starts Today – Written by John V.
Hanlon From Official Records at Washington, from letters which are being send
Exclusively to the Pittsburgh Press by Four Correspondents in France, Especially
Assigned to this work.
[Illustrations from Paintings by F. C. Yohn]
Although properly called a “history,” this account of
local boys’ exploits in the great war, is not a dry summary, but teems with
thrilling incidents of personal heroism. Don’t miss a single instalment [sic].
The story gathers dramatic momentum as it proceeds.
To chronicle all the activities and achievements of the
sons and daughters of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania in the Great War would
be to compile a complete history of the mighty struggle itself. Such a history
would have its opening chapters dating from the day when he who was emperor of
the Germans summoned his militaristic hordes and sent them forth on an orgy of
murder, pillage and terrorism to satiate his unholy greed for power and to
realize his ambition of a fettered world.
Long before the United States entered the war and
indeed from its very first days, adventurous sons of Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania were bleeding and dying on the battlefields where the allies were
striving to stop the ravages of the Hun. Turn where you would in Belgium and
bleeding, torn France; in the plague-ridden Balkans; along the cold, barren
wastes of Russia or on the hot sands of far-off Egypt, wherever the crimson
tides of war surged back and forth in the struggle for humanity, they could be
found performing acts of charity or mercy or of war itself. They pressed the cup
of water to the fevered lips of Serb and Cossack and Poilu and Tommy. The men
from India and Australia and Canada hailed them from beds of pain as
administering angels and the sons of sunny Italy were familiar with their work.
The [unreadable], too, had tasted of their prowess and
hand of steel on land and sea, under the [unreadable]. When sudden death and
[unreadable] pour from the [unreadable] enemy lines the steady skillful hand of
a Pittsburg man was frequently at the helm of that battleship of the air.
UNTOLD DEEDS OF HEROISM
It is very likely that some of the most notable deeds
performed in this war will never be set down to enrich the pages of the history
of the advance civilization and the struggle of mankind towards that goal where
shines the radiant lights of quality and justice. Many of these deeds were
unobserved and those who performed them made the supreme sacrifice. Their lips
are forever sealed in the silence of the grave. Perhaps had they lived the
stories would have remained locked close in their hearts, for brave men are not
prone to boast of valor.
And although many of these sons of Pittsburg and
Western Pennsylvania had fought and died, winning for themselves the deathless
crown of victory under foreign flags, before Columbia unloosed the mighty
hurricane of her wrath, nevertheless they contributed their all to the final
determination of the great cause. And as the story of their deeds is cherished
in the archives of other nations it is not possible at this time to include in
this narrative more than acknowledgement of their contribution to humanity.
Anything further would not be meet [sic] for it would not give them that measure
of exact justice which is their due.
For this reason this resume of the part played by
Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania soldiers in the war must begin with the entry
of the United States into the conflict and even then it is only possibly to
follow the activities of certain designated unites in which the personnel was
made up largely of men from this section.
When the United States declared that a state of war existed with the Imperial
German Government there were hundreds of men from Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania serving in the regular army establishment. There was hardly a unit
of any size which did not carry their names upon its roster of commissioned or
enlisted personnel.
ONE OF THE FIRST THREE
One of the first three men to make the supreme
sacrifice in the first actual clash between the soldiers of Uncle Sam and the
enemy was a Pittsburg lad, Private Thomas Enright, of 6641 Premo St. He,
together with Private James B. Gresham, of Evansville, Ind., and Merle D. Hay of
Glidden, Ia., headed the first honor roll of casualties which came home to
American from overseas.
Private Enright had enlisted in the Regular army eight
years before and had been assigned to Co. F, Sixteenth United States Infantry.
He was therefore a trained and seasoned man and when he met his death he was in
a training sector securing the actual combat knowledge necessary to effectively
instruct his less experienced comrades back of the lines.
It was on Saturday, Nov. 3, 1917, that the little band
of about 40 Americans to which Private Enright was attached was cut off by
artillery fire which literally ripped their trench to pieces. The Germans had
learned, in some manner or other, that Americans were holding this salient, and
desired to capture prisoners in order to ascertain, if possible, the strength of
Pershing’s forces then in France. It is recorded in the data on that first fight
that 210 Germans rushed the 40 Americans after the artillery preparation and in
the hand-to-hand combat which followed the Americans gave a good account of
themselves, fighting in a manner which would have delighted their revolutionary
ancestors. It was a fight worthy of the best traditions of their country and
their flag.
The American casualties were three dead, five wounded
and 12 missing. The German casualties are known to have been extremely heavy and
although they secured prisoners the cost to them in lives was out of all
proportion to the numbers they engaged or the information they secured.
When the story of this first clash and the casualty
list reached Washington and was made public it sent a thrill throughout the
nation and the war department was besieged with inquiries from many anxious
homes. The news brought to America the first distinct appreciation that her part
in the great world struggle was not to be a bloodless one.
BURIAL OF PITTSBURG HERO
And this appreciation of the heartaches and suffering
which war was to bring to many firesides was especially felt in Pittsburg, the
home of one of those three patriots who went to their deaths on the bleak
November day.
They buried the three heroes close to the place where
they fell; which the shells screeching overhead sang the only requiem. American
troops and French veterans were massed in the form of a hollow square and the
three caskets, draped in the flag of the country they had loved so well were
carried upon the field by comrades. From the lines there stepped a soldier of
France wearing the insignia of a general. He walked to the caskets. With tears
streaming down his war-seamed face he removed his cap and bowing before each
bier he called the names of Private Enright, Private Gresham, and Private Hay
and then in a voice husky and choked with emotion said:
“In the name of France I bid you farewell. In the name
of France I thank you. May God receive your souls. Farewell.”
Then he asked in the name of France that the mortal
remains of these three young men be left with that nation forever and that upon
their tombs would be the words:
“Here Lie the First United States Soldiers to Fall on
French Soil for Liberty and Justice.”
As he finished there was a terrific roar, the salute
for the dead, and it was not fired with blank cartridges, but by batteries of
the French 75’s manned by American artillerymen who sent a salvo of shells
hurling into the German lines and with every shell there went a prayer that it
would find an avenging mark.
And the names of Privates Enright, Gresham and Hay will have a special and
distinguished niche in history. The French will see to that for they already
have erected a monument to the memory of these brave soldiers where all the
world and generations yet unborn may read of the day when the Hun first me the
men of that nation which was destined to wreck his vain ambition.
A WAR OF METAL AND METTLE
And thus were Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania first
brought to a true realization of the sacrifices necessary to the conduct of this
was and truths brought home did no to unheeded. The story of Private Enright and
his comrades but strengthened that grim determination to go on to a victorious
end, let the cost in blood and treasure be what it might.
As there was scarce a unit of any size in the regular
army which did not carry the names of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania men
upon its roster, even from the earliest days of the Republic, so it is today in
the mighty and unconquered host which Uncle Sam has created, for Pittsburg
brains and brawn and bravery were found necessary wherever the war or navy
department carried on their activities.
Thousands of the most skilled men in the military
establishment were summoned from the industries of Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania to do for the government what they had been doing for private
employers. Pittsburg and the surrounding industrial districts furnished many of
the very best mechanics and men trained in the various metal crafts and trades.
This was a war of metal and where else in the world
could men be found so eminently fitted for keeping the combatant branches
supplied with the weapons they used so effectively against the Hun!
And so to write the story of their achievements would
be to write of the work of every unit and branch of the military service –
ordnance, quartermaster, motor transport, tank, chemical warfare and many other
and special and new sections necessary to the modern army. For instance, it was
Pittsburg chemists who strove night and day in gas research work and contributed
much towards making our gas defense and gas assault sections so effective that
even the Germans with all their boasted expertness in chemical warfare were both
outguessed and outgassed.
MANY LOCAL MEN COMMISSIONED
Through every ramification of the service, in every
rank and station the men of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania toiled through
all the weary months when our stupendous military establishment was building, to
weld it into a solid whole and which even in its infancy turned the tide of
battle and strewed the central empires with fear, internal dissensions and empty
thrones.
Hundreds of highly trained executives from this section
of the country were commissioned and ordered to the nation’s capital to help
direct the activities of the war. They were searched out and summoned to the
most important tasks by both the military and civil authorities of the Federal
government and although many were restless because they could not secure
assignments overseas where the actual fighting was being done, nevertheless they
did not flinch from their work and contributed much to the success of their
brothers “over there.”
But it was not alone in the military service of the
nation that the sons of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania helped to make the
world safe for democracy. It was necessary that many should remain at home to
tend the mines, and mills, and factories. The Pittsburg district became the
arsenal of America in many respects. To this great manufacturing section where
steel is king the nation looked for the implements and machines of modern
warfare. Here was planned the huge ordnance plant which was to have furnished
the heavy engines of destruction with which our fighting men proposed to blast a
way through the enemy lines, and then on to Berlin
To those who served in the mines, and the mills, the furnace and the forge,
acknowledgement of the part they played in the victorious outcome is justly due.
They will never be accorded the place in history that will go to those who stood
on the far-flung battle line, but, nevertheless, they wrought efficiently and
effectively back of that line.
ARSENAL OF THE WORLD
And thus it came about that what was known as the
“Workshop of the World” in times of peace turned in the passing of a day into an
arsenal of the world. The thousand glares which light the skies of night marking
the abode of a wealth of peaceful industry and a world a-building became the
demon eyes of an outraged and determined people flashing ominous warnings of
swift and terribly retribution for those who dared to taunt the Giant of the
Occident.
Then it was that Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania
resolved to drain the blood of manhood to the dregs with the same determination
with which the precious metal is drained from the melting pots in order to make
sure the triumph of our arms. The lids of the treasure chests and strong boxes
were thrown open and gold was literally poured into Columbia’s coffers.
Then it was that the call went forth from Washington
for men as well as munitions and money and our people saw those famous regiments
from the western slopes of the Pennsylvania Alleghenies depart for their
training stations to secure that military instruction which together with their
traditional bravery later enabled them to throw back the Hun from the very gates
to Paris; to confound and demoralize and annihilate the very flower of German
soldiery; to breath the armies of the kaiser in twain at the Argonne, and thus
to force the early ending of the Great War.
Later came the selective service calls which summoned
thousands more of the very cream of our manhood to take up the rigors of
military training; a training which eventually made the Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania draftees the superiors of any Hun who ever wore the uniform of his
overlord. And the accomplishments of these selective service men who left the
plow and forge, the store and the factory, to do battle on the blood-stained
soil of Europe; who left peaceful homes for trenches reeking with all that
chills the heart – demonstrates that they were of a type beyond compare. They
were men with iron in their blood and the advance of their legions was
irresistible. The German hordes fell back withered and palsied before those
living walls of valor as if stricken with the most dreaded arrow in the quiver
of the Grim Destroyer.
PRAISE FOR PITTSBURG MEN
It has always been the policy of the war department
since Columbia threw down the gage of battle to refrain from making the public
the standards of proficiency attained by the various army divisions. This
policy, no doubt, is a commendable one, preventing, as it does, any feeling
between the men from various sections of this country. Nevertheless, it has
recently come to notice and from the highest authoritative sources, that the
soldiers of Pennsylvania were among the very best taken overseas. A great
military leader of a foreign power recently remarked in private conversation
that they proved themselves to be among the foremost soldiers of the world.
The Twenty-eighth Division (Pennsylvania National
Guard) and the Eightieth Division (selective service men mostly from Western
Pennsylvania) both became “Red” divisions – divisions designated as “shock
troops” of the highest known type and only so honored after being thoroughly
tested in actual combat with the enemy.
The Twenty-eighth Division is known to have been the most proficient National
Guard division in the United States. That is why this division was among the
first to be sent to Europe and also why it was used so continuously and
successfully, bringing upon itself the record of so many glorious achievements.
The casualties of this division and especially of some of the Western
Pennsylvania regiments which are a part of this unit demonstrated it was
regarded so highly by the supreme command that is was always used in the most
difficult places and where failure to hold or obtain objectives was not to be
even thought of, regardless of the resistance offered.
Likewise the Eightieth Division became one of the most proficient of the draft
divisions because the records show that even before departing for overseas it
was held in high regard by military leaders. But these facts will not surprise
Western Pennsylvanians, for their section of the state has given to our armies
of the past many skilled and notable men-at-arms. Although ordinarily following
peaceful pursuits they are primarily of fighting stock and can readily be
transformed into soldiers capable of successfully meeting the choicest of what
William the Murderer was proud to boast of as his unconquerable and matchless
legion.
UNSURPASSABLE MORALE
The spirit and moral of the Western Pennsylvania
soldiery in this war was characterized by the military authorities as
unsurpassable. The traditions of their state coupled with a free-born love of
justice, together with a natural aptitude to face and solve the serious problems
of life, made of these men antagonists to all tyranny. They were accustomed to
laugh under the strain of the most arduous labors, for theirs was the life of
the mines and the mills were only the fittest survive and thus they furnished
some of the most desirable military material obtainable in America.
They went to their training camps with a song and a
smile upon their lips just as they later sang and laughed while a hurricane of
German machine gun bullets was cutting wide swaths of death in their ranks. They
knew no such word as fail and they also knew that no man from the Keystone state
had ever turned his back upon his flag. In their creed to die was one thing and
to die bravely was another and that is why they were always found with their
faces toward the enemy.
The folks at home already know how true they kept to these teachings for in the
accounts of their battles cabled by the war correspondents it has been a matter
of frequent comment that the men of Pennsylvania regiments always fell with
their faces in the direction from which came the steel and leaden hail of the
Hun. This statement does not mean, of course, that there were any Americans who
refused to face the enemy and go forward where sudden death was stalking beside
them at every step. It does show, however, that those from Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania lived up to every cherished tradition of their home district; that
they were men unafraid.
In addition to the two divisions mentioned above
Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania sent many men to other fighting
organizations. The Marines claimed hundreds and everybody knows how the
“Soldiers of the Sea” accounted for themselves when they met the enemy. The Navy
and Merchant Marines claimed other hundreds while the dangers of the Tanks and
Aviation tempted many more to forsake the ways of peace even before the draft
calls were made.
A GLORIOUS CONTRIBUTION
And hundreds of men from this section flocked to the
officers’ training camps very early in the war there to learn how to lead and
train other men. Most of them passed their period of intensive military
instruction successfully and they were scattered throughout every arm of the
Army, Navy and Marines Corps.
The Seventy-ninth Division which trained at Camp Meade,
Maryland, carried the names of about 3,000 Pennsylvania men on its muster roll
and the Eighty-third Division which trained at Camp Sherman, Ohio, also received
men from the counties of Butler, Beaver, Lawrence, and Washington.
The Fifth (now Fifteenth) Engineers which trained at
Oakmont and which was one of the first units to go overseas was recruited from
in and about Pittsburg and Pittsburg likewise contributed the University of
Pittsburg Base Hospital, and the Allegheny General Hospital, known abroad as
Unit L.
Taken all in all it was a glorious contribution to the
cause given by Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania in stalwart manhood and it is
predicted that when it is possible to secure the final total of those who donned
the uniform of Uncle Sam from this section the percentage of men directly
serving the nation, either as soldiers or civilians, will be the highest of any
section of the county.
Many of the boys will never come home again, they will
not participate in the last grand review and many a mother’s heart is aching
because she will never see her son again. They sleep under the soil of a people
who gave us Lafayette and freely shed their blood that our Republic might live.
Their graves are tended by loving hands and will be kept green and
flower-bedecked until such time as our government will bring the bodies home.
The women of France do not forget. The hero dead will come home either to find
eternal rest beside loved ones in some quiet country church-yard or mayhap in
Arlington, that magnificent city of the Nation’s soldier and sailor dead where
one may trace the history of Columbia’s greatness in the carven words upon the
marble monuments pointing to the last abode of those whose memory our people
delight to honor.
Some have died in the very forefront of the battle
while others were the victims of accident or disease, but one and all gave the
last full measure of sacrifice and devotion. It matters not where they fell, nor
under what soil they repose either now or in the years to come. They have
builded [sic] for themselves tombs which are indestructible, which even the ever
shifting hands of unrelentless time shall only serve to polish and make more
brilliant the records of their deeds. Their names shall go ringing down the
centuries alongside those heroes of the world who have gone before.
Others will return maimed and torn by shot and shell –
some to go through a living death of perpetual darkness or mad from the shock of
the close-bursting bomb or crippled beyond human skill to repair. They want no
charity and none will be offered for they belong to the nation and it is not
likely that our people will allow the congress to forget.
And those who return from the conflict well and hearty
will have treasures beyond the wildest dream of their youth; treasures which
they would not exchange for all the gold in the universe and for which many men
would today give everything on earth which they hold dear. These treasures are
the knowledge of having been “over there,” of having participated in the
greatest military struggle in the history of the world, of having gained the
victor’s wreath. They will have even before them the memory of what they did for
mankind and wondrous stories to tell until their dying days. Then when the dark
night comes and they pass over to the comrades who have been gathered to their
fathers they will have a heritage to leave their offspring as lasting and
substantial as the rock of ages.
When on April 6, 1917, at 1:13 p.m., President Wilson
signed the memorable joint resolution of the congress declaring the existence of
a state of war and five minutes later issued a call for volunteers to fill up to
war strength the regular military establishments, Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania commenced to change the habiliments of peace for the panoply of
war. The transition was accomplished swiftly, smoothly and thoroughly.
The great army of toilers in the mines and mills and
factories only paused long enough to utter a defiance to the Hun, to clench
their fists and set their jaws in determination. Then they turned to their work
again and with increased production began literally to jam the avenues of
transportation with the implements of war. They knew that they must gird Uncle
Sam with armor against which the Hun might launch his thunderbolts in vain and
that the requirements of our gallant allies must not be forgotten or neglected.
Without the Pittsburg industrial district to turn to in the emergency there
might have been a different story to tell.
In Washington and London, Paris and Rome, the
contribution of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania to the winning of the victory
is well known by those who directed our civil and military enterprises. Foch and
Pershing, Haig and Petain can tell, and so can the former German war lord and
all his Prussian brook, for the enemy was unable to withstand those avalanches
of steel which rolled out of Pittsburg, tagged for Berlin.
And while every drop of energy was being expended to
turn out those products so necessary to the prosecution of the war, Pittsburg
and Western Pennsylvania did not forget that men must also go forth to make
effective the use of the material in the areas where despots sought to dispute
with free men in the future conduct of the world.
THE EIGHTEENTH ORDERED OUT!
Even before congress had finally passed the law to
determine whether the military policy of the nation should be voluntary or
selective service, Pittsburg experienced an early realization of the cruel part
of the war: that part which summons the sons and the husbands and the fathers
from the firesides and company of their loved ones and sends them forth with the
prospect that they may never return.
Death is hard at any time but to go forth to face the
end far away from kinfolk or even kindly neighbors offtimes [sic] makes even a
brave man shudder. And when men are destined to days of suffering from disease
or wounds there is something in the gently loving touch or mother or wife,
daughter or sister, which seems to possess the magic of transmitting power to
endure pain. This is the part of war which tears and rends the heart-strings,
but it is a part of the toll civilization has even been forced to pay. The
progress of the world is but an escalade of battles.
So to many anxious homes in Pittsburg there came the
first real stir of war’s alarms when on April 12, 1917, the old Eighteenth
Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard was ordered to mobilize and proceed
to patrol the great avenues of transportation which radiate from this city. The
officials at the head of our government knew only too well that the country was
enmeshed in a net work of enemy espionage directed by agents who would hesitate
to order any crime which might retard the stupendous preparations Uncle Sam was
making. There were few more likely places to commit such outrages than in the
Pittsburg district. The railroad bridges spanning the rivers and valleys and the
tunnels piercing the mountains offered especially excellent objectives.
THE VOLUNTEERS DEPART
The presence of the Eighteenth regiment on this
important duty was first revealed May 18, but even before that date a
Pittsburger at the head of a little band of intrepid Americans with the flag of
their country above them was marching through Paris for the front and being
acclaimed amid the greatest demonstration that city had witnessed in years.
This event occurred on May 9, 1917, and the man was R.
T. Scully, who was one of the officers in charge of this unit of 60 Americans
clad in khaki and armed with rifles. They comprised the first detachment of the
then newly created munitions transport branch of the American Ambulance corps.
This was the first American armed force to pass through France.
And while the Eighteenth continued to guard the
strategic points along the railways leading out of Pittsburg thus assuring the
speedy transportation of the material for war, martial events began quickly
throughout this section.
Soon the rhythmic tread of marching feed echoed through
Pittsburg’s streets as the early squads of volunteers departed from recruiting
offices of the army, navy and Marine corps for the various training stations.
Tented cities began to appear in and about Pittsburg and armories were made
ready for the mobilization of the units of the National Guard which had not been
placed upon patrol duty.
The order for the mobilization of the National Guard of
Pennsylvania was sent from Washington to Governor Brumbaugh on the night of May
17, 1917 and was immediately transmitted by the adjutant general of the state to
all commands. The mobilization was set for July 15 at the armories of the
various units there to be mustered into the Federal service and await the order
to proceed to the training camp. The guard was drafted into the army of the
United States, Aug. 5, 1917, by proclamation of the President.
Meanwhile Col. Edgar Jadwin, formerly in charge of the
United States Engineers office in the Pittsburg district, had received
permission from Washington to go ahead with his pet scheme of recruiting a
regiment of engineers in Pittsburg. He worked fast and aroused such enthusiasm
over the prospect of an early journey to France that he organized and trained a
splendid body of men within a short time. At Oakmont Col. Jadwin established
Camp Caillard and the regiment mobilized there for training May 23, 1917.
Then came June 6, 1917, a day which will always be
remembered for those who were to compose the principal part of the great draft
army registered for service. Ten days later the first Liberty loan campaign was
launched and Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania went into the business of
beating the kaiser with renewed vim.
THE ENGINEERS DEPART
The first troop movement of consequence out of
Pittsburg occurred on July 4, 1917, when the Fifth Engineers (now the Fifteenth
Engineers) finally departed from this section for a port of embarkation to take
ship for overseas, there to build railroads and wagon roads for the legions
Uncle Sam was preparing to hurl against the Hun.
From that time on until the signing of the armistice
hardly a day passed in which men from Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania did
not depart, either singly or in squads, companies or regiments, with their
objective as the battlefields of France. The uniform became a familiar sight
upon the streets for many officers and enlisted men were assigned to this
district to supervise in the various industries performing war work and to
inspect the finished products.
Jul 15, 1917, the National Guard units not already on
patrol duty mobilized. The Tenth and Sixteenth regiments of infantry assembled
by companies at their home armories throughout Western Pennsylvania and the
First Field artillery took up quarters in Motor Square Garden. Troop H, First
Pennsylvania cavalry, camped in Bayard St., opposite the Schenley Riding academy
and Duquesne Garden was used to house Truck companies No. 5 and 6. The First
Field Battalion Signal corps, Hospital No. 1 Ambulance No. 1 were stationed at
the Armory, Penn ave. and Station st. Ambulance No. 4 remained at its armory in
Coraopolis and Field Hospital No. 4, departed for camp at Mt. Gretna.
EIGHTEENTH CAMPS HERE
The Eighteenth Regiment of infantry was relieved from
patrol duty along the railroads and after a parade through the downtown section
of Pittsburg went into camp at Schenley park. During all this the Guard units
were busy recruiting up to war strength and close to 4,000 soldiers were
stationed in Pittsburg with another 4,000 scattered throughout the cities and
towns in Western Pennsylvania where the various companies maintained their
headquarters.
In the meantime the great draft lottery had been held
at Washington and the various local and district draft boards in Pittsburg and
Western Pennsylvania were busy selecting the men who were desired by the Federal
government to make up the personnel of the Eighteenth division of the new
National Army to be organized at Camp Lee, near Petersburg, Va., and the
Eighty-third division at Camp Sherman, near Chillicothe, O. The draftees from
the counties of Beaver, Lawrence, Butler and Washington were sent to Sherman and
those from all other sections of Western Pennsylvania to Lee.
Aug. 24, 1917, witnessed the departure for Fort
Oglethorpe, Ga., of 600 officer candidates who had assembled in Pittsburg from
every section of Western Pennsylvania preparatory to entraining for the southern
camp. They departed in three squads over the P. & L.E., Pennsylvania, and B.& O.
and were cheered on their way by hundreds of friends and well wishers who had
gathered at the depots.
GUARDSMEN GO SOUTH
The first of the guardsmen began to move towards Camp
Hancock Aug. 17, 1917, when Field Hospital No 1 and Ambulance Co. No. 1 of the
Eighteenth regiment entrained. Then on Aug. 30, the Western Pennsylvania
[unreadable] of the First Field [unreadable] sanitary detachment and regiments
numbering 622 men and 18 officers entrained at East Liberty station. Col. W. S.
McKee was in command and the local units were joined later by Battery A, of
South Bethlehem, Battery D, of Williamsport and Battery C., of Phoenixville.
The units marched from their armory to the station in a
steady downpour of rain but this did not deter thousands of relatives and
friends together with city and county officials from braving the elements to
give the men a rousing farewell. The same scenes were re-enacted when the
Eighteenth regiment “pulled stakes” at its camp in Schenley oval and entrained
for Camp Hancock Sept. 7, 1917.
Sept. 11, 1917, the last guardsmen in this section
departed for the south, Troop H, First cavalry of Pittsburgh, which was later
joined by Troop F, First cavalry of New Castle. During this period of the guard
movement the Tenth regiment and the Sixteenth regiment, both with companies
scattered all over Western Pennsylvania entrained for Camp Hancock.
CLEANING UP THE VILLAGE
Americans driving the Germans out of a French
farmyard. The enemy held these farmhouses and buildings until the last moment in
order that his might harass the Allied troops. The fighting was hand-to-hand and
company work.
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