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| Sgt. Roy Evans Thompson |
By Roy's Son Dale Thompson
Future Doughboy Roy Thompson grew up on a farm outside Albion, Washington. As a teenager he found neither farming nor schoolwork appealing, leaving high school far short of graduation. He loved to fix things, however, and his inclinations soon led him to working on farm machinery in a local garage, and he found employment operating a massive wheat thresher. He came to realize, though, that there were some useful things to absorb in school for a budding mechanic, such as algebra. Roy spent late 1916 and early 1917 back in high school. Then—surprise—Uncle Sam came knocking. America needed lots of soldiers immediately, if not sooner. He was drafted and inducted into the Army at Fort Lewis, Washington on 4 November 1917. By some magical personnel processing, the Army actually discovered that Roy would be more valuable to the war effort as a mechanic than an infantryman and trained him accordingly. By February 1918 he was aboard the USS President Lincoln heading for France with the other men of the 1st Motor Mechanics Regiment. Roy wrote many letters home to the "Dear Home-folks" and kept a diary, well documenting his service time. An early letter he wrote from his troopship on 13 February suggests he was better suited for the army than the navy.
Well, I'm out in the middle of the big water, and still able to handle my meals as usual. I think this fact is due to the good weather, as we have only had one day that was very rough. I have been feeling somewhat shaky, and have had a headache a good deal, but haven't been disabled yet.
At the time he wrote this letter, Roy obviously had sensed no omen that he was sailing on a doomed ship–on 31 May 1918 the President Lincoln was torpedoed by German submarine U-90 and sunk about 500 miles off the French coast on a return trip to the U.S.–nor that, within a year, he would be "disabled" for the rest of his life.
Roy was soon assigned to the Air Service as a mechanic and spent the duration of the war at shops and depots in the eastern part of France, behind the huge American battlefields in the vicinity of Verdun. His duty, he reports, was away from the shooting war, involving long hours doing the typical work of mechanic (mostly automotive) with some construction thrown in:
Sat. 8 June
Putting up track in boiler shop and lining up the A-beams thereof.
Went to work at 7 am overhauling Studebaker. Quit at 10 pm.
Working on a Benz (German). Took in French lesson at the Y but didn't learn a great deal.
So the diaries continue on, through the great St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives, the Armistice, and the winding-down right up until January 1919, when Roy's life would take a terrible turn. An unlucky accident would set him off on a medical odyssey to seven military hospitals, where multiple amputations took his right foot and then additional sections of his right leg as infection spread. At the final stop, Letterman General Hospital at San Francisco's Presidio, he had the good fortune to be treated at the very place a groundbreaking new type of artificial limb was being developed, the "Letterman Leg."
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| Orthopedics Ward at Letterman General Hospital |
The chain of events started when he was granted leave in January 1919 and started out on bicycle with a buddy heading for the town of Abainville where other Air Service shops were located. Attempting to jump a passing train, he had some unspecified mishap and badly injured his right foot. While his letters to his family at the time consistently understated the seriousness of his wound, he was much more candid in his diary:
Sun. 5 January
Griner and I started to Abainville on bicycles. Train accident at 2:10. Taken to Gondrecourt hospital and immediate operation.
Mon. 6 January
Lots of pain. Morphine before I could sleep
Tues. 7 January
More pain. Wound dressed A.M. Foot amputated about 3 pm. Lots of pain after I came out of ether. Finally morphine and some sleep.
Several hospital stops and operations later, after seven weeks, Roy was pleased with his progress:
Weds. 27 February
Wound entirely healed. . .
Three weeks later at the AEF hospital at Beau Desert, France, he received his first artificial leg. It didn't fit very well, and this led to a blister and another infection. But these problems were apparently treated sufficiently to allow Roy to head home. He departed France aboard the USS President Grant on 24 April and arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, on 6 May. He spent over a month getting checked out at Army General Hospital #3 at Rahway, New Jersey, before being assigned to Letterman General Hospital located in what Roy called "Frisco." He arrived at the Presidio on 12 June. Two weeks later he was measured for his "Letterman Leg." In his diary, Roy doesn't indicate exactly when he was issued this new leg, but he was granted an extended furlough in the latter half of 1919, returning to Letterman in January 1920, when he received his full discharge. Roy Evans Thompson, disabled vet, was now a civilian. But, he intended to be a fully productive citizen and began immediately to build his skill set.
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Roy and His Mother Cora at His Graduation from
Washington State College, June 1925 |
After his discharge, he immediately enrolled and attended a one-year accelerated high school program to prepare him for Washington State College in Pullman. In a class paper he wrote about his revised views of education:
My experiences have brot [sic] about some very decided changes in my opinion of educations. From complete satisfaction over an eighth grade diploma to a great desire for all the education I can get is a considerable reversal of sentiment. I am indeed thankful that I was shown the advantages of education before all opportunity of acquiring one was gone.
By 1921 he had completed his high school work in the specialized college preparatory program and enrolled in Washington State, pursuing two degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Education. He received both degrees in June of 1925. Sometime before graduation Roy also became a landowner. He filed for a homestead in Okanogan County, Washington, lived on it for six months to obtain title, and then rented out the land to a local farmer. When he graduated, he left the state to pursue his career as a mechanical engineer.
From 1925 Roy worked as a professional engineer. His first position was with the United States Patent Office in Washington, DC. He left after a year and worked for a series of manufacturing companies across America for over 40 years. He specialized in the design of gears and power transmission equipment and was granted at least two patents for his inventions. Roy had married Hester McCracken at the start of his career in 1925. They had two children, Dale and Marjorie, and four grandchildren. Roy retired in 1968 and lived ten more years, during which the former high school drop-out and Doughboy became a dedicated booster of continuing education.
Roy's son, Dale Thompson, has compiled all his father's war letters, diary, documents, and photos, along with considerable biographical commentary on his dad in a 206-page book titled Dear Home-folks. It can be ordered from Amazon HERE.
This article is presented in fond memory of my friend and longtime neighbor Roy's son, Dale Thompson, who passed away this past Thursday. It was great having a fellow WWI enthusiast and a swell guy nearby.
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