OneManGang
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Memorial Day 2014
The KNOWN Soldier of World War I
The KNOWN Soldier of World War I
Even a secular nation such as ours can be said to have sacred places. Great buildings of government are important and in some cases, historical relics in and of themselves. One can tour the Capitol Building in Washington or the White House and come away with a sense of both awe and ownership. These are still, though, working buildings. Men and women go to work in them every day and complain about their jobs, the weather, the price of nearly everything or how their supervisor just doesnt understand and so forth.
Nearby, though, is what in many ways is our national Holy of Holies. It is a shrine so sacred and so powerful that even the perpetually offended refuse to gripe about the invocation of the Deity carved on one of its marble sides. The shrine is guarded by soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the United States Army twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in sun and storm and war and peace. In the wee hours of the morning the shrine echoes to the measured tread of these soldiers clad in dress blues and carrying M-14 rifles so clean they could be carried in a operating room as they flawlessly execute the First General Order: I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved.
It is, of course, the Tomb of the Unknowns. The centerpiece of the memorial is a marble sarcophagus bearing the words on its west side, Here rests in honored glory AN AMERICAN SOLDIER known but to God.
The soldier under that sarcophagus is one of the approximately 112,000 Americans who fell in the War to End War better known as the First World War. On the east side of his resting place are later tombs from World War II and Korea which are there as silent proof of the adage that, Only the dead have seen the end of War.
Until recently there was a similar tomb from the Vietnam War, however improvements in forensic technology using mitochondrial DNA showed the man buried there to be 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie whose plane had been shot down in 1973. Lt. Blassie's remains were exhumed in 1998 and he was laid to rest in the National Cemetery at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Missouri.
Less well known is the fact that there was originally to have been a second sarcophagus at the memorial honoring those soldiers who had been identified. A variation on the method used to select the Unknown Soldier was used to choose the Known Soldier. For the Unknown, Sgt. Edward Younger entered a pavilion containing four identical coffins, one from each of the American Cemeteries in France. Sgt. Younger placed roses and one of the coffins and the other three were returned to the cemeteries they came from. For the Known Soldier, a sailor on board the transport Cambria carrying American war dead was blindfolded and ran his finger down the list of names and pointed to one.
It is here we meet the man selected, Pvt. Charles Graves of Rome, Georgia.
Private Graves enlisted in the Army on August 16. 1917. He was sent to Camp Sevier outside Greenville, SC where he became a part of M Company, 3rd Battalion, 117th Infantry Regiment, 30th Division. The 117th Infantry had been formed from the 3rd Tennessee Infantry of the Tennessee National Guard which was made up largely of men from East Tennessee. After training at Camp Sevier, Charles and the men of M Company boarded ship and sailed for France. Upon arrival they learned that, unlike most other units of what was now the American Expeditionary Force fighting under the command of General John J. Pershing, the 30th Division and the 27th Division formed from New York National Guard units would be placed under British command.
Private Graves served honorably until M Company was ordered to move to positions between Beaurevior and Montbrehain on October 5, 1918. It was during this movement, from a rear area to the front lines, that Pvt. Charles Graves lost is life.
There is no record of exactly what happened to Pvt. Graves. None of the internet sources have any further information than his date of death. However, Pvt. Graves' battalion commander, Maj, Nathaniel Callen left behind a monograph he prepared as a student in the Infantry Officer's Advance Course at Ft. Benning which details the actions of his unit that day.
Using Maj. Callen's paper, we find there are two possible events which may have proved fatal for Pvt. Graves. In the first, a pair of German aircraft strafed the column containing the 3rd Battalion and dropped some bombs causing casualties. Secondly, once the battalion had reached their objective line they came under heavy German Artillery fire. One shell hit M Company and killed the company commander and sixteen men. Again, there is no way of knowing if Pvt. Graves was one of those sixteen.
Pvt. Graves was buried in a nearby American cemetery and then exhumed to return home.
After the Cambria arrived in new York, parades and speeches were held to celebrate Pvt. Graves as representing all the men who had fallen in the war. This was to set the stage for an even bigger celebration when his coffin reached Arlington. At this point a problem arose.
Charles' mother had not been consulted ahead of time and knew nothing of what was planned for her son until a delegation showed up on her doorstep telling her of the "wonderful honor" awaiting him.
Charles' mother would have none of it. She let the delegation know, in no uncertain terms that she absolutely did NOT want her boy buried in Arlington, much less be part of a national shrine. She then informed the War Department that Charles was to be brought home to Rome and be laid to rest amongst his people in the cemetery next to the Antioch Church and that was final! The Army, desparing of the sheer volume of negative publicity this little old lady from backwater Georgia had the potential to generate, caved and her will was done.
Private Charles Graves slept in the Antioch Cemetery until 1921 when the citizens of Rome decided he needed a somewhat more impressive a grave and had him dug up yet once more to be laid to rest at the foot of Myrtle Hill in the cemetery there. In 2000, a large plaza was constructed around his grave guarded by three Vickers machine guns cast in bronze.
So there now.
On this Memorial Day, I urge you to pause for a bit and ponder on the legacy men like Private Charles Graves and all our fallen heroes of all our wars have left us.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived. - Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
© Pat Gang - 2014
Suggested Reading:
Capt. Nathaniel Callen, "Operations of the 3rd Battalion 117th Infantry (30th Division) in the British Offensive Toward Maubuge, October 5 - 8, 1918 - available online at Ft. Benning Maneuver Center of Excellence Libraries
Capt. Reese Amis (ed) Knox County in the World War (1919) available at the UT Library and the Knox County Public Library
Mitchell Yockelson, Borrowed Soldiers (2008) available at Amazon, etc.
Laurence Stallings Doughboys (1963) check libraries and used book stores.
Memorial to Pvt. Charles Graves, Myrtle Hill Cemetery, Rome Georgia (photo: Mike Dover)
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