On Hallowed Ground

by Robert M Poole

  52. Ibid.; Neil Hanson, Unknown Soldiers: The Story of the Missing of the First World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 241.

  53. Brig. Gen. Peter C. Harris, adjutant general memorandum of Oct. 29, 1919, NARA RG 407, Box 565, File 298.8. Undertakers would harvest their profits from these private burials, which accounted for more than 40,700 of the nation’s 46,520 stateside reinterments.

  54. In March 1920, France relented on its objections to the removal of Americans from their soil.

  55. A few individual World War I servicemen have been returned in the years since mass repatriations were finished in 1922.

  56. Enoch A. Chase, “Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground,” National Geographic, Nov. 1928.

  57. Risch, 693–95.

  58. B. C. Mossman and M. Warner Stark, The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals 1921–1969 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1971), 3–4; Hanson, 331. For more on General March, see Edward M. Coffman’s excellent biography, The Hilt of the Sword: The Career of Peyton C. March(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1966).

  59. Hanson, 260–327. Italy, Belgium, and Romania also established tombs for their unknown war dead; tiny Portugal honored two anonymous soldiers in its shrine.

  60. Marie M. Meloney to Gen. Peyton C. March, Nov. 13, 1920, NARA RG 407, Box 563, File 293.8.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ibid.

  63. The New York Times, Dec. 9, 1920.

  64. Fish was a captain of Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, New York National Guard, when World War I broke out. The regiment, composed of African Americans commanded by white officers, was restyled the 369th Infantry when assigned to France. There its members fought under French leadership. Known as the Harlem Hellfighters, the 369th took part in the bloody action at ChâteauThierry and Belleau Wood, had one-third of its men killed, and served 191 days of combat, longer than any other American unit. It was the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine—and one of the few black outfits allowed to fight in France. Most African American soldiers were assigned to work as laborers and stevedores. Fish, promoted to major in 1919, was awarded the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre.

  65. H.J. Resolution 426, 66th Congress, 3rd Session, Dec. 21, 1920, NARA RG 407, Box 562, File 293.8.

  66. Mossman and Stark, 3–4.

  67. “Leaders for Honor to Unknown Dead,” The New York Times, Feb. 2, 1921.

  68. Ibid. Petyon March, whose relationship with Pershing was uneasy, was nowhere to be seen during congressional hearings on the Unknown Soldier. Pershing, triumphant in victory, would replace March as the Army’s chief of staff in May 1921.

  69. Ibid.

  70. The New York Times, June 12, 1921.

  71. “Leaders for Honor.” When Rodman Wanamaker spoke, patriotic audiences listened: he had purchased more war bonds than any other individual in World War I.

  72. Hanson, 332–33.

  73. Brig Gen. William Lassiter, memorandum to Army chief of staff, Sept. 8, 1921, NARA RG 407, Box 563, File 293.8.

  74. Mossman and Stark, 4–8; Hanson, 335.

  75. Hanson, 335–36; Mossman and Stark, 5–8.

  76. Ibid.

  77. “A Stillness at Arlington,” Time, Nov. 21, 1955; “Our Soldier Unknown,” Army Quartermaster Museum report, 1937; Hanson, 337–39.

  78. Mossman and Stark, 5–8; Hanson, 337–40.

  79. Edwin L. James, “Unknown Soldier Chosen in France,” The New York Times, October 25, 1921.

  80. “Our Soldier Unknown”; Mossman and Stark, 7–8; Hanson, 339.

  81. Mossman and Stark, 8–9; Hanson, 340–41.

  82. After his native Lorraine region was overrun and occupied by Germans, André Maginot vowed to make France’s eastern borders impregnable to future invasions. As war minister in the 1920s and early 1930s, he proposed a line of fortifications, which came to be known as the Maginot Line when completed. German forces swept around the line and later occupied it in World War II, by which time Maginot was dead.

  83. Maj. Gen. Henry T. Allen, Dec. 11, 1921, to Adjutant General’s Office, including letters and speeches from ceremonies at Le Havre and Châlons, NARA RG 407, Box 563, File 293.8.

  84. Mossman and Stark, 8–9; Hanson, 340–41; U.S.S. Reuben James continued in service until Oct. 31, 1941, when she was sunk by German submarines in the North Atlantic, the first American warship to be lost in World War II.

  85. “Arlington National Cemetery Tomb of the Unknowns Monument Repair or Replacement Project,” June 1, 2006, Arlington National Cemetery.

  86. NARA RG 407, Box 564, File 293.8.

  87. Ibid.

  88. Ibid.

  89. Ibid.

  90. H. Allen Griffith to Nelson D. Baker, April 17, 1920, NARA RG 407, Box 563, File 293.1.

  91. Brig. Gen. William Lassiter, acting chief of staff, memorandum, “Distribution of bodies returned from Europe,” Oct. 9, 1921, NARA RG 407, Box 563, File 293.8.

  92. Ibid.

  93. “Body of the ‘Unknown Soldier’ Arrives Home,” Associated Press, Nov. 9–11, 1921; Mossman and Stark, 9–16; Hanson, 342–57.

  94. Ibid.

  95. Ibid.

  96. Ibid.

  97. Ibid.

  98. Gillis, 11–13; “Bereaved Mothers Grateful, She Says,” The Washington Post, Nov. 12, 1921.

  99. Piehler, 175.

  100. “Body of Unknown Hero, Under Guard, Lies in State At the Capitol,” The Washington Post, Nov. 10, 1921; Associated Press, Nov. 9–11, 1921.

  101. Associated Press, Nov. 9–11, 1921; Mossman and Stark, 9–16.

  102. Ibid.

  103. Ibid.; “Solemn Journey of the Dead,” The New York Times, Nov. 12, 1921.

  104. Ibid.

  105. “Millions to Pray For Peace Today,” The New York Times, Nov. 11, 1921. Flights were banned during President Harding’s address at Arlington on the recommendation of Earl Godwin, broadcast technician for C&P Telephone Co. “The noise of an aeroplane would be carried into the amplifier magnified through the projectors until it would sound like the roar of Niagara Falls,” Godwin wrote to Col. George Penrose of the quartermaster’s office on Oct. 12, 1921. Penrose took the advice.

  106. Associated Press, Nov. 9–11, 1921; “President Harding’s Address at the Burial of an Unknown American Soldier,” The New York Times, Nov. 12, 1921; “Solemn Journey.”

  107. “Solemn Journey.”

  108. Ibid.; Associated Press, Nov. 9–11, 1921; Mossman and Stark, 9–16.

  9: A TIME TO BUILD UP

  1. “Bereaved Mothers Grateful, She Says,” The Washington Post, Nov. 12, 1921. Mrs. Digney’s son, Lt. Louis Freeman Plummer, was killed in the crash of a training plane.

  2. “Whittlesey Talked About War On Ship,” The New York Times, Nov. 30, 1921. Based on testimony from a fellow passenger, investigators estimated that Whittlesey went overboard just after midnight on Nov. 26, 1921. Donald Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 205. Press reports on the travails of the “Lost Battalion” embellished the story, reporting that Maj. Whittlesey had refused the German invitation to surrender with a curt “Go to hell!” In fact, Whittlesey revealed, he made no response at all, believing that silence was his best answer. See also Neil Hanson, The Unknown Soldier: The Story of the Missing of the First World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 352.

  3. Ibid.; B. C. Mossman and M. Warner Stark, The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals 1921–1969 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1971), 14.

  4. The New York Times, Nov. 30, 1921.

  5. “The Second World War was the continuation of the first, and indeed it is inexplicable except in terms of the rancours and instabilities left by the earlier conflict,” writes John Keegan in The First World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 423. Yet historian Margaret MacMillan argues that Versailles gets too much credit for spawning World War II. It has become commonplace, she writes, “to blame everything that went wrong in the 1920s and 1930s on the pe
acemakers and the settlements they made in Paris in 1919 … That is to ignore the actions of everyone—political leaders, diplomats, soldiers, ordinary voters—for twenty years between 1919 and 1939.” Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World(New York: Random House, 2002) 493.

  6. “The Washington Naval Conference, 1921–1922,” U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Historian,http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/id/88313.htm.

  7. Smythe, 278.

  8. “The Washington Naval Conference.”

  9. Jennifer Hanna, Arlington House: The Robert E. Lee Memorial (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 2001) 132–33; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1968), 5:134.

  10. Hanna, 132–33.

  11. “Restoration of Lee Mansion,” hearing before the Joint Committee on the Library, Congress of the United States, Pursuant to H.J. Res 264, May 28, 1924, 2–3.

  12. “Report on S. 3189,” Sen. Porter H. Dale, Committee on Military Affairs, Feb. 17, 1926, 69th Congress, 1st Session, AHA; “Porter Hinman Dale (1867-1933),” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present,http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000009.

  13. Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington: Capital City, 1879–1950 (Prince ton: Princeton University Press, 1963),141–42; Hanna, 132–36.

  14. Hanna, 133; “Restoration of Lee Mansion,” 4–7.

  15. H.J. Resolution 264, 562, “Joint Resolution Authorizing the Restoration of the Lee Mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia,” 68th Congress, 2nd Session, Chapter 562, March 4, 1925, 1356.

  16. The New York Times, Oct. 13, 1929, in AHA.

  17. Maj. L. M. Leisenring, “The Restoration of Arlington House,” Quartermaster Review, March-April 1934.

  18. Ibid.; Lt. Col. Charles G. Mortimer to Gen. Louis H. Bash, Nov. 16, 1929, including memorandum of L. M. Leisenring’s interview with “Uncle Jim Parks,” AHA.

  19. “Monument Honors Custis’ Ex-Slave,” The Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), March 2, 1930; Mortimer to Bash.

  20. Mortimer to Bash.

  21. Ibid.

  22. “Former Custis Slave To Sleep In Death In Arlington ‘Estate,’” The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 22, 1929.

  23. Ibid.

  24. “Monument Honors Custis’ Ex-Slave.” While special recognition was given to James Parks at Arlington, he was by no means the only former slave buried in the national cemetery. Many who worked for the quartermaster’s department during and after the Civil War were also interred there.

  25. Hanna, 144.

  26. Leisenring, “The Restoration of Arlington House.” The administration building was raised on the site of Arlington’s old stables, originally a smaller version of the main mansion. The stables burned in 1904, were rebuilt in 1907, and were refitted to accommodate cemetery administrators in the early 1930s.

  27. Mabel S. Brown to Gen. John J. Pershing, Feb. 15, 1923; Maj. Gen. R.H. Fletcher to Adjutant General, Sept. 27, 1922, both from NARA RG 407, Box 565, file 293.8.

  28. Ibid.

  29. John W. Weeks to Mrs. Kathryn Chamberlain, Dec. 2, 1922, NARA RG 407, Box 565, file 293.8.

  30. Brig. Gen. H. H. Bandholtz to the Adjutant General, Oct. 23, 1922, NARA RG 407, Box 565, file 293.8. Brig. Gen. Bandholtz failed to predict the popularity of the Tomb of the Unknowns, which attracts many of the 4 million people who visit Arlington each year. One reason they do, of course, is to watch the changing of the guard, which might never have come into being if Bandholtz’s view had prevailed.

  31. Ibid.

  32. William H. Hart to Deputy Chief of Staff, Aug. 30, 1923, NARA RG 407, Box 565, file 293.8.

  33. Secretary of War to Commanding General, District of Washington, “Establishment of an armed guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery,” March 24, 1926; Capt. David G. Barr to Lt. Col. John Millikin, 3rd Cavalry, “Guard at Tomb of Unknown Soldier,” July 1, 1937, both from Society of the Honor Guard,www.tombguard.org/formation.html.

  34. “Annual Report of the Commission on the Erection of Memorials and Entombment of Bodies in the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1925,” Jan. 5, 1926, Committee on the Library, House of Representatives, 69th Congress 1st Session, AHA; “The Unknown Solider—Ten Years After,” The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 8, 1931.

  35. Lt. Donald R. Neil, “Nature Honors The Unknown Soldier,” Quartermaster Review, Jan.–Feb. 1932; “Tomb of the Unknowns Monument, Repair or Replacement Project,” June 1, 2006, Arlington National Cemetery.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid.

  38. “Arlington Memorial Bridge,” George Washington Memorial Parkway, National Park Service, July 8, 1998,www.nps.gov/archive/gwmp/memorial_bridge.htm.

  39. T. H. Watkins, The Hungry Years (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 131–141; Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York: Walker & Company, 2004), 105–83; William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1978),145–56.

  40. Dickson and Allen, 123–24.

  41. Manchester, 150.

  42. Dickson and Allen, 168–174.

  43. Dickson and Allen, 171.

  44. Dickson and Allen, 173.

  45. MacArthur’s action in the BEF incident, in which he overstepped President Hoover’s orders, predicted his behavior in the Korean conflict. President Harry S. Truman removed him for exceeding his authority there.

  46. Dickson and Allen, 173–81.

  47. A grand jury investigation cleared police officers in the deaths of Hushka and Carl-son, who were said to have provoked the shots that killed them.

  48. Dickson and Allen, 168–70, 192.

  49. Manchester, 152.

  50. Dickson and Allen, 184.

  51. Dickson and Allen, 193.

  52. “Riot Report,” Time, Sept. 19, 1932.

  53. Dickson and Allen, 201.

  54. Harris B. Hull, “Formal Dedication of Soldier Tomb Is Planned On Friday,” The Washington Post, Nov. 6, 1932.

  55. James Cullinane, “Reverent Vets Walk Out As Hurley Speaks,” The Washington Herald, Nov. 12, 1932.

  56. Ibid.

  57. Ibid.

  58. “Vets Propose Walkout on Hurley Talk,” The Washington Herald, Nov. 10, 1932.

  59. “Reverent Vets.”

  60. Ibid.

  61. Dickson and Allen, 252–61.

  10: “WE ARE ALL IN IT—ALL THE WAY”

  1. “The War Department and the Pentagon,”http://.html.

  2. “Arlington Goes Green,”http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Libraries/history/LibrariesHistoryBackPages0032007.aspx.

  3. Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History (New York: Random House, 2007), 31.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid., 32.

  6. Ibid., 39.

  7. Ibid., 33.

  8. Ibid., 71.

  9. Ibid., 48.

  10 . Congressional Record, July 28, 1941, 6363-75.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Vogel, 49.

  13. Jennifer Hanna, Arlington House: The Robert E. Lee Memorial, Cultural Landscape Report (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 2001), 153–154.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Vogel, 80.

  16. Ibid., 65.

  17. Ibid., 80.

  18. Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2007), 498–502.

  19. Vogel, 74.

  20. Ibid., 80.

  21. Ibid., 85.

  22. Ibid., 82–83.

  23. Ibid., 89–90.

  24. Ibid., 93–97.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Ibid., 101–103

  27. Ibid.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid., 295–96.

  30. Ibid.,127–28.

  31. Ibid., 138–39.

  32. Smith, 540–41.

  33. Smith, 467; Douglas Brinkley and Michael E. Haskew, eds., The World War II D
esk Reference, (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2004), 383.

  34. Churchill scrupulously credited the boiler quote to Lord Edward Gray, Britain’s foreign minister during World War I.

  35. John Keegan, The Second World War (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 11.

  36. Brinkley and Haskew, 188.

  37. Watertender First Class Elmer Charles Bigelow, Medal of Honor citation, from the website of the Medal of Honor Society, http://www.cmohs.org/recipient/2641/bigelow-elmer-charles.php.

  38. Marine Cpl. Anthony Peter Damato, Medal of Honor citation,http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2702/damato-anthony-peter.php.

  39. Army Tech Sgt. Forrest L. Vosler, Medal of Honor citation from the website of the U.S. Air Force National Museum,http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheet_print.asp?fsID&equals$1440. Vosler survived the war and worked for the Veterans Administration until his retirement. He died in 1992 and is buried at Arlington.

  40. C. L. Sulzberger,“The Doughboys’ Grim Road to Rome,” The New York Times, Feb. 20, 1944.

  41. Army Pfc. Alton W. Knappenberger, Medal of Honor citation,http://www.lcmohs.org/recipient-detail2831/krappengerger-alton-w.php. David Venditta, “Farm boy won WWII fame, sought a return to obscurity,” Allentown Morning Call, May 31, 2004; Adam Bernstein, “Alton Knappenberger, 84, Won Medal of Honor,” The Washington Post, June 28, 2008; Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007), 359–97.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Ibid.