Personal Reminiscences
My military experiences started in 1907 at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, from which college I graduated in 1912. In 1915 Battery "D", 1st Virginia Field Artillery was organized at Hampton, Virginia. I joined as a charter member and was appointed corporal, which grade I held while in that organization. We were called out for Mexican border duty June 18, 1916. A few days later we went to Camp Stuart, Richmond, where we camped until September. We then went to San Antonio, and were there at Camp Wilson until March 1917, spending November at target practice on the Leon Springs reservation. In March 1917 we were back at Hampton, Virginia and mustered out of the federal service.
On April 2, 1917 we were called out again, this time for service in the war with Germany. Our first duty was in guarding Hampton Roads and the Newport News shipyard until August. We were then stationed at Camp McClellan, Anniston, Alabama for several months.
While stationed at Newport News in July 1917 I took an examination at Fort Monroe for a commission as Provisional Second Lieutenant, Coast Artillery Corps, regular army. In November of that year I received the commission, dated October 24, 1917, was relieved from duty with Battery D at Anniston, Alabama and went to Fort Monroe, Virginia for four months in the Officers' Training Camp.
While at Fort Monroe I received the commission as Provisional First Lieutenant, Coast Artillery Corps, regular army, dated back to October 24, 1917. Was stationed at Fort Terry, New York from April to August 1918. On June 1st the 68th Artillery (CAC) was organized for duty overseas, and I was happy to be with that wonderful regiment of picked men, each one of whom had to meet ten requirements, one of which was a direct answer that he wanted to go overseas and fight Germany.
On June 4th I received another commission dated back to March 28, 1918, appointing me temporarily a Captain in the Coast Artillery Corps, regular army, which rank I held until leaving the service in August 1919.
On August 8, 1918 our Regiment went by train from New London, Conn. to Boston and sailed the next day. After avoiding submarines for two days we put back into New York harbor at night and sailed out again next day in a convoy of 7 ships and escort. North of the Straits of Belle Isle we joined a Canadian convoy of 7 ships and escort. Our convoy was then made up of 14 transports, 7 loaded with American soldiers and 7 with Canadian. Under the British flag we had most wonderful protection until we landed at Tilbury Docks, London two weeks after leaving New York. It was quite a long voyage but very interesting up among the big, cold icebergs, and also in the English Channel, and we had a wonderful band which played several hours each day.
We entered London at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night, when the thousands of big searchlights played, and every whistle, horn, bell and voice in London sounded to greet us. On Sunday morning we went ashore and took the train to Romsey (near Southampton). In passing through London the people went wild to greet us. Little children in the back yards ran towards our trains so fast that at least a third of them fell down. The women were especially noisy in greeting us, and frantically waved whatever happened to be in their hands.
After camping three days at Romsey we crossed the English Channel from Southampton to La Havre at night in steamers which were formerly in service on Long Island Sound. The French people at La Havre greeted us quietly, seriously and with as much formality as if we had been the first American soldiers to enter that port. We camped only a few days sat La Havre and then went to Vayres, which is a small town about fifteen miles east of Bordeaux. Here our Regiment was stationed for intensive training, and was equipped as fast as the guns, tractors, etc. could be supplied to us. We were scheduled to go to the front on December 15th, but that was too late.
In early December, when the Regiment was ordered home to the United States, all of us regular army officers were ordered out of the Regiment to remain in Europe. There were 21 of us, and were sent to Camp Hunt at the little village of Le Courneau, southwest of Bordeaux to be assigned to duty.
I was assigned to the Officer Prisoner of War Enclosure at Richelieu, about 40 miles southwest of Tours, and arrived there a few days before Christmas. I was made Prison supply Officer and Assistant Prison Officer. Here we had about 900 Germans and Austrian Officers prisoners of war and about 600 enlisted prisoners of war. One of the German officer prisoners I found to be intelligent, well educated, well informed, truthful and a pretty fine man. He had served on the French, Serbian and Roumanian fronts, and was captured at Chateau Thierry by the Americans. He and one of the enlisted Germans, who was also truthful, described to me the very fierce battle at Chateau Thierry, in which Lieutenant Vernon Somers of Bloxom, Virginia was killed. Having known Vernon Somers, both at home and at college, and having heard the Germans' true story of the battle,, confirming the American story, I am confident that while the battle was on a short front, that there was never in any war any battle in which men fought harder than at Chateau Thierry,and that the American offensive at that point could not have been at all what it was without Vernon Somers and other officers like him -- great officers, doing the greatest work that America ever had men to do. He went into the battle to win and die, for he knew, as each of his comrades immediately with him, and each of the Germans immediately confronting him, that it was the supreme sacrifice for each and every one. He did not know how many others would have to come up and also pay the supreme sacrifice without a chance to live.
The pick of the German army was at Chateau Thierry, and in great numbers, well prepared and ready to start an offensive that would mean defeat for the American army, and would hurt its morale once and forever, as well as to injure the morale of all the allies. Then the Americans decided: "No, we will 'beat them to it', we will start the offensive one hour sooner, we will give our lives to break the German resistance and determination. There is only one message for the Germans, and it must be now. We are here to do the trick, and we will do it". And they did.
Accomac County does not realize what a great part was played by Vernon Somers at Chateau Thierry, and the world does not realize what a great part the victory at Chateau Thierry played in ending the war. It was not a decisive battle to the extent of showing Germany that she was defeated, but it was decisive in showing that Americans could lick the Germans and would lick them.
Accomac County had good soldiers in the war and is proud of us. We are proud of our county, and none the less so because it has produced such
a soldier as Lieutenant Somers. Every man should consider it an honor to have served in the army with him.
I was in the heavy artillery, because it was most interesting work and the branch of service in which my training in mathematics and engineering was worth more. However, we were a long time in getting our equipment, which was expensive and required a long time for manufacture, so the armistice was signed a month before the time set for us to go to the front, and we were disappointed in not getting there.
I felt fortunate in being assigned to duty at the Officer Prisoner of War Enclosure, because there I had an opportunity to learn more about the enemy countries and the war from their viewpoint during the six months after the armistice, than almost any other American.
I landed in New York on July 5, 1919, and my resignation as Captain in the army was accepted August 2, 1919, so that I could again take up my work in electrical engineering in civil life. I liked the army pretty well, am keeping my uniform, and when the next war starts it will not take me long to change my clothes.