The tough-as-nails Black infantrymen that gave America’s enemies hell in World War I will be awarded Congress’s highest honor posthumously under a new law passed by Congress and signed by the President. The 369th Infantry Regiment, a New York National Guard unit known more commonly as the Harlem Hellfighters, will receive the Congressional Gold Medal under the law — more than 100 years after waging brutal trench warfare in Europe for 191 straight days.  Click here to read more about how the long-delayed honor was finally approved for the unit.

U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) announced the introduction of H.R. 4949, a bipartisan bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal—the highest civilian award bestowed by Congress—to over 220 American women who served as telephone operators with the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I. The “Hello Girls” were the first female soldiers to be deployed to a combat zone and were instrumental in the war effort in France throughout WWI. Their efforts to connect American and French forces on the front lines of battle by helping to translate and communicate command orders were an integral component to the eventual victory for the Allied Powers. Click here to read more, and learn how essential the Hello Girls were to the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. 

The mammoth clay sculpture that included figures #13 and #14 weighed 300 pounds, and because of its weight, sculptor Sabin Howard called it “the monster.” It depicted two American soldiers, one wounded, charging into battle during World War I. And it was going to require Howard and four other men to lift it off its metal stand, wrestle it about 20 feet to a display wall and fix it in place. Howard was worried. It would be a disaster if it fell. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s just do it.”  Click here to read the entire Washington Post feature story about the ongoing creation of the monumental sculpture for the national World War I Memorial.

Writing on the Veterans of Foreign Wars Pennsylvania Department web site, George Whitehair and Leigh Ferrier described their visit to the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC this summer, while in the city for meetings and collaborations to continue their push for national recognition for an American hero and WWI veteran, Dr. Frank Erdman Boston (left). Click here to read the entire article, and learn why the authors think that “Dr. Boston would be proud of the memorial built to honor those that served and those that made the ultimate sacrifice in World War I.“

Mere steps away from the Burger King in Bridgewater, NJ, you’ll notice a strangely landscaped, infrequently visited slice of history. Though the Somerville Circle is traversed by thousands each day, few realize how close they are to the place where World War I officially ended in the United States, on July 2, 1921. Click here to read the whole story, and learn how. in an now-obscure corner of the Garden State, the Great War to an official end.

When Congress voted on April 6, 1917, to declare war on Imperial Germany, the task before the U.S. Navy was clear: it needed to transport and supply over a million men across the Atlantic despite the Imperial German Navy’s ferocious U-Boat campaign, which reached its peak that month, sinking over 874,000 tons of shipping.  Indeed, Germany’s decision to recommence unrestricted submarine warfare in February was one of the decisive factors driving the United States, into finally joining “the war to end all wars.” Click here to read more, and learn how the Navy worked out the countermeasures and weapons need to get American Doughboys across the Atlantic safely, and help bring the Great War to an earlier end.

“It’s clear the Great War still casts a long cultural shadow,” writes James Holmes in The National Interest, but “A partial or garbled understanding of history means any guidance we distill from it is partial or garbled as well.” To this end, he warns that “it’s crucial to remember that entrenched combat in the West is far from the whole story of the Great War.” Click here to read the entire article, and learn why “False lessons of history could beget bad decisions in the here and now, while wise lessons bolster our chances to excel.” 

“It was late in my process of researching Ellen N. La Motte’s extraordinary wartime book, The Backwash of War, that I made a fascinating discovery about its contents. Or, more accurately, I made a fascinating discovery about what is absent from its contents. I realized a key page is missing. And that missing page speaks volumes.” Thus author and scholar Cynthia Wachtell describes the beginning of a tantalizing mystery that she later solved in the creation of a new, expanded version of La Motte’s groundbreaking book. Click here to learn the whole story of how the century-old riddle was answered, and what Wachtell learned in the process about La Motte and WWI America.  

The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, presented a long-awaited Purple Heart Medal and World War I Victory Medal to the granddaughter and extended family of one of their own, 103 years after he was killed in action in France. “It’s overwhelming. It’s beyond belief. It’s really a miracle it happened,” said Kay Beasley Toups, Beasley’s granddaughter and his closest living relative. Click here to read the entire article, and see photos of the inspiring presentation ceremony.

The Franklin, MA Town Common has 11 war memorials, “and most of them need a little bit of work – some need major work,” says Dale Kurtz, Franklin Veterans Services officer. At the end of April, Franklin received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of $18,338 for the monuments, but that’s under half of what it will need to complete the whole project. Click here to read more, and learn how the town plans to raise the matching funds to complete the work on the WWI and other war memorials.

“As I began a new job as a curator, mainly in charge of clothing and textiles, at the Wisconsin Historical Society in the early 1990s, I had no idea that it would lead me to an abiding interest, almost a passion, regarding the history of Wisconsin’s home front during World War I,” writes Leslie Bellais. Where the new-found passion led her was a Ph.D. dissertation, which in turn led to an important chapter in the new book Home Front in the American Heartland: Local Experiences and Legacies of WWI.  Click here to read more about Leslie’s work, and the lessons she has drawn from her research into World War I.

Coming from a multi-generational military family, novelist Tracey Enerson Wood “thought it was time to explore a woman who served in war time.”  The result: her new book The War Nurse, the story of Julia Stimson, an American nurse asked to recruit sixty-five other nurses to relieve those of the battle-worn British, months before American troops are ready to be deployed.  Click here to read more, and learn how the research for her novel and its writing taught the author a lot about WWI changed the world, and continues to affect it even today.

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is Private Edward M. Beneker. The son of Henry and Kathrine Beneker, Edward was a farmer born in South Gate, Indiana on September 20th, 1895. He entered military service on March 28th, 1918, and trained at Camp Taylor, Kentucky before being assigned to Company D, 115th Infantry, 29th Division at Camp McClellan, Alabama. With them he sailed overseas in June 1918 and saw action that summer.

Reported WIA on October 23rd, 1918, his status was later changed to KIA, though his grave was never located. Nothing else is known at this time.

Want to help us find Private Beneker and others like him? Please consider a donation today. Doughboy MIA is a non-profit, tax-deductible organization–every dime of your money goes toward finding the answers surrounding these boys. Visit www.ww1cc.ord/mia today and be part of the solution!

Can you spare just ten dollars? Give ‘Ten For Them’ to Doughboy MIA and help us make a full accounting of the 4,423 American service personnel still listed as missing in action from WW1. Make your tax deductible donation now, with our thanks.

And remember:

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Pershing Sponsors