The Last of the Doughboys

by RICHARD RUBIN

  But not Sergeant Edward Moellering, of the 12th United States Cavalry. He didn’t need to.

  It is strange to think of the Army, an institution that is by definition hierarchical and authoritarian, as being more progressive, more sensitive, more caring than the society it protects; and yet, that’s exactly how things were in America during the First World War. In those days, in peacetime, when the Army was small, it was also thoroughly native; it was illegal, at those times, for anyone who was not a citizen to serve in the American military. But in wartime—especially big wars, like that one—that restriction evaporated. It didn’t happen slowly, either; in April, 1917, the War Department changed its policy almost overnight from eschewing immigrants to actually soliciting them. The impetus wasn’t philosophical or ideological. It was strictly practical. These immigrants, these men, these warm bodies—they were needed, very badly. As I said, nearly 20 percent of the troops in the American Expeditionary Forces were not born in America; had the war dragged on longer, that figure surely would have grown larger. Twenty percent of even four million is an awful lot of manpower.

  To its credit, someone at the War Department realized this fact very early in the war, and did more than just decide to let foreign-born men serve in the AEF; they did more even than actively recruit immigrants for service. They actually set out to make immigrants feel welcome, and valued, and comfortable in the United States Army. They didn’t merely train recruiters to speak Italian, and Yiddish, and Magyar, and Polish, and Greek, and Czech, and Serbo-Croatian, and even German; they set up an entire bureau—specifically, the Foreign-speaking Soldier Subsection (or FSS), part of the Military Morale Section of the department’s Military Intelligence Division—dedicated to servicing the particular needs of immigrants. The FSS recruited ethnicity-specific clergy, brought in specialized foods and foreign-language newspapers (carefully screened, of course—at least, the newspapers were), worked with organizations like the Jewish Welfare Board, the Knights of Columbus, and the Order and Liberty Alliance (dedicated to assisting “foreign-speaking men”), and even sought, whenever possible, to commission foreign-born, foreign-speaking officers from the ranks. You know those World War II movies where the heroic platoon is composed of one of everybody? That ethic, that aspiration, was borne out of the previous war. Only the accents changed in the interim.

  In 1917, it took an immigrant to the United States at least five years to earn American citizenship; unless, that is, he was serving in the military. Immigrant Army recruits were offered a fast track to citizenship and strongly (if benignly) encouraged to accept it, not as a test of their loyalty or even a reward for their service, but because it was believed that they would fight harder for a country in which they were fully invested.

  Even Germans.

  In some cases, German-born United States Army soldiers—or those born in other enemy lands, like the Austro-Hungarian Empire—had to have their commanding officer vouch for their loyalty in order to stay in the service; and a few were yanked out of their units temporarily while their loyalty, often without cause, was investigated. But many German immigrants did go to war for their adopted country, as did many, many more who, like Sergeant Moellering, were born in America of German ancestry. They made a profound and invaluable contribution to the war effort. They all did—immigrants and the sons and grandsons of immigrants—no matter what country they’d been born in.

  How strange to think that, while everywhere else in America they were subject to scorn and suspicion and derision and detention and even violence, these huddled masses, wretched refuse, were, all in all, being treated infinitely better in the Army. And so, too, were the destitute, the hungry, the unemployed and orphaned and directionless and, in general, downtrodden.

  With one really big exception.

  Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are reproduced courtesy of the veterans, their families, and the author.

  Anthony Pierro, 1918, aged 22.

  Anthony Pierro in Swampscott, Massachusetts, July 19, 2003, aged 107.

  J. Laurence Moffitt, June, 1917, aged 20.

  J. Laurence Moffitt in Orleans, Massachusetts, November 11, 2003, aged 106. He is wearing his original Army helmet from World War I.

  A publicity shot of Arthur Guy Empey, taken in early 1918 on the set of Over the Top, the film version of his 1917 memoir of the same name, the best-selling American book about the war. In addition to starring in the picture, Empey also wrote the screenplay—and, in his spare time, gave demonstrations of trench warfare at Carnegie Hall.

  This full-color, full-page ad for the Victor Victrola appeared in American magazines in 1918. “Thousands of miles from home in a land torn by battle, our boys yet listen to the spiritual voice of Art,” its text proclaims. If they ever really did, it probably wasn’t in a dugout, few of which were as dry and well lit as the one pictured.

  Arthur Fiala, 1918, aged 19.

  Arthur Fiala in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, April 30, 2005, aged 106

  Lloyd Brown in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, November 18, 2004, aged 103.

  Lloyd Brown, 1918, aged 17.

  The hundreds (maybe thousands) of songs Tin Pan Alley cranked out during the nineteen months the United States was at war with Germany exalted American leaders, doughboys, and dear old Mom, while vilifying the enemy, slackers and cheapskates.

  Ernest Pusey in Bradenton, Florida, June 15, 2004, aged 109.

  Ernest Pusey, date unknown.

  Eugene Lee, April, 1917, aged 18. Inset: Eugene Lee in Syracuse, New York, December 3, 2003, aged 104.

  During the war, the Chicago Daily News issued a series of postcards featuring photographs taken at the front in France. It’s not clear who selected these two pictures (and another one titled “American Wounded after Bombardment”), or why they thought the folks back home might like to receive such a thing in the mail.

  Howard Ramsey in Portland, Oregon, October 19, 2003, aged 105.

  Howard Ramsey (center), 1918, aged 20.

  Reuben Law, 1918, aged 20.

  Reuben Law in Carson City, Nevada, July 1, 2004, aged 105.

  Yeomanettes. In 1917, the Navy became the first branch of the US military to admit women; by 1918, 11,000 had signed up. All were discharged after the armistice, whether they wanted out or not. (National Archives)

  Soldiers of the highly decorated 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters, posing with their Croix de Guerre. The 369th was one of the few colored American regiments permitted to fight the Germans—but only in French uniforms, under French commanders. (National Archives)

  Samuel Goldberg (with his horse, Chickamauga), 1918, aged 18

  Samuel Goldberg in Greenville, Rhode Island, May 16, 2006, aged 106.

  George Johnson, 1918, aged 24. The nurse is his sister, Levinia.

  Moses Hardy in Aberdeen, Mississippi, January 6, 2006, on his 113th birthday. No photos of Mr. Hardy in uniform, or from the World War I era, are known to exist.

  George Johnson in Richmond, California, October 14, 2005, aged 111.

  Eugene Lee’s mess kit cover, unearthed by a collector in the woods near the French village of Lucy-le-Bocage some eighty years after Private Lee dropped it during the Battle of Belleau Wood. The rough inscription reads: “William E. Lee, 51 Co. US.”

  Frank Buckles’s Gott Mit Uns belt buckle (complete with belt). These buckles were the most sought-after souvenirs of the war; few German soldiers willingly parted with them.

  A display case filled with unearthed American artifacts at Gilles Lagin’s Belleau Wood Museum in Marigny-en-Orxois. It holds everything from a helmet and a boot to first-aid kits and tobacco tins.

  This unexploded shell surfaced one morning in a field outside Romagne more than nine decades after it was fired. Nearby were bullets, cartridges, a comb, and a uniform button. These kinds of things pop up every time fields are plowed in this part of France.

  William J. Lake, likely 1919, aged 23.

  John Henry Foster Babcock (front row, center), 1916, aged
15, with other soldiers from Canada’s 146th Over-Seas Battalion.

  William J. Lake in Yakima, Washington, October 20, 2003, aged 107.

  John Babcock in Spokane, Washington, July 20, 2004, aged 104.

  Doughboy and poilu shake hands on Thiaucourt's World War I monument.

  Soldiers of the 102nd Infantry Regiment captured by the Germans at Seicheprey, France, April 20, 1918. They were photographed by their captors later that day in nearby Thiaucourt.

  Homemade memorial mounted on Seicheprey’s World War I monument—a common sight throughout France.

  Warren Hileman, 1919, aged 18. The coat and hat were officia AEF Siberia issue.

  Warren Hileman in Anna, Illinois, June 10, 2004, aged 102.

  Hildegarde Anderson (right) in Washington, D.C., 1918, aged 19.

  Hildegarde Anderson Schan in Plymouth, Massachusetts, May 17, 2006, aged 107.

  1919 postcard: “View of the Argonne Cemetery at Romagne.” Still under construction, it would eventually contain the bodies of more than 23,000 American soldiers.

  Today the Meuse-Argonne contains some 14,000 graves. It is the largest American military cemetery in Europe.

  L’Ossuaire, the ossuary at Douaumont, France. It is said to contain the bones of some 130,000 French and German soldiers killed at the Battle of Verdun in 1916.

  Homemade memorial in the German military cemetery at Consenvoye, France, to 25-year-old Jakob Berger, killed on May 22, 1916, at Verdun. He is buried in the mass grave underneath.

  George and Germaine Briant, date unknown.

  George and Germaine Briant in Hammond, Louisiana, September 18, 2004, aged 103 and 101.

  Frank Buckles, 1917, aged 16.

  Frank Buckles in Charles Town, West Virginia, March 20, 2008, aged 107.

  12

  Old Dixieland in France

  OF THE HUNDREDS OF PIECES of World War I sheet music in my collection, one of the strangest—and this is saying quite a lot—is a composition titled “Indianola.” The song, with words by Frank H. Warren and music by S. R. Henry and D. Onivas, is not, as I initially imagined, about the Delta town of Indianola, Mississippi, near which I once lived; the cover illustration, of a warrior wrapped in a striped blanket and sporting a large feather headdress, tells you that much. The gentleman pictured, it turns out, is one Chief Bug-a-Boo,

  a Redman who, Heard the call of war (aw-aw-aw),

  Swift to the tent of his love he went,

  Sighing for his little Indianola.

  “Come be the bride of a chief,” he cried,

  “Keep me wait no more (aw-aw-aw),

  Come and help me make my war paint fit,

  I do my heap big bit.”

  Chief Bug-a-Boo explains his war fever to sweet Indianola:

  Me hear cannon roar, Me help Yank win war,

  Me much like to kill, Scalp old Kaiser Bill;

  Me go to fight in France,

  Me do a big war dance,

  Me love a maiden so, wed Chief ’fore he go.

  I told you it was strange. It clearly wasn’t written by Native Americans for Native Americans; I doubt that market ever registered in the collective mind of Tin Pan Alley. But then—who was it written for? Did white people actually play this song at parties? Did they wear a headdress while doing so, dance around in circles and whoop? How did they render the aw-aw-aw? I kind of like the image of a bunch of goofy small-town Midwesterners acting out “Indianola” in their Victorian parlors. At the same time, I kind of don’t.

  Less than thirty years earlier, it had been official American policy to suppress the Redman in every meaningful way, and to exterminate him when and where suppression proved impossible, or perhaps just inconvenient. So when I listen to Chief Bug-a-Boo sing about how he would like to scalp old Kaiser Bill, I can’t help but think of what Muhammad Ali is reputed to have replied in 1966 when someone asked him why he didn’t care for the prospect of being drafted to serve in Vietnam: “No Vietcong ever called me Nigger.” And Kaiser Wilhelm, deeply flawed man though he was, never stole an acre of Native American land, or ordered the relocation, or killing, of a single American Indian. At least not until they showed up in France, wearing the uniform of the American Expeditionary Forces.

  Which they did—anywhere from ten thousand to eighteen thousand of them, depending upon which estimate you believe. No small numbers, those, considering that a great many Native Americans, perhaps even a majority of them, weren’t even American citizens at the time—they were, as a class, the only group not covered by the Fourteenth Amendment’s clause granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States. Yet they served anyway, as volunteers or draftees, fighting for a country that had usurped theirs. Some attribute their participation in the AEF to a great Indian “warrior culture” or the powerful ethos of traditionally protective clans, others to the hope that going Over There might earn them better lands, more rights, a vote. Whatever their reasons for enlisting, they served in regular Army units, alongside everyone else—bringing quite a few city kids, who knew of them only from Bret Harte novels, into contact with their first real live Indian.

  And so, to all the other plaudits I’ve already accorded the AEF, add this one: It was about as effective a melting pot as you could find in a country that fancied itself one great big melting pot. Indians were sequestered throughout the nation, but not in the Army. Chinese may not have been welcome at Ellis Island, but they were welcome in the Statue of Liberty Division. American cavalry may have been patrolling the border to keep Pancho Villa and his minions out, but Mexican Americans could—and did—serve in those very cavalry units. Whether the War Department did this out of a sense of fair play or merely necessity is, in the end, irrelevant; bunking, eating, and fighting beside a Native American, a Chinese American, or a Mexican American makes it harder to continue regarding him as a Redskin, a Chink, or a Wetback.

  There was, however, one group of Americans that the War Department could not accommodate, no matter how acute its manpower needs. Ironically, it was a group that the United States had been able to count on in every war since it had become the United States, and a few even before that. And according to the best estimates, more than 270,000 African Americans were willing to accommodate a military that was unwilling to accommodate them.

  Now, when I say “accommodate,” I’m not talking about desegregation; that was never for a moment considered. While plenty of black soldiers had served on both sides during the Revolutionary War, afterward, the Army became an entirely white institution, and remained so until the Civil War. The Marine Corps was even worse in that regard—it remained entirely white until World War II. Only the Navy enlisted black seamen for almost all of its existence, mostly because it couldn’t afford to be racist; the Navy was always short of men. So in 1917, needing to raise an army of millions in mere months, the War Department set out to recruit and draft the services of hundreds of thousands of black American men—and keep them entirely separate from everyone else. But segregation is just the prologue to the very strange tale of how the Army dealt with African Americans in World War I.

  Immediately following the end of the Civil War, the government of the United States dedicated itself, at least in word, to making sure that the millions of recently emancipated slaves weren’t harmed or exploited or marginalized, but rather were treated fairly, represented, and given the same opportunities to succeed that everyone else in the country had been born with. And for twelve years, freedmen were educated, registered as voters, and even sent to Congress and the United States Senate. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments enshrined these protections in the Constitution. But in 1877 all federal troops were hurriedly withdrawn from the former Confederacy, and white resistance, somewhat stifled during Reconstruction, roared into the open and quickly rolled back all of the advances of the previous twelve years. In 1896, even the Supreme Court gave racial segregation its imprimatur, in its ruling on the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. “Legislation,” the Court decreed, “is
powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based on physical differences. . . . If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.”