Armistice Day, 2014

And so we end with today, when we held a re-dedication ceremony on November 11, 2014. 

In many ways, the ceremony was a lot like the one from 1922. 

Captain Wilbur Jones, USNR, presided over the events.   The Reverend Wayne Johnson of Saint Stephen AME church gave the invocation.   Speeches were made by politicians, including Mayor Bill Saffo, County Commissioner Woody White, and U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre.
 
But there were also speeches by historians. I gave a talk about the men whose names are listed on the Memorial. Si Harrington talked about the efforts of the state to commemorate the war.  And Taylor Fain spoke about Woodrow Wilson and the importance of World War I in the history of the United States.




Before the ceremony, Veteran's day, 2014

World War I reenactors

 The crowd before the ceremony

 

 

For more images, you can check out:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Dato=20141111&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=111109998&Ref=PH&pl=1



Moving the Memorial, part 2

Dumay Gorham worked to clean the Memorial's brass bas-relief.

After the cleaning, October 28, 2014 

Then the bas-relief took another journey -- from Acme Art Studios on North Fifth Avenue to the Wilmington Riverfront.

The bas-relief is lifted out of Dumay's studio

Liberty is strapped into the truck for the ride to her new home near the Cape Fear River

 

The bas-relief was then reunited with its marble base. 

 

MARBLE BASE

 

The marble base was cleaned before it was installed in the new location, and the words that were inscribed into the marble seemed easier to read in the October sunlight.

 

The front reads "Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori" which is a line from Roman poet Horace's odes, and roughly translates to "It is sweet and fitting to die for your country." 

 

 

These words are, today, more often remembered as the title of one of anti-war poet Wilfred Owen's poem.  In that poem, he calls Horaces's ode sentiment a "great lie."  Owen died in France in 1918, so he'd written the poem before New Hanover County's memorial was erected.  Still, it seems highly unlikely that the local memorial committee would have read the poem when they commissioned the monument. And even if they had, they probably wouldn't have imagined that Owen's poetry would stand the test of time.  

 



 

 

The back of the monument is inscribed with text that, in 1922, the Wilmington Morning Star attributed to the pen of local man, Dr. James Sprunt. 

 

The monument states "These New Hanover County men who names we perpetuate by this monument were numbered among those choice spirits who at the country's call in the Great World War left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self sacrifice in prison, in hospital, on the battle field, on hostile seas, in uncharted realms of air.  They found support and consolation in the belief that they would not be forgotten."

 

The inscriptions ends with lines from Theodore O'Hara's elegaic poem, the Bivouac of the Dead. 

And it ties the United States' war dead into the the bigger picture of the war, by including the dates 1914-1918, not simply using the 1917-1918 dates when Americans were combatants.

BAS-RELIEF

 

The North Carolina Marble and Granite Company team worked to attach the bas-relief to the marble.  It was rather like hanging a shelf, except the bas-relief needed a crane to lift it into place.

 

 

Workers lined up the bas-relief.

 

Making sure everything lines up

They marked where the new holes needed to be drilled.

Then they removed the bas-relief so they could safely re-drill the holes.

The contractors fabricated new bolts to attach the bas-relief to the base.  The one on the left is the 21st century version.

Then they swung the bas-relief back into place and attached it to the memorial once more.

 

Moving the Memorial, part 1

In the Spring, amid some controversy, the decision was made to try to move the memorial.

City, county, and school board officials have worked together and the Memorial will be rededicated on November 11, 2014.

 

In the Fall, the memorial began to move...you can see a video of it being removed from the high school's grounds:

 

http://www.wwaytv3.com/2014/09/04/world-war-i-memorial-moved-to-river-front

 

 

Outside New Hanover High, September 25, 2014

The marble part of the Memorial was cleaned and moved down to the Wilmington Riverfront by North Carolina Marble and Granite Company. 




The monument on the Wilmington Riverwalk, September 2014

Work on the brass bas-relief  was performed by Wilmington artist Dumay Gorham, III. 


Visiting Dumay Gorham's studio, at Acme Art

 

close-up of the top of the bas-relief after some work has been performed

 

clasping laurels

 

 

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After the Dedication, 1923 to March, 2014

Memorial, 1926

The memorial has seen some action over the years. In January 1923, the monument was “hurled from its base”when it was hit by a car belonging to Colonel Walker Taylor.

The damage was very substantial – it took months to repair because the “main upright stone, which was broken almost in half by the impact of the skidding autombile, has been replaced with a new one.  Little damage was done any other part of the monument.”

This isn't the only time a car has collided with it -- it was also struck by a “careless automobile driver” in December, 1936.

The memorial has also been cleaned, notably in 1932 when the newspaper reported the monument was “completely cleansed and put in good condition through the country of the Carolina Cut-Stone Company, of this city.The stone was badly defaced by pencil marks and other bits of vandalism, and on the suggestion of the ladies’ auxiliary of the American Legion here, the Carolina Cut-Stone company effaced such marks. They declined to accept payment for the work. All children and especially high school pupils are asked to abstain from marking this Monument.”

Still, for the most part,  the memorial stood in the median on Market Street, pretty much as it was, for more than fifty years.

 

 Then, in the 1970s, the War Memorial was moved in front of the school. 

It was reported in February 15, 1973’s newspaper that “two monuments from the plaza in front of New Hanover High School” were removed after the city’s planning commission approved an overhead ramp earlier in the month. One of those two monuments was the World War I memorial.

The overhead ramp, 2014
 

And, until 2014, that's where the monument stayed. 

Then in the Spring of 2014, a group of Wilmingtonians met to talk about moving, cleaning, and restoring the Memorial.


Dying "Over There"




As my last post shows, a number of the men on New Hanover County's memorial died before they got to the battlefields.  Other casualties of war died on foreign soil.

Sheet music, 1917
CFM 1997.088.0093
Gift of Suzanne Sheetz

Although the U.S. entered the war in April of 1917, it took some time before large numbers of troops were sent overseas, and even then, they did not immediately fight.  The first U.S. casualties in the war occured in November, 1917.  Most of America's fighting men were not involved in combat until the last months of the war.  This is reflected in the death dates of the local men who were killed in action.  

 

Douglas W. Pate died of wounds he received during the war, but it is not clear when or where he died, or what branch of the services he was involved with. Pate was born January 10, 1895 in Robeson county. He was living in Wilmington when he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917.  It seems likely that he died between July and November of 1918.

 

CFM 1998.119.0011
Gift of Hugh MacRae, III

Lieutenant David Worth Loring died in Belgium on August 24, 1918. When he registered for the draft, Loring was living at 308 N. Front Street. He worked for the railroad. When the Wilmington Morning Star Reported Lieutenant Loring’s death on September 17, 1918, the article said he died of “wounds received in action.” According to the paper, David was initially declared physically unfit for duty, and he had an operation so that he could serve.

Loring was married to Viola Shaw Loring.  The couple wed in April of 1916.  The Lorings had a baby boy who lived 15 hours in January 1917. So in the span of two years, Viola Loring lost a son and a husband.

Lieutenant Loring was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.  He is buried in Flanders Field American cemetery.

The Heart of America, 1918
CFM 1963.002.0029
Gift of General John Van Bokkellen Metts, Jr.

Corporal Bennie King died on September 29, 1918. He served in the U.S. Army 119^thInfantry Regiment, 30^thInfantry Division. He is listed on the tablets of the missing at Somme American Cemetery.



The Winners of the Marne, 1918
CFM 1963.002.0016
Gift of General John Van Bokkellen Metts, Jr.
 

Private Vaughan E. Smith served overseas from May 9, 1918 to Sept 29, 1918 when he was killed in action. Smith enlisted in New York on May 23, 1917. His father, Robert E. Smith, lived in Wilmington, and so that seems to be why he is on the New Hanover County memorial. Smith served in the U.S. Army 107th Infantry Regiment, 27th Division. He is buried at the Somme American Cemetery, Bony, France



To the Beautiful Land of France, 1918
CFM 1963.002.0030
Gift of General John Van Bokkellen Metts, Jr.

Private William M. Turner died on October 15, 1918. He served with the army's 167th Infantry Regiment, 42nd Division. He is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne, France.

Theodore S. Sidbury died Oct 17, 1918 in France.  He was killed in action.  Sidbury volunteered with a Company C, a locally organized cavalry unit that became a machine gun unit.  Before the war, he was a tinner.  He is buried in in Westbrook Shepard Cemetery Sloop Point, in Pender County.  He was 21 when he died.

CFM 1997.060.0029

Captain Joseph J. Loughlin died on 9 Nov 1918. He is buried in St. Mihiel American Cemetery, Thiaucourt, France. Loughlin served in the 322nd Infantry Regiment, 81st Infantry Division. Josepth was married to Eleanor King Loughlin. The couple had three children. Two of Loughlin's children helped dedicate the World War I memorial in 1922. 

Private Walter S. Brock of Seagate was killed in action on November 10, 1918. He was born 13 Sep 1885. He is buried at Mount Lebanon Chapel cemetery, at Airlie. 

Private Brock had the misfortune to die just one day before the war ended.

The War officially ended on Nocember 11, at 11A.M, Paris time

Colin Makepeace MacRae was even unluckier.  He died on January 30, 1919, when he was lost overboard at sea from the U.S.S. South Dakota. MacRae was still in his teens. Colin's brother, Marion, also served in the First World War.

 

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Men on the Monument, the unknown, the hurt, and the sick

World War I Overseas Duty Chevrons (rotated), 1918
CFM 1976.045.0006
Gift of Mrs. Morris G. Seigler

 

Every man on the monument has his own story, but not all of their stories are accessible to us today. 

 

My research found most of the dead, but not all of them.  I could not find James H. Collings or Edward James Fox.  And I am not sure that I found the right Loren/Lorn Mason.

Still, we can recover some information about a lot of the men who died while in the armed services in World War I.

 

 

 

Some seem to have left just a traces of their military lives:

 

Harry Alderman Potter was a mill hand, and registered for the draft on June 15, 1917.  He was born in Columbus county, and died on September 29, 1918.  He is buried at Union Grove Freewill Baptist Church Cemetery in Delco.  But the records of how he died and what he did in the war are elusive.

 

 

 

Lewis Philip Vann is also on the monument, but I haven't found his death date.  He was born in 1892, he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917.  At the time he was a clerk with the Hilton Lumber Company. 

 



Book, 1917
CFM 1981.023.0008
Gifr of Stephen C. Wallace

DISEASE

A number of the men on the monument died of disease stateside.

Arthur Beach

Arthur A. Beach, who was listed on the Memorial as "Archie," was a private in the 119^th infantry, 30^th division NC.  He died May 9, 1918 in Camp Servier in Greenville SC.   According to the notice in the paper, “He enlisted in Company C of the National Guard last May and went to camp early in the summer.  He was 22 years old and a young man of the highest integrity and uprightness of character.” He is buried in Bellview Cemetery.  

 

William McDuffie Bunting

Bunting was just 18 years old and still in College when he died of influenza in Chapel Hill.  His name seems to have made it onto the monument beause he was a member of the Student Army Training Corps. 




Wilmington Morning Star, October 10, 1918, p. 2

Arthur C. Hewlett died of pneumonia at Fort Oglethorpe in October, 1918.  He has been drafted in June, 1918, and inducted in August.  Arthur's parents, John and Rosa, held a service for him at their family home on Masonboro Sound.  They both outlived him by more than 30 years.

 





George Willie Summerlin died of influenza on October 12, 1918.  Summerlin registered for the draft in June 1917, he was a "huckster" and he became a private in the engineer corps.  He was drafted on April 25, 1918, and sent to Camp Jackson on April 26, 1918.  He is buried in Wilmington's Bellvue Cemetery.



Army Corps of Engineers patch, 1918
CFM 1976.045.0008
 

 

Joseph Holland died in a military hospital in New York on October 10, 1918.  He had influenza-pneumonia for a week.  He was 29 years old and had been drafted into the miliary in July of 1918.

 

Archie Haywood Melton also died of pneumonia  He died at the base hospital at Fort Wadsworth on November 30, 1918, a few weeks after the armistice had been signed.  He was 21 years old.

 

Hugh Tate Moore died at Camp Kearney in San Diego on April 8, 1918.  Ten days after the war broke out Dr. Moore became "...the first Wilmington physician to enter the army service in the medical corps."  The Wilmington Dispatch reported in August, 16, 1917 “One of Wilmington’s prominent and most popular physicians has been ordered to report for army service and this means that he will prepare to go to the war front in Europe.” Lieutenant Moore first went to Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. He then was promoted to the rank of captain, and sent to California.  He died on April 8, 1918 at Camp Kearney in San Diego.  According to the notice in the Wilmington Morning Star of April 10, 1918, “Captain Moore came to Wilmington from New Orleans in 1912.  From that time until last August, he practiced medicine in this city, specializing on diseases of the ear, nose and throat.” Dr. Moore was born in Tennessee and is buried there.



Recruiting poster
Courtesy of Library of Congress

 

And then there was poor Harry Orrell, who didn't die of an illnesss.  His skull was fractured when he was hit by a train while on sentry duty.  Harry was seventeen when he died.  His parents Elijah and Mamie Orrell buried him at Masonboro Baptist Church's cemetery.



Wlmington Morning Star, May 21, 1917

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