MutualArt magazine chose the week of Veteran’s Day 2019 to examine the process of creating A Soldier’s Journey, the sculpture in the newly-approved National World World War I Memorial in Washington, DC. The in-depth article on sculptor Sabin Howard  portrays him working in his”austere New Jersey industrial warehouse studio” to complete “the final modelling stage of A Soldier’s Journey” before the sculpture can be cast.  Click here to read the entire interview.

Back by Popular Demand, Academy Award-winner Peter Jackson’s masterpiece WWI documentary appears again in theaters near you this Holiday Season, featuring never seen before World War I soldiers and events colorized and in 3D. The December 2019 screenings include an exclusive introduction from Jackson, and interview with him at the close. “They Shall Not Grow Old” will be seen December 7, 17 & 18 only. Click here to find the theater nearest to you, and to order your tickets now.

Corporal Frank Steven Havlik, E Co, 355 Infantry, 89th Division, stood in the burning church in France in 1918 and had to make a quick decision about what he should try to save from the inferno rapidly consuming the building. Havlik and his buddy grabbed the priest’s golden robe, a chasuble, and each took half away with him as the they left the burning church. Havlik always intended to return the chasuble to its proper owner, and his intention was finally carried out by his family nearly a century later. Click here to read the entire story of how a Doughboy’s determination to “do what’s right” finally brought the precious artifact home.

“Writing the memoirs of his participation in the American Expeditionary Forces twelve years after the end of the First World War, my father proudly declared that the time he was in uniform was ‘the greatest experience of my life.’ Reading them, one can sense that he relished every minute of it, including terrifying moments in combat or coping with mind-numbing mud whether in the trenches or on his never-ending marches. But he never lost his sense of humor.” So writes Charles L. Daris of his father Louis Z. Daris’ WWI memoirs, which he helped edit and publish.  The remarkable two-volume set provides a unique perspective on World War I, by an American soldier who recorded in remarkable detail what he saw in the Great War. Click here to read the entire article by Charles Davis, and find out how you can get copies of his father’s wartime journals.

Bells of Peace is a National Bell Tolling that was launched in 2018 as a part of the Centennial of the WWI Armistice, when fighting on the Western Front stopped.

As a part of the program, and to support small groups for participation, we created a Bells of Peace Participation App. This Smartphone App earned over 22,500 installs in 2018 and so we release an update for 2019.

Although for 2019 we had to let go of several features of the 2018 application (including social sharing), we did get an update published. For 2018, the App was launched on over 3,500 smart phones for Veterans Day.

For 2020, we hope to expand Bells of Peace and produce a more complete update of the App. This is in anticipation that, for next year’s Armistice anniversary,  actual construction on the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC will be well underway.

Regarding the Participation App, one of the major improvements we want to implement for 2020 is the user’s ability to test their phone and the tolling. In this way users can be sure that they will get the result they planned at 11 a.m. on November 11th, 2020.

Keep reading the World War I Dispatch newsletter for more information on the 2020 Bells of Peace Participation App.

This Veterans Day marked one hundred and one years since Armistice was declared. The World War I Centennial is winding down. What is the state of World War I education in classrooms across the country? Paul LaRue was a classroom teacher for thirty years in a rural, high-poverty school district in southern Ohio, and also served on the Ohio World War I Centennial Committee, working primarily on education. Paul has some comments and opinions on the state of World War I education in the aftermath of the Centennial. Hint: he gives it pretty good grades.

The Air Force Museum Foundation Living History Series presented the World Premiere of the film “The Lafayette Escadrille” on Saturday, November 9, in the Air Force Museum Theater. “The Lafayette Escadrille” is the first comprehensive documentary film made about the American volunteers who flew for France before the United States entered World War I. The movie is officially endorsed by the United States World War I Centennial Commission. “The Lafayette Escadrille” follows the path of the young Americans who came to the aid of America’s oldest ally—standing up for the values of freedom and liberty shared by the sister republics. Click here to read more about the movie that is “the only American story that covers the entire duration of the war, from one end of the Western Front to the other.”

Sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier recently received new SIG Sauer U.S. M17 pistols inlaid with wood from the U.S.S. Olympia. It was selected because she was the honored ship that transported the remains of the World War I Unknown Soldier home from Europe. Today, three American soldiers are interred at the Tomb, one each from World War I, World War II, and Korea. (A fourth unknown from the battlefields of Vietnam was later identified and returned to his family). Aboard the U.S.S. Olympia, a young U.S. Marine Corps captain led the Honor Guard that accompanied the remains of Unknown Soldier back home in 1921—the year the Tomb was dedicated. His name was Graves Erskine. Click here to read the entire story of how the Tomb of the Unknown and Erskine were linked over the next fifty years and three wars.

Lisa Y. Greenwade, in the Stamp Development department of the U.S. Postal Service, writes to remind stamp collectors that the World War I: Turning the Tide Forever® stamps are still available from the USPS. The stamps commemorate the nearly five million Americans, mostly men, joined the military, and about a million women entered the workforce to make up for the shortage of civilian labor. In spring 1918, U.S. forces played vital roles in the St. Mihiel battle and the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which helped bring an end to the war. Click here to read more about the development of the postage stamp, and how to get it from the U.S. Postal Service.

The WW1 Centennial News. The Doughboy Podcast is about WW1 THEN: 100 years ago, and it’s about WW1 NOW: News and updates about commemoration. 

Available on our web site, iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, TuneIn, Stitcher Radio on Demand.  Spotify  listen on Youtube.

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is PVT Franklin Ellenberger – and has a special story!

Born on 12 July, 1892, Frank Ellenberger was from Wilmington, Ohio and was drafted into the army on 27 May, 1918. Sent to Camp Beauregard at Alexandria, Louisiana he was assigned training with the 41st Company, 159th Depot Brigade for indoctrination before being sent to Company I, 153rd Infantry Regiment, 39th ‘Delta’ Division. The 39th left for France on 6 August, 1918 and once Over There was re-designated as the 5th Depot Division (replacement division). From there, Ellenberger was sent to Company K, 128th Infantry, 32nd ‘Red Arrow’ Division in September, 1918. When the 32nd went forward to relieve the 91st Division during the Meuse-Argonne campaign on 4 October, 1918 PVT Ellenberger was among them. The 32nd would be the first division to crack the Kriemhilde Stellung six days later, on 10 October, 1918, but by that time Ellenberger was already dead. A statement by his sergeant says he “saw Private Ellenberger killed instantly by fragments from a high explosive shell. Hit in the head… on October 7th, 1918 while in action near Epinonville.”

At the time Ellenberger’s battalion (the 3rd) was supporting attacks made by the 125th Infantry south of Romagne sous Montfaucon who would, within a few days, capture the ground that the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery occupies today.

No record of his burial ever made it back to the Graves Registration Service however, and while two separate searches were made for him following the war, nothing further was ever found concerning his case and it was closed in December, 1919. His mother, Laura Ellenberger (right) made the Gold Star Mother’s Pilgrimage to see her sons name on the Tablet of the Missing at the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in 1931.

Then, on the evening of 4 November, 2019, our Assistant Field Manager here at Doughboy MIA, Mr Jeremy Wayne Bowles (at left, commonly known as ‘The Dayton Doughboy’) was doing some research into Ohio soldiers that served in the war with his family’s help when his mother happened to notice a name that rang a bell with her… Ellenberger. Later that night, just on a hunch, she pulled out the family tree to check that name and found an entry for a Private Franklin Ellenberger KIA in the war, who had been her great grandmothers brother. Jeremy checked the ABMC website to find out if this relative of his – whom he had not known about before – was buried in France or had come home and found he was MIA!

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