Poppa’s Boy: Coming of Age in the Great War

Click HERE to Order This Book

By Stephen L. Harris 

The Oaklea Press, 2024

Reviewed by David F. Beer

If you were going to teach a high school course on America’s part in World War One this book would make an excellent introductory text. It’s also a fascinating novel for adults since the story is so firmly rooted in New England and French place names, noted historical figures from Roosevelt to Father Duffy, and the organization, training and combat experience of relatively green America soldiers. All these are incorporated into the main story line: the adventures from 1917 to 1918 of a young lad nicknamed Bucky.

Bucky’s relationship with his father has never been an easy one. Luther “Rough” Riley had seen heroic action with Colonel Roosevelt in Cuba and out west with General Leonard Wood. He had hoped for a son who would follow in his footsteps but instead got a Mama’s boy. When America enters the Great War, Luther is one of the first to volunteer for Roosevelt’s planned battalion but when that falls through, he manages to get to France as a news reporter. Bucky’s own adventures begin after his father leaves home and when, at the age of 15, he decides to run away and enlist.

When he faces rejections because of his age, Bucky’s life takes on an almost Huckleberry Finn nature as he works his way down river on the Frank White, "a steam-driven, wooden towboat that’d seen better days." His intention is to get down to New York City and hopefully enlist there. Nothing is that easy, however. Complications arise in the form of an attractive young girl, Calliope Van Pelt, a victim of her parents’ divorce who is desperately trying to escape her father. Her brother, now a soldier, is also involved, as is an unforgiving sheriff. More characters come into play before a dangerous flight on foot through a tough part of New York finally gets Bucky into the army—and eventually into the Fighting 69th Regiment.

The final third of Poppa’s Boy brings us to Bucky’s army training, his friendships and his fears (plus his love for Calliope). The author also interweaves into Bucky’s story the politics involved in the initial organization of an army that is to “go over there.” A salient feeling of the troops and officers alike is that they are going to take care of things in France, they are going to make the final difference, and that it “will all be over once we’re over there.” French sacrifices and efforts are somewhat acknowledged along the way, the British are ignored, and the Americans will save the day. But it will still be tough for Bucky.

How we got almost the entire Headquarters Company into that one freight car—fifty boys with rifles and packs and a few of them pretty much overweight—was a marvel. The moment we were all squashed in, with a lot of cussing and pushing and hunting for a place to squat, the heavy door rolled shut. At least it wasn’t locked. But we were in the dark until our eyes got used to it. Then we were off to Paris. (p. 233)

Father Duffy Officiates at the Burial of the Men
Killed in the Rouge Bouquet Incident.
Bucky Riley Is Present in the Story.

It’s hard to merge so much historical detail and actual people into a novel, but Stephen Harris has done it in such a way that fact combines easily with fiction. This, of course, is what a historical novel must do. The book’s resolution occurs, as it should, in its last pages when Bucky’s combat experience gives him enough to have nightmares for the rest of his life.

I waded into the Ourcq. Around me, bodies bobbed in the water that had turned pinkish from so much blood. More bodies littered the north bank and the hillside. And still more bodies had matted down much of the wheat. Mortar shells continued to hit the ground, exploding and gouging out holes and ripping off limbs of so many. (p. 335)

However, he is now no longer Mama’s boy but in a very real way has become Poppa’s boy. Stephen Harris has successfully turned his hand to the novel in this book after having written highly acclaimed histories of America’s role in World War One, and readers will appreciate and enjoy what he has achieved in this new endeavor.

David F. Beer

"The Nightmare Is Stronger Than Its Master" by Lord Dunsany

Verdun Offensive [Meuse-Argonne]
George Matthews Harding

When the aëroplanes are home and the sunset has flared away, and it is cold, and night comes down over France, you notice the guns more than you do by day, or else they are actually more active then, I do not know which it is.

It is then as though a herd of giants, things of enormous height, came out from lairs in the earth and began to play with the hills. It is as though they picked up the tops of the hills in their hands and then let them drop rather slowly. It is exactly like hills falling. You see the flashes all along the sky, and then that lumping thump as though the top of the hill had been let drop, not all in one piece, but crumbled a little as it would drop from your hands if you were three hundred feet high and were fooling about in the night, spoiling what it had taken so long to make. That is heavy stuff bursting, a little way off.

If you are anywhere near a shell that is bursting, you can hear in it a curious metallic ring. That applies to the shells of either side, provided that you are near enough, though usually of course it is the hostile shell and not your own that you are nearest to, and so one distinguishes them. It is curious, after such a colossal event as this explosion must be in the life of a bar of steel, that anything should remain at all of the old bell-like voice of the metal, but it appears to, if you listen attentively; it is perhaps its last remonstrance before leaving its shape and going back to rust in the earth again for ages.

Another of the voices of the night is the whine the shell makes in coming; it is not unlike the cry the hyena utters as soon as it’s dark in Africa: “How nice traveller would taste,” the hyena seems to say, and “I want dead White Man.” It is the rising note of the shell as it comes nearer, and its dying away when it has gone over, that make it reminiscent of the hyena’s method of diction. If it is not going over then it has something quite different to say. It begins the same as the other, it comes up, talking of the back areas with the same long whine as the other. I have heard old hands say “That one is going well over.” “Whee-oo,” says the shell; but just where the “oo” should be long drawn out and turn into the hyena’s final syllable, it says something quite different. “Zarp,” it says. That is bad. Those are the shells that are looking for you.

And then of course there is the whizz-bang coming from close, along his flat trajectory: he has little to say, but comes like a sudden wind, and all that he has to do is done and over at once.

And then there is the gas shell, who goes over gurgling gluttonously, probably in big herds, putting down a barrage. It is the liquid inside that gurgles before it is turned to gas by the mild explosion; that is the explanation of it; yet that does not prevent one picturing a tribe of cannibals who have winded some nice juicy men and are smacking their chops and dribbling in anticipation.

And a wonderful thing to see, even in those wonderful nights, is our thermite bursting over the heads of the Germans. The shell breaks into a shower of golden rain; one cannot judge easily at night how high from the ground it breaks, but about as high as the tops of trees seen at a hundred yards. It spreads out evenly all round and rains down slowly; it is a bad shower to be out in, and for a long time after it has fallen, the sodden grass of winter, and the mud and old bones beneath it, burn quietly in a circle. On such a night as this, and in such showers, the flying pigs will go over, which take two men to carry each of them; they go over and root right down to the German dugout, where the German has come in out of the golden rain, and they fling it all up in the air.

These are such nights as Scheherazade with all her versatility never dreamed of; or if such nightmares came she certainly never told of them, or her august master, the Sultan, light of the age, would have had her at once beheaded; and his people would have deemed that he did well. It has been reserved for a modern autocrat to dream such a nightmare, driven to it perhaps by the tales of a white-whiskered Scheherazade, the Lord of the Kiel Canal; and being an autocrat he has made the nightmare a reality for the world. But the nightmare is stronger than its master, and grows mightier every night; and the All-Highest War Lord learns that there are powers in Hell that are easily summoned by the rulers of earth, but that go not easily home.

From Tales of War by Lord Dunsany, 1918

Not for the Faint Hearted (Yet Inspiring): WWI Case Studies of Facial Reconstruction

A student named Jason Bate, associated with Falmouth University, has produced a remarkable document I happened to stumble across. To tell the story of how surgeons during the First World War developed techniques to restore the faces of severely injured soldiers, he did a deep dive in the medical literature of the period to find photos of the step-by-step process surgeons took to help these poor souls. As you will see below, some of the restoration work seems almost miraculous. His entire article is available HERE. As a postscript for Bate's photos, I've added the story of one notable survivor of a facial injury and surgical restoration.

Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC (1897–1986) was a British Army officer seconded for many years to the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan. He wrote many books after his retirement, primarily on the history of the Middle East and on military history. His best-known work is The Fate of Empires. Glubb served in the First World War with the Royal Engineers, suffered a severe facial wound, and underwent a long reconstruction.  He eventually returned to service on the Western Front before the Armistice.  He later wrote of these experiences in Into battle: A Soldier's Diary of the Great War.

Before Combat and Much Later

 

I heard for a second a distant shell whine, then felt a tremendous explosion almost on top of me […] the floodgates in my neck seemed to burst and the blood poured out in torrents. […] I could feel something long lying loosely in my left cheek, as though I had a chicken  bone in my mouth. It was in reality, half my jaw, which had broken off, teeth and all, and was floating about in my mouth.

Like many soldiers facing similar circumstances, Glubb was transported back to England to await surgery and treatment for his injuries. Upon return home, however, disfigured veterans like Glubb faced a populace at that point incapable of accepting these “broken gargoyles” into a society wishing to overlook the atrocities of war. 

I lay for three months in my bed in Wandsworth during which my wound remained septic, and received no medical attention. …No doctor ever looked at our wounds or removed the bandages. Presumably there were not enough doctors. My mother used to visit me at Wandsworth. Through her I sent applications to all and sundry, for a transfer to another hospital. At last, in November 1917, three months after I had been hit, I was transferred to a new hospital for face injuries at Frognal, Sidcup, Kent. Here things were very different. My broken and septic teeth were extracted and my wound cleaned.

At Sidcup, disfigured soldiers waited to receive surgeries in the hope of restoring the original function and appearance of their faces. As lead surgeon, Dr. Gillies pioneered numerous surgical techniques in facial reconstruction, revolutionizing the work of reconstructive surgery. Working in what he deemed a “strange, new art”, Gillies required the precision of a skilled surgeon with the attention to aesthetic detail of an artist. He and his team developed various new techniques in 1917, like the tube pedicle, which allowed for the grafting of skin from one part of the body to another by keeping blood circulating at the reattached area.

Glubb was later shown an album of “photographs of handsome young men and asked to choose the chin I would like to have!” When discovering how long it would take to build this new chin, he decided to “retain his old face, or whatever was left of it.”  

He returned to the Western Front in time to experience the Armistice. Glubb's restored version of his "old face," shown above, served him well for the next six decades.

"World of Hurt", European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics; The Limits of Medical Discourse: Photography, Facial Disfiguration, and Reconstructive Surgery in England, 1916-1925, Jason Bate, 2014 Falmouth University Thesis

 

World Series Time! Let's Remember Baseball During the Great War—A Roads Classic

In the WW1 Centennial Commission's News Podcast, Episode 93 (12 October), host Theo Mayer spoke with Jim Leeke, author of the book From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball in the Great War. In the interview, he answers a series of questions about the relationship between the major leagues, the players, and the war that changed the world. The following is a transcript:

Theo Mayer: In our historians corner, join us for a deep dive into one of the most American of pastimes, baseball. It's World Series season, and joining us to tell us more about baseball during World War I is Jim Leeke. Author of the book From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball during the Great War. Jim, welcome. 

Jim Leeke: Thanks for having me.

Theo Mayer: So, Jim, when you look at the newspaper Stars and Stripes from 1918, or anywhere in that era, every single issue talks about baseball. How popular was the sport in the 1910s and what's different about the game then than it is today?

Jim Leeke: Well, back then it really was the national pastime. When America entered the war in 1917, they were the two major leagues of course, and there were 22 minor leagues. So it was a very healthy game.

Theo Mayer: For the second round 1918 military draft, unlike the film actors, baseball players were dropped from the draft exemption list and that caused the World Series to be played really early in September. Can you tell us about that series?

Jim Leeke: The regular season ended on Labor Day, and the World Series started right after that. It was the very famous 1918, Chicago Cubs/Boston Red Sox series. The big thing that came out of that series occurred in game one, which was September 5th, in Chicago. That was at Comiskey Park. The star of the day, if not the game, was a young third baseman for the Sox named Fred Thomas, who actually was in the navy and was on leave from the Great Lakes to play in the game.

At the 7th inning stretch, a military band struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was not yet the national anthem, but it was a very famous and popular song nonetheless. The other players on the field turned to the flag and took off their caps, and put their hands over their hearts. Fred Thomas being in the service, snapped off a very correct military salute and this was noticed in the stands, and the fans began singing "The Star-Spangled Banner." It got louder and louder until it was this overwhelming and almost chilling rendition, and that really was the start of "The Star-Spangled Banner" being played at American baseball games. Not every game yet, but from then on, it was played at each World Series game and opening day. Then starting in World War II, it was played for every game.

The other aspect of the 1918 world series was the threat of a player strike. That was a very controversial thing. Their share of the World Series revenue had been cut really without their input, and they weren't happy. On the train from Chicago to Boston, the players got together and decided not to take the field until they got a better deal. They actually had an argument, but it wasn't an argument they could make in that time at that place. The fans were in the stands waiting, among the fans were a number of wounded American troops. The players were in a no-win position, and eventually cooler heads prevailed, and they took the field, but they just got pummeled in the press. The players got pummeled, the owners got pummeled, the leagues got pummeled, and nobody came out of it well, which is almost entirely forgotten today. Nowadays, the 1918 World Series is remembered fondly, because the Red Sox won it and didn't win it again for 86 years. At the time, it was very controversial and tainted in a way.

Theo Mayer: Well now regardless of the draft, a lot of baseball players volunteered, right?

Jim Leeke: A number of players did volunteer. More often, they waited for the draft notice but there were quite a few who volunteered. The first active player to do that was Hank Gowdy. He was the catcher for the old Boston Braves and the world series hero for the 1914 "Miracle Braves." Hank signed up in June 1917 and reported for duty the following month and ended up as a color sergeant in the 42nd Division, the famous Rainbow Division, and he was in combat in France for quite a while. There were a number of former Major Leaguers who signed up as well, and a large percentage of those seem to end up in officer training. Many of them went overseas as well. My favorite was a pitcher named Edward Doc Laffite, who had played for the Tigers and the Brooklyn Tip-Tops in the Federal League, and was a dentist. He served in a plastic surgery unit in the army in France and England. He helped repair soldiers' ruined faces, a very admirable and worthwhile endeavor. 

Theo Mayer: That leads us to about 100 [106] years ago this week, when Captain Eddie Grant was killed in action. Can you tell us about him and how America reacted to his death?

Jim Leeke: Yes. Captain Eddie Grant, called Harvard Eddie when he played. He played ten years in the big leagues. In fact, he was Harvard educated, he was a New York lawyer after he retired, and he was one of the former players who signed up very early. He was in officer training by May 1917. He went to France with the 77th division, and I know you've dealt with this in previous podcasts. Harvard Eddie was killed in the Argonne forest attempting to rescue the Lost Battalion, which was commanded by a friend of his, Major Whittlesey. The newspapers called Eddy Grant baseball's first gold star, which wasn't accurate. He wasn't the first former Major Leaguer who died during the war, but he was certainly the biggest name. His death hit the headlines in probably every sports section in the country, and off the sports pages as well. An acquaintance of mine, the umpire Perry Lee Barber, not long ago tweeted out, "Eddie Grant lives." I'd use that myself, #EddyGrantLives, because I think it's true. You saw the fairly widespread publicity [earlier this month] on the centennial of his death. So it was one of the great, sad stories of World War I.

Theo Mayer: Jim Leeke is a World War I era baseball expert and author of the book, From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During the Great War.

The Presidential Election of 1916, Part II, Incumbent Woodrow Wilson

President Wilson Proved Adept at Campaigning

In 1916, many commentators picked Hughes to win. However,  those  experts—as can happen —were wrong, although in this case, just barely. They seem to have underestimated the growing power of the incumbency in the early 20th century. Wilson had key advantages his opponent lacked—the prestige of the presidency, immediate access to the press and public view, and many surrogates obliged to support him. On this latter point, of his Progressive supporters, former secretary of state William Jennings Bryan—who had resigned in protest over the president's handling of the Lusitania incident—proved his most dynamic advocate, especially in locking down the Western states.  

On the opposing side, Theodore Roosevelt—in his belated effort to mend his Republican fences, championed Hughes—but alarmed many of those same voters with his pugnacity and willingness to see the nation join the war.

Wilson's record domestically was substantial. Over his first term he had pushed through legislation to enable much of his domestic progressive agenda. From the start of the war, the president was also a consistently strong spokesman for American neutrality. Later, as foreign crises mounted, he adroitly evolved into an effective Preparedness advocate. To assuage the Preparedness Movement, Wilson signed two substantial military bills strengthening the army and navy during the campaign: the National Defense Act on 3 June, just before the conventions, and the Naval Appropriations Act on 29 August.  [See our May 2015 issue for more on this legislation and the Preparedness Movement in general.] This "Neutral-but-Prepared" formula of Wilson would help him pull an upset in his single most important state victory: strongly Republican Ohio in the industrial belt, with its 24 electoral votes. Most accounts of the 1916 election focus on Hughes's surprising loss in California. However, had Wilson won California (13 electoral votes) but lost Ohio, he would have failed to be reelected.

Advantage to the Democratic Ticket

Wilson and his running mate Vice President Thomas Marshall were re-nominated on the first ballot at the Democratic convention in St. Louis. The party platform, approved by the president, proposed a slew of reforms, banning child labor, improving prison conditions, and promoting women's suffrage (but not via a constitutional amendment). In foreign affairs, it called for military preparedness and a world association of nations to maintain peace after the war in Europe had ended. More important, its final draft incorporated one of the most successful and deceptive campaign slogans in American history, "[He] Kept Us Out of War." 

As a campaigner, Wilson—in contrast to Hughes—exceeded expectations. He was artful with the English language and could be quite deceptive. In private he admitted to being highly skilled at "truth grazing."  Republican leaders had come to deeply mistrust him during his first term, but naturally, Democrats admired him for these same skills, and they proved extremely  useful to Wilson during the rough-and-tumble campaigning of 1916.

Next Friday:  Part III, The Origins of "He Kept Us Out of War"

Sources: We adapted this series from several sources we should credit here—the Miller Center of the University of Virginia,  the American Presidency Project of the University of California at Santa Barbara, 270 To Win,  OurCampaigns.com,  and Gallup.com.

Remembering a Veteran: Immigrant Doughboy Antonio Pierro, 82nd Division

Antonio Pierro (1896–2007) was born in the Italian town of Forenza, the son of Rocco and Nunzia (Dell'Aquilla) Pierro. His birth date was recorded as 22 February 1896 in the baptismal records. Pierro immigrated to the United States in 1914, and lived in Marblehead and Swampscott, Massachusetts. In 1917 he enlisted in the army, and trained at Fort Dix before being sent off to combat. Pierro saw action in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Pierro served in France with the 82nd Division's 320th Field Artillery. Returning to the U.S. in 1919, he married Mary Pierre in 1920. She died in 1967. 

In civilian life, Pierro managed a Boston Pontiac body shop for many years and retired from the General Electric jet engine plant in Lynn in 1961. He was a member of the V.F.W. Post 2005 in Marblehead and IUE Local 21. He was a former member of the American Legion "Redmen" in Swampscott. Antonio Pierro died on 8 February 2007, just a couple weeks shy of his 111th birthday.

New American Soldier
Tony Pierro of Forenza, Italy

Just before he passed away, the author of The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War, David Laskin, interviewed Tony Pierro and later gave our historical organizations permissions to reprint it:

Here in Seattle, Veterans Day coincides with the height of the rainy season, which seems fitting given the wretched weather that the soldiers endured in France in the weeks leading up to the 1918 Armistice that Veterans Day commemorates. "During the night, a cold penetrating rain began," one soldier wrote of conditions on the first day of the Argonne offensive that ended the Great War. "We couldn't build any fires. We had no overcoats, and had left our blanket rolls in the Bois de Sivry. Some found overcoats and blankets left by the Boche, and rolled up in those. The army slicker is as good as nothing, as far as heat goes, and as to turning water—well, we who wore them in the Argonne, knew what they were worth. The moisture from one's body collects on the inside of the coat, and as soon as the wind strikes you, you are cold for the rest of the day."

French  75 Similar to Those Fired by Tony's Regiment

Such was life in France in the fall of 1918. The rain and wind outside my window seem blessedly benign by comparison. But I really wasn't intending to devote this blog to the weather, rather to the back story of one of the 12 immigrant soldiers featured in my book. When I started researching in earnest in the summer of 2006, two foreign-born World War I veterans were still, miraculously, alive—106-year-old Sam Goldberg and 110-year-old Antonio Pierro. Naturally, I wanted to meet both of them as soon as possible.

I don't recall exactly how I tracked down Tony Pierro, but I do remember that a radio producer named Will Everett was extremely helpful in the process. At the time, Will was taping interviews with the surviving World War I veterans for a radio program called The World War I Living History Project that he was putting together, and he had just spent a long, productive, if sometimes frustrating, day taping an interview with Tony at the Pierro residence in Swampscott, Massachusetts.

The Old Soldier with His Decorations, Including a
Recently Awarded French Legion of Honor

I have learned over years of research and writing that some people jealously guard everything they know about a subject, while others share freely, even with perfect strangers. Will was one of the latter. When I called to pick his brain, he told me that the best way to set up an interview with Tony was to contact his nephew Rick, he advised me to use a loud clear voice in asking questions, and he warned me that I shouldn't expect too many combat stories—after all the guy was 110. Will added that my best chance of getting Tony to talk freely was to bring a pretty young girl along to the interview.

This last bit of advice amused me—110 and still an eye for the ladies!—but Will was insistent, so I pressed my oldest daughter Emily, who fits the bill nicely, into service. I can't say that Tony opened up much—he seemed to be dwelling peacefully deep inside himself and far back in the past. But, with Emily sitting beside him and intercepting the occasional shy courtly smile, Tony talked some about the snakes in his family's vineyard back in Forenza in the south of Italy, the dangers of dodging exploding shells in combat, and a French girl named Magdalena he had loved nine decades ago. When we got up to leave, Tony took Emily's 21-year-old hand in his 110-year-old hand, leaned over, and kissed it.

David Laskin's volume on America's new
immigrants who served in the AEF is still
 in print and can be ordered HERE.

Some Notes on Russia's Imperial Air Service at War

By Raul Colon

The Imperial Air Service, 1912–1917

When the Great War started on August 1914, Germany and Russia shared a vast frontier that stretched from the midway between Danzig and Riga, near the Baltic coast, running west of Warsaw, south through Galicia, finally ending on the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. The first phase of the air action took place in two main sectors of the border: the northern area and Galicia. Initially, German air assets in the east were limited, but the the Russian units were utterly ineffective, contributing to the Tannenberg disaster.  Over time this would change. The only  Russian-designed air platform to see action during the first year of the war was the massive Sikorsky four-engine bomber. Seventy-three of the Ilya Muromets G-9 heavy bombers were constructed from 1914 until 1917.

Russia's Most Famous Aircraft of WWI: the Ilya Muromets

The war between the Central Powers  and Tsarist Russia lasted three hard-fought years. It ended abruptly on October 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power in Moscow. The Imperial Air Service effectively died at that point. It  was subsequently reorganized and divided between the Red and White forces for the coming civil war.

Notable Members of the Imperial Air Service

The fact the many Russian pilots became World War I aces, despite flying obsolete platforms and applying dreadful tactics, was a tribute to their skill and training. In general, the bulk of the Russian Air Service assets, although lagging almost a year behind in technology, still were good enough to hang in with the experienced German and Austrian pilots. The weakness was the command structure. The officer corps was filled with tsarist-created nobility. A sense of entitlement permeated its core. Because of it, when disasters in the front mounted, they were ill equipped to handle the challenge.  

Major Kazakov, 1917

One particular airman resoundingly distinguished himself on the Eastern Front. His name was Alexander Kazakov (1889–1919). Kazakov was born in the Kherson province. After attending the prestigious Yelizavetgrad Cavalry School in 1908, Kazakov joined the Gatchina military aviation school, completing his training by 1914. In 1915, Kazakov was sent to the Ukraine with the purpose of shoring up air operations in the region. It was there that his reputation as a top ace was formed. Flying Morane-Saulnier, SPAD-SA2, Nieuport 11 and Nieuport 17 planes, the young airman is credited with shooting down 17 Central Powers aircraft, top among Russian pilots at the time. There was a rumor that the number is actually 32, but because the Russian counted only aircraft which crashed on its territory, 17 is the figure recorded in the history books. 

In 1917, he was assigned command of the newly formed No. 1 Fighter Group, but the unit was disbanded when the Bolsheviks took control in October. Later, Kazakov made his way north to Archangelsk to join in with the British, who landed there in 1918. He perished on 1 August 1919, while practicing aerobatics for the Russian White Army. Overall, he was awarded 18 medals, including the British Distinguished Service Order and the French Legion d'Honneur, were awarded to this aviation pioneer.

Alexander de Seversky Before the War

Another trailblazing Russian pilot was Alexander de Seversky (1894–1974). As with fellow inventor Igor Sikorsky, Seversky's path would ultimately lead him to America, but not before he made an invaluable contribution to the Russian war effort. Stationed in the Gulf of Riga, Seversky, a naval aviator with the rudimentary Russian Naval Air Service, his first combat sortie was a solo attack against a German destroyer. While diving for his bomb run, he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire only seconds before he was set to drop his bomb. As the plane crashed, the bomb exploded on contact with the sea, killing his spotter and blowing off his right leg. After healing, he returned to active duty and was assigned the mission of coordinating all fighter aviation units in the Baltic sector. Seversky is cited with 13 kills, but, as with many of the records of the era, this fact is disputed. He was in America when the revolution started, shortly after which he applied for full U.S. citizenship. In the spring of 1922, he founded the Seversky Aero Corporation and became a noted air power advocate.

Lt. Commander Viktor Utgoff (1889–1930)

It was the collapse of discipline all along the front in the aftermath of the revolution, particularly in Ukraine, that inspired a counter political and military activities. Despite explicit order from the new Soviet regime, many Russian air force personnel continued to resist the Germans. One of them, Lieutenant Commander Viktor Utgoff (1889–1930), of the Black Sea Fleet who, flying his Grigorovich M-9 seaplane out of the seaplane tender Imperator Nikolai Pervyi, attacked a German U-boat. After the war, Utgov joined the large cradle of Russian pilots emigrating to the United States, where he became a naval test pilot. His son would become a notable authority on defense matters and serve on the National Security Council in the Carter adminstration.

Sources: (An earlier version of this article appeared at Aviationearth.com.)

Way of a Fighter, Claire Chennault, Putnam Books 1949

The First World War, Hew Strachan, Penguin Books 2003

The Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, Robert Jackson, Paragon Publishing Books 2006

Remembering Major Tonie Holt, Battlefield Guru, Author, and Friend

Tonie Holt with a Partial Stack of Major and
Mrs. Holt's Guidebooks

Major Tonie Holt died of a stroke at age 91 on 5 September, and his funeral was held last Saturday 5 October. In this tribute to him, I would like to share some of the great contributions he made to the industry he substantially founded, to the study and appreciation of military history, and for heightening the recognition of the sacrifices made by the participants in those conflicts.

During my career leading battlefield tour groups in Europe, I was able to make friends with the leading figures and innovators in the business, Tonie and Valmai Holt. The founder of my parent company, Valor Tours, the late Bob Reynolds, had collaborated with them over the years.  When I arrived on the scene as Valor's World War One specialist, they took me under their wing, answering my questions and feeding me ideas for my tour presentations and publications. Twice they went way out of their way to visit Bob and me on the Somme and at Omaha Beach. Those were truly happy experiences.

This Was an Easter Greeting from Valmai and Tonie

Tonie Holt was born 10 December 1932 in Portsmouth, Great Britain.  A graduate of Sandhurst Military College, he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers and in 1958 met his life love and partner in all things, Valmai. After service overseas, Tonie moved on from the army and the husband-wife team began collaborating along parallel tracks in publishing and travel.  

In the 1970s, things got started with their collection of postcards from the First World War, which became Picture Postcards of the Golden Age: A Collector’s Guide. Then came Till the Boys Come Home: The Picture Postcards of the First World War and The Best of Fragments from France by Captain Bruce Bairnsfather. Like many of the Holts’ subsequent publications, these have rarely been out of print. The Holts did everything in their power to encourage and support families that wished to make pilgrimages to the sites where their families had served. Whenever possible, they visited Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and memorials and encouraged veterans and their families to attend remembrance services such as the Menin Gate on 11 November each year, to keep alive what they regarded as the true spirit of Armistice Day. They eventually became advisors to the Royal British Legion on such matters. The next step was to see it was all done right was to start their own company.

Honoring One of the Fallen at Tyne Cot

With the founding of Major & Mrs Holt’s Battlefield Tours in the 1980s, Tonie and Valmai became the most prominent business in the world in their niche for the next decade and a half. Their excursions became well known for the professionalism of the tour leaders and the smoothness of the operations. In the late ‘90s, they sold their company and resumed writing again. In 1998 came My Boy Jack? The Search for Kipling's Only Son. This was followed by Poets of the Great War (2001), and In Search of a Better 'Ole: A Biography of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather (2008). In between producing these titles and afterward, the Holts published numerous high-quality guides to the battlefields of Europe back to the Crimean War. 

On a personal level, whether through email or in person, Tonie and Valmai have simply radiated generosity with their work and have never touted their many achievements. Over the years, I've learned they have frequently gone far out of their way to support other individuals and organizations in the name of making the study of military history more interesting and more moving. Some, I've only learned of by reading Tonie's recent obituaries. In closing, I would like share a list some of these activities (hardly comprehensive, of course). These include:

• The campaign to save “Toc H” (Talbot House) in Poperinge

• Preserving the Lochnagar mine crater as a memorial

• The creation of a museum at Pegasus Bridge, Normandy

• Enhancing the Christmas Truce and Bairnsfather sites at Plug Street in Flanders

• Working with the Royal British Legion to fund visits of war widows and ex-POWs to travel overseas to pay their respects to their family members and comrades

Thanks for all you've done and rest in peace, Tonie.

Mike Hanlon

(Note: I drew a lot on Tonie's obituaries in The Telegraph and from the Western Front Association for this piece.)

Where Was the World's Most Influential Armenian during the Armenian Genocide?

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869–1955) was known during his lifetime as “Mr. Five Per Cent.” This was due to his personal share of Middle East oil. Gulbenkian was an Ottoman Armenian from a wealthy merchant family. Later a naturalized British citizen (or “British Subject” which was the term used at the time), he also held three other diplomatic passports and held at various stages Ottoman and Persian/Iranian diplomatic credentials. By the late 1890s, Gulbenkian had developed a reputation as a man who wove intricate and labyrinthine webs of investors and global speculators.

He remains today a very elusive historical individual, a spider at the heart of a veritable global web, an oilman and financier, who became the world’s richest man. Few escaped the consequences of his tentacles yet not many outside the corridors of power knew about his role. Which is just as he wanted it. In any case, this man—almost invisible  to the general public—eventually became the most influential and richest man of Armenian ancestry in the world.  Of course, his ethnicity had no bearing on his dealings in the world of oil. His interests were intertwined with nations and wealthy elites around the world. Most notably, before the war, Gulbenkian negotiated a five percent share of oil in the Ottoman Empire and managed to hold and add on to that share even following the fall of that empire. This fabulous "guaranteed income" would eventually allow him to become one of the greatest philanthropists in history, but not quite yet.

The Great War came.  

The Armenian people living in the Ottoman provinces of eastern Anatolia, like other non-Turkish and non-Muslim subjects of the Empire, had long suffered from systematic discrimination and, at times, harsh persecution. For them the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the Great War was to have particularly devastating consequences. Beginning in April 1915, the Ottoman authorities rounded up tens of thousands of Armenian men and had them shot. Hundreds of thousands of Armenian women and children were deported. "Deportation" being a euphemism for slow death.

Armenian Deportation, c.1915

The Armenian massacres made no impact on Gulbenkian's business dealings with Turks. Despite his clout, he apparently made no effort to  prevent the massacre of the Armenians in Turkey. With his worldwide network of informants, there can be no doubt that he knew what was happening. His biographer defends him: ". . . In 1915 Gulbenkian was not in a position to influence either the Sultan or the Ministers. Between 1914 to 1923, Gulbenkian was living in London, and he had no contact with the Turkish Regime.”

To some, Gulbenkian appeared uninterested in being a “good Armenian.” Other fellow Armenians nonetheless looked to him as a benefactor and a leader of their diaspora. There are only a few foggy and sometimes contradictory accounts of his response to such appeals. Some sources mention his support for the Armenian General Benevolent Union (ABGU), the Paris-based philanthropy, originally founded in Cairo in 1906 that sought to promote the welfare of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire. He would be appointed to the presidency of the ABGU, but there are contradictory accounts as to whether this was during the war, or sometime afterward. Nonetheless, it seems evident that Gulbenkian did support the work of the union.

In any case, the efforts of the ABGU were primarily focused without the Ottoman Empire. In the union's own history they state, "The magnitude of the Armenian Genocide atrocity meant a refugee crisis that spanned multiple countries and continents. AGBU and its  chapters worked to ensure supplies made their way into the hands of tens of thousands of survivors. After hostilities ended,  AGBU and the Allied forces worked together to tend to the needs of Armenian refugees across the Middle East."

Postwar, and as Gulbekian became increasingly wealthy, he appears to have been a remarkably generous contributor to the Armenian diaspora. He donated to schools, churches, hospitals, and scholarships. He also established the St. Sarkis Armenian church in London as a memorial.  His foundation—100 years later—promotes arts, charity, education, and science. It also funds publications and other works for Armenian communities and even sponsored events commemorating the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

The list in the above paragraph could have been much longer.  The organizations he supported and financed, as well his surviving family, have been magnanimous beyond measure for the Armenian people and many others. This, however, still seems out of balance with his apparent lack of action when the Young Turks were murdering his people in huge numbers.  He appears to have kept silent and protected his business interests. I can't find anything to suggest otherwise.  Of course, there is no record of what Calouste Gulbenkian might have done or said behind the scenes to aid the victims.

Sources: Defense.info; The Armenian Mirror Spectator; Mister Five Percent;  Asbarez, 19 June 2019; Armenian General Benevolent Union Website

A Day in the Life of a Despatch Rider on the Western Front

 

By Max Pemberton

Originally presented in The War Illustrated, 6 January 1917

HE is quite young, a boy in fact. He had been at a public school two years ago, got his colours for football, and was the proud owner of a Triumph. How little he thought when the birthday brought it that he would be riding a similar machine pell-mell upon the roads of France before he had celebrated his twenty-first birthday.

Yet here he is upon a sunny morning of October, wheeling hiss machine down a broad avenue of poplars and looking back, perhaps a little wistfully, to the pleasant chateau embowered yonder in what was once a fair and goodly garden. An old, old man, sweeping up the dirty brown leaves, gives him a "Bon jour !" and wishes him God-speed. The scene is very French and for the moment very restful. There are sentries at the gate and they alone speak of war.

Our young friend, of course, is a despatch-rider — one of that splendid body of mere youtlis who have done such wonderful things upon the great French high roads. He is one of those who may be called upon to fight his lonely battle against the Huns at any hour of any day, who must wage it single-handed, who cannot hope for any kind of help. God be good to him, he is cheerful enough ! His face this morning is as polished as the good machine he rides. He wears stout khaki overalls ; he has a revolver handy ; the precious despatches are like love-letters on his heart. Yesterday he had a few spare hours and took it into his head to give the "old girl" a clean. Usually she is as filthy as the roads he dares, but to-day she is smiling like a bride.

Hey-ho for the Great Adventure!

Now, the despatch-rider has a journey of twenty-three kilometres to make, and his destination is the town. The word should ring pleasantly, as it ever does to rural ears in places remote. But do not make too much of the town. There are ruins there and great gaps which once were churches ; hotels which leak wickedly, and shops which can sell you nothing but dust. For all that it is the town, and our youth will eat and drink there and make a brief hour of merriment. That is to say, he will do all this if he arrives. It is the "if" which is the tragedy.

He, God bless him ! never thinks at all about it. He has ridden there so often, faced perils so many, known such tight places that it has all become a mere picnic. This morning he likes it better than ever. The sun is shining, the great marshland looks almost picturesque. It suggests great distances, shining rivers, the homesteads which were, And it is at the moment a land of peace. Yonder, far away over the low hills, the Hun is at breakfast. Mighty is the -sausage, and it shall prevail. He will fire no shot until lie has gorged. So our man leaps upon his Triumph with all the spirit of the boy he is. Hey-ho for the great adventure ! No knight of the old time ever rode a highway more blithely.

On the Alert

To be sure, there is company enough when the first of the villages has been passed. The road goes straight as an arrow across the tremendous plain, flanked by poplars and bordered by ditches. Traffic of all kinds frequents it at the busy hour, but not at this hour of breakfast. Now you shall see waggons at the roadside with their drivers eating. A platoon tramps leisurely with the steps of men who have fed. A fat officer rides a lean horse, but does not put him to the trot. All hail the boy as a friend. He gives them a merry "Cheer oh !" and a vigorous wave of the arm. The light and strength of the morning are in his eyes, the road is fair,. the rhythm of his exhaust like the rattle of a machine-gun. The town is three kilometres nearer by this time. "What a jolly business !" you say. "What a good time these fellows have !" But pause a moment, for the curtain is about to rise upon another picture.

The road sweeps to the left, and the gleaming face of a usually dull river is revealed. The despatch-rider hears a low booming sound, and he pricks his cars. Yonder, a mile away upon a little hill, there stands a hamlet once as fair as any in Flanders. The shells of the houses still remain, and the old church has the ghost of a tower remaining. But the despatch-rider knows it for the place of peril that it is. That booming echo across the great marsh brings a message which is unmistakable. "Hallo," says the boy, " they're shelling X — — ." It is just as though one at home had said, "We're going to have thunder."

He bends a little lower over his saddle now and begins to look out. There will be shell-holes hereabouts ; and shell-holes are ugly customers for a man upon a bicycle. Even the smallest will be some four feet in circumference and as many deep. The largest are caverns into which a furniture van could fall. The boy dodges them with a skill which is amazing.

Travelling Like a Race-horse

He is travelling at forty miles an hour, and the Triumph quivers like a race-horse beneath him. Now it will be a tremendous swerve to the right; again such a left incline that luck alone keeps him from the profundity of ditches. But he. is a master, and nothing matters. The skid, which would send the dilettante at home into hospital for a month, finds the boy using his legs like a boxer in the ring. He is down ; he is up. An amazed peasant ploughing in yonder field despite the shells cries "Sacre nom !" and follows him with eyes bewitched. He is going over yonder to X — — , and bell may lie beyond it.

There are sentries at the entrance to the village, but they do not worry the boy. Where any other to come up they would prate of danger, saying, "You cannot go on ; the Bodies are bombarding us." But it is no good saying that to the boy, who passes them with a yell which is familiar and a wave which is stimulating. Now he is up the hill and can look ahead for many miles upon the white high road he must follow.

Tokens of the Huns' Goodwill

It is no pleasant prospect. The Hun has had information that a convoy would pass that particular spot at ten o'clock this morning, and he is now shelling it for all he is worth. You sec the tokens of his goodwill everywhere : in the air above, the white flakes of the shrapnel from the ground below, the yellow, the brown, and the black smoke of the high explosive. Viewed thus there does not seem a yard of space where you could shelter a dog. Does the boy stop because of it ? Not on your life. Down goes his head, wide open goes his throttle. The "old girl" accelerates like a wonder at Brooklands. A thunder of sounds is in-the boy's cars, but he does not heed it. Great blasts Of air strike him menacingly, but do not check his speed. Sometimes he will say, "That was a close shave !" but lie prefers not to think about it. He is in the very pit, and God alone can bring him out.

Nor is it any good to think of shelter. One of his pals did so not long ago — got off his machine and went into that little hut over yonder until the storm should pass. The next instant 'a shell struck the shanty and blew it sky-high. Our boy will take no risks of that kind. He drives on, every yard is a landmark in the race for safety ; every second has meaning in time's great lottery. The shells are raining about him, and any one may leave him a thing of torn flesh and broken bone there upon the accursed highway. He is fighting the Hun alone; yet upon his courage to- morrow's great victory may depend.

Well, lie gets through, turns a welcome corner and finds himself in a place of peace. Here is the convoy which the Bodies thought they were shelling. The boy delights to race by it with just a word to its officers and another "Cheer ah !" for its men. The town is not far off by this time, and the odour of baked meats seems to be in the air. The boy will lunch like a "good 'un," and then hope to sleep the sleep of the just.

Hard on him. if he must return to-night! Yet such proves to be the edict.

He must go back, says authority, must quit the town : must forget that there are still white sheets and soft pillows in France. He takes his gruel without complaint ; yet night shall be one of terrors unnamable. His battle is but half won ; he must round off the victory. A lamp he has, it is true, but there will be many a mile upon which lie dare not show its aureole, and there is no sun to shine upon him now. The great marshland — in its desolation so similar to the great fens of our own England — that land will be steaming with mists when he crosses it ; its rivers will have become dark and silent pools ; its ruins will stand up like black sepulchres above some horrid place of the dead. Well is it that the boy has no imagination. His "Cheer oh !" now may be a" little modulated. but it is heard. His lamp burns brightly when lie leaves the town, but five miles beyond it that lamp is out. Here is the danger-zone ; he must trust to his luck now. God send that a shell-hole does not kill him !

Scene for a Great Word Painter

It is a weird scene, the Lord knows, and one to which none but a great word painter could, do justice. There are clouds in the sky, but a dim moon wrestles with them and the land below becomes a cold grey vista of solitude and desolation. Far away a little star of light may mark a house or village, or even another rider on the road ; but for the most part there is no light save that which the parish lantern vouchsafes. The boy is merely conscious of the fact, he is not afraid. The rim of a shell-hole has just brought him down heavily, and he scrambles from the mud and turns his lamp upon the beloved machine and risks the Hun and his venom. Has any damage been done ? He does not stop to ask if he himself be hurt; the machine alone matters. He starts the engine with a kick, and listens anxiously for the answer. He wheels the bike a little way and discovers that the steering is all right. There is joy in that house because of the sinner who is saved. The boy mounts and gradually recovers his confidence. The cold wind cuts his face like a rope ; the mud is all over him. He hears the boom of shells for the first time since he quitted the town, and his pulse leaps at that.

He must get there ! There is but one place in all the world for-him to-night. He must do his duty. The precious papers which his body is warming must be laid on the general's table before midnight. Let all the furies of hell rain upon this desolation, the boy must face them.

He sets his teeth and bends his head lower to the wheel. There are flecks of fire upon the far horizon, now and ever and anon some mighty flash of light in the fields about him. One shell bursts over his very head and for a minute he is blinded, and he swerves wildly upon the slippery road. Another narrow shave — but what matter ?

The Bridge Is Down!

The boy turns on his headlight, for he knows that he is coming to the bridge across the river. It should be there — just at the bend. He searches for it anxiously, the light glowing in the blackness. "By God in heaven, it is not there !" he cries. The bridge is down, and but for the inspiration of the lamp he himself would have plunged headlong into the black water, and to-morrow there would have been another body drifting amid the reeds of the Yser. He pulls up to be sure of it, and wipes the mud from his face. What is to be done ? There is a temporary bridge, he remembers, two miles to the right, there by the. farm-house, which is a shattered landmark set upon a lonely hill. To reach it you must plough through mud and slime indescribable. The boy crosses the dike upon a frail. plank and has to drag the Triumph from its waters. The bog beneath him is Like a quagmire ; his boots squelch in it and arc nearly torn from his feet. It has become black dark, and there is a cold rain falling. He sees nothing now, his luminous compass alone will guide him.

For hours he is out there alone in the wilderness, not a sound to be heard but that of the booming shells ; not another living soul in all the world for what he can see of it.

Courage is needed now, the courage which is his birthright. He goes on doggedly, saying, "I must, I must !" Good God, will he never find the bridge ! They are waiting for him at Headquarters ; it is torture to be held up thus on the very threshold.

He finds it at last, scrambles over its muddy planks and pushes on into the lane that shall take him back to the high road. The very fact that he has crossed the river makes all other perils seem but thirty cents. With a wild war-whoop he swings again into the familiar high road and boldly switches on his lamp, so great is the emergency. He can see the shell-holes now, and no trained acrobat dodges them more skilfully. The last mite beyond the village is a joy beyond imagination. The boy does fifty miles an hour along it, despite the press of waggons and camions. Yonder between the trees are the welcome lights. The general is there waiting for him. "Hooray !" says the boy as he swings into the avenue. An hour later he will be fast asleep — shall we say dreaming of England, and another ?

Source: The Tony Langley Collection