OneManGang
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Tell Them I did My Bit - Memorial Day 2013
The United States was a latecomer to the First World War. After a series of provocations, the Congress finally acted, declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary in April of 1917. The US Army was in such sorry shape at the time war was declared that it was May of the next year before even a single division could deploy to France and make an attack.
That being said, over 4.5 million young Americans were called to the colors and over two million of them made it to France before the Armistice. According to official Army figures 56,000 of them were killed in combat or died of their wounds, a similar number fell victim to disease, accidents or other non-combat causes. The Army's statistical record also points out the grim fact that in the last six weeks of fighting the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) was suffering an average of 6,000 killed in action EACH WEEK. No, that is not a mis-print.
Knoxville and Knox County contributed 5,305 men to the cause. Of these 11 officers and 150 enlisted men died in service, a rate of just under 5% which is very heavy, considering only about half the total number in service actually went to France. Of these 161 fatalities, 122 were killed in action.
Thousands of cars and trucks cross the Alcoa Highway Bridge going to and from Knoxville every day. A few of the drivers know that the bridge is properly named the J.E. Buck Karnes Bridge. They figure he must have been some politician or rich guy. They would be wrong.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]JAMES E. KARNES, sergeant, Company D, 117th Infantry, 30th Division. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Estrees, France, October 8, 1918. During an advance his company was held up by a machine gun which was enfilading the line. Accompanied by another soldier, he advanced against this position and succeeded in reducing the nest by killing three and capturing seven of the enemy and their guns. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Residence at enlistment: 2501 Broadway Avenue, Knoxville, Tenn.[/FONT]
Finally, the politicians agreed to an Armistice. With typical Great War perversity, the agreed to time for the guns to go silent was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. At 1100 hours on 11 November 1918, the fighting would stop. The AEF was on the offensive and Black Jack Pershing was determined to make the Germans aware that the Americans had beaten them and ordered American units to continue the attack right up to 1100.
In the National Cemetery in Knoxville the headstones are all laid out just so. Marker B-17 8698 belongs to Private Oscar Rider of M Company, 3rd Battalion, 321st Infantry, 81st Division. Private Rider enlisted on April 26, 1918 and after an abbreviated training at Camp Jackson, SC, shipped out to France with the rest of the division, arriving there on August 14. By September 16, they were in the front lines in a quiet sector where boredom was a bigger danger than the Germans. After some back and forth, they were finally ordered to make a major attack at 0600 on 11 November, a mere five hours before the guns were to fall silent. M Company led the advance but came under determined German machine-gun fire. One hour before he could have stacked arms and come home to Knoxville, Private Oscar Rider was killed. He was the last Knoxvillian to fall in action in the Great War. In a war characterized by futility, it is perhaps fitting that Private Rider's ultimate sacrifice was in a meaningless attack on a meaningless objective in the last hour of a war that settled nothing.
I will close out with the story of another of those names to be read Monday, Corporal Ralph Boles.
Ralph Boles joined the Tennessee National Guard before the war and took part in the security operations along the Texas border in 1916 to protect against any further depredations of Pancho Villa and his band of merry cutthroats. He returned to Knoxville but was called back to active duty when the Tennessee National Guard was activated for service in World War I.
Corporal Boles was assigned to Headquarters Company, 117th Infantry, and took part in the bitter fighting around Bellicourt, France, and jumped off with his regiment on October 8, 1918 in an assault on the town of Premont. Corporal Boles was killed that day along with twenty-seven of his fellow Knoxvillians.
After the war his family had his remains brought home and he sleeps now in the National Cemetery in his home town.
On his headstone there is a sentiment that would seem to express all that these young men of the Great War and all our wars before and since try to say to us through the mists of time:
Monday, for the third year in row, it will be my honor to stand to the podium and participate in the "Reading of the Names" at the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial on the World's Fair site. I would suggest that everyone who can do so make it a point Monday morning to attend this moving ceremony. You don't have to do any of the readings, your presence alone will be deeply meaningful to the veterans and families honoring those who gave Lincoln's "last full measure" on battlefields from France in World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I wish the entire VolNation family a very safe and happy Memorial Day.
- Pat Gang, Memorial Day Weekend 2013
The United States was a latecomer to the First World War. After a series of provocations, the Congress finally acted, declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary in April of 1917. The US Army was in such sorry shape at the time war was declared that it was May of the next year before even a single division could deploy to France and make an attack.
That being said, over 4.5 million young Americans were called to the colors and over two million of them made it to France before the Armistice. According to official Army figures 56,000 of them were killed in combat or died of their wounds, a similar number fell victim to disease, accidents or other non-combat causes. The Army's statistical record also points out the grim fact that in the last six weeks of fighting the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) was suffering an average of 6,000 killed in action EACH WEEK. No, that is not a mis-print.
Knoxville and Knox County contributed 5,305 men to the cause. Of these 11 officers and 150 enlisted men died in service, a rate of just under 5% which is very heavy, considering only about half the total number in service actually went to France. Of these 161 fatalities, 122 were killed in action.
Thousands of cars and trucks cross the Alcoa Highway Bridge going to and from Knoxville every day. A few of the drivers know that the bridge is properly named the J.E. Buck Karnes Bridge. They figure he must have been some politician or rich guy. They would be wrong.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]AWARD[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]OF THE[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]OF THE[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]INTREPIDITY ABOVE AND BEYOND[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]THE CALL OF DUTY IN ACTION WITH THE ENEMY[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]INTREPIDITY ABOVE AND BEYOND[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]THE CALL OF DUTY IN ACTION WITH THE ENEMY[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]JAMES E. KARNES, sergeant, Company D, 117th Infantry, 30th Division. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Estrees, France, October 8, 1918. During an advance his company was held up by a machine gun which was enfilading the line. Accompanied by another soldier, he advanced against this position and succeeded in reducing the nest by killing three and capturing seven of the enemy and their guns. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Residence at enlistment: 2501 Broadway Avenue, Knoxville, Tenn.[/FONT]
Finally, the politicians agreed to an Armistice. With typical Great War perversity, the agreed to time for the guns to go silent was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. At 1100 hours on 11 November 1918, the fighting would stop. The AEF was on the offensive and Black Jack Pershing was determined to make the Germans aware that the Americans had beaten them and ordered American units to continue the attack right up to 1100.
In the National Cemetery in Knoxville the headstones are all laid out just so. Marker B-17 8698 belongs to Private Oscar Rider of M Company, 3rd Battalion, 321st Infantry, 81st Division. Private Rider enlisted on April 26, 1918 and after an abbreviated training at Camp Jackson, SC, shipped out to France with the rest of the division, arriving there on August 14. By September 16, they were in the front lines in a quiet sector where boredom was a bigger danger than the Germans. After some back and forth, they were finally ordered to make a major attack at 0600 on 11 November, a mere five hours before the guns were to fall silent. M Company led the advance but came under determined German machine-gun fire. One hour before he could have stacked arms and come home to Knoxville, Private Oscar Rider was killed. He was the last Knoxvillian to fall in action in the Great War. In a war characterized by futility, it is perhaps fitting that Private Rider's ultimate sacrifice was in a meaningless attack on a meaningless objective in the last hour of a war that settled nothing.
I will close out with the story of another of those names to be read Monday, Corporal Ralph Boles.
Ralph Boles joined the Tennessee National Guard before the war and took part in the security operations along the Texas border in 1916 to protect against any further depredations of Pancho Villa and his band of merry cutthroats. He returned to Knoxville but was called back to active duty when the Tennessee National Guard was activated for service in World War I.
Corporal Boles was assigned to Headquarters Company, 117th Infantry, and took part in the bitter fighting around Bellicourt, France, and jumped off with his regiment on October 8, 1918 in an assault on the town of Premont. Corporal Boles was killed that day along with twenty-seven of his fellow Knoxvillians.
After the war his family had his remains brought home and he sleeps now in the National Cemetery in his home town.
On his headstone there is a sentiment that would seem to express all that these young men of the Great War and all our wars before and since try to say to us through the mists of time:
Tell them I did my bit.
Monday, for the third year in row, it will be my honor to stand to the podium and participate in the "Reading of the Names" at the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial on the World's Fair site. I would suggest that everyone who can do so make it a point Monday morning to attend this moving ceremony. You don't have to do any of the readings, your presence alone will be deeply meaningful to the veterans and families honoring those who gave Lincoln's "last full measure" on battlefields from France in World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I wish the entire VolNation family a very safe and happy Memorial Day.
- Pat Gang, Memorial Day Weekend 2013
