Read On Hallowed Ground Online
Authors: Robert M Poole
On Hallowed Ground (49 page)
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 peacemakers 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.
