[New York Times, Op-Ed page, September 29, 1980]

To My Buddy Jim ---
Killed, Sept. 29, 1918;
Buried, Somme: Plot A,
Row 32 Grave 3

By F. H. Doane.


SHERMAN, Conn. – Well, Jim, it’s exactly 62 years ago that we stepped off the barrage tape together. I never dreamed that an ‘apple knocker’ from Upstate could lift that Lewis Gun shoulder high and blaze away. Of course, you drew a lot of fire. When you fell, the gun landed on its tripod with you on top, with a bullet through your head. Whittle rolled you over, picked up the gun and kept going. Then Whittle fell and we lost both him and the gun and got pinned down in Lone Tree Trench where the Germans threw some potato-masher grenades at us. Affatato won the D.S.C. for throwing them back.

We were on the extreme left flank, so we covered the gap while the whole 27th and 30th Divisions pivoted on us as they broke through the Hindenburg Line. New York’s 107th had more K.I.A’s in one day than any other regiment in American History. Company C lost 51. Five weeks afterwards, the Kaiser ran away and it was all over, although we came back 25 years later to finish off another “beast of Berlin”.

You should have seen our welcome home. O’Ryan led us up Fifth Avenue, platoon front, but the crowds pushed out into the street so we had to squeeze through in squad formations. What a reception! Front-page stories! Pictures all over the rotogravure sections of the Times and Tribune. Everybody in uniform was a hero!

But there came a time when the glory of the uniform faded like an old Khaki shirt. We got messed up in Asia and it was tough marching off to war with a mob yelling: “Hell, no we won’t go!” And tougher coming home to a brawling society of war-resisters, draft-dodgers, section-eights now called “gays,” screwballs called “hippies” and “Yippies” and some assorted terrorists. And then, when there were no more alarums and excursions, these hand-wringers took to the steets chanting ”No more nukes!” That’s an appellation for a scientific discovery of such awesome magnitude that defining it is beyond me. And someone more erudite will have to explain how I was able to sit at home and see and hear men walking and talking on the moon. Not some celestial creatures, mind you, but Americans.

As for the Army, you wouldn’t know it today, Jim. There is not a horse nor a mule on the post and we got weapons that make “Big Bertha” look like a popgun. Buck privates get $448.80 per month compared to our stipend of “another day-another dollar”. There’s no reveille and no taps, and civilians do most of the KP. There are no more colored units, either; we’re all mixed in together now, and that includes women, too. Not “Mademoiselle from Armentiers” but women soldiers in uniform. Can you imagine some young chick with corporal stripes ordering you to “suck in your guts, soldier!”. It’s a part of what’s called women’s liberation. They won the right to vote two years after the Armistice. Now, they openly smoke cigarettes, sit on bar stools at McLaughlin’s, ride straddling the horse like men, and even wear pants without being arrested.

But I haven’t changed. Whenever I’m in France, I drive up to the Somme military cemetery and go out to Plot A, Row 32, Grave 3, and there’s your headstone. And when I see so many of my old comrades sepulchered here and think of those still missing in action and bivouacked somewhere out there beneath the flowering fields of France, I grope for noble words and find them in these lines from Nora Hopper’s poem:

“Blow, golden trumpets, mournfully,
For all the golden youth that’s fled;
For all the shattered dreams that lie,
Where God has laid the quiet dead,
Beneath an alien sky.”

Well, Jim, I’m pushing 84, so it won’t be long now. Then I’ll be waiting for the last reveille that some call “the Resurrection,” some call “The Day of Judgment,” and others call “The Second Coming,” but as for me, I like best the way some poet puts it:

“Somewhere afar,
Some white, tremendous daybreak and the light,
Returning, shall give back the golden hours.”

So long, Jim.





This letter was written to WWI KIA Pvt James Spire by Francis H. Doane Jr, Lt Col (Ret), the father of our late forum member CYRANO, aka Colin Doane, Lt Col (Ret), 1933-2017.
Colin and I had been searching for information about his father until very recently.
I was struck that his father authored this letter at the age of 84, the same age at which his son Colin would pass. I'm posting it in sadness, as a sort of memorial to both father and son. God bless them.

Hand-salute. RIP, all.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

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GA Carry member
Vietnam Vet

Thank you for sharing.

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TOMBECK

That's magnificent.

Amen...that brought a tear to my eye.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

Very nice, thanks for sharing. I hope we never run out of men like that.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

I liked that quite a lot.

Bob

Here's to Cyrano, with his head held high, as he receives a warm and glorious welcome into Heaven. He and his father probably have a lot to talk about.

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That's gonna leave a mark.

True American heroes. May their stories be told for eternity.

Thank you, BWZ. That was a wonderful story. I'm glad that it still lives.

Edit: I just read it again. I think I'll print it out, along with some of the other tributes to our colleague and his father, and keep them in his book, which I'm still reading. Thanks again.

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

There are more heros than we can possibly know. Thank you for introducing me to another one.

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A gun has no brain.. use yours

A very touching tribute. Thank you for posting it.

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USAF Retired

Beautiful! Made me think of my father who was a machine gunner in the 30th Division when they broke the Hindinberg Line.

Having returned from a visit to this battlefield and the Somme American Cemetery in France, I'm adding these photos on this, the 101st anniversary of James Spire's death in combat during the Battle of St Quentin Canal.
On the battle's centenary last year, a monument was placed at the Gillemont Farm, location of especially fierce fighting that took the life of Spire and so many others.



The monument lists the four soldiers that earned the Medal of Honor there.



The trench map showing the location of Gillemont Farm and Lone Tree Trench, mentioned in the letter.



Spire's 107th Infantry Regiment suffered the worst casualties sustained in a single day by any U.S. regiment during the war. The 107th was part of the 27th Division, and tasked with taking fortified outposts that the British III Corps had previously failed to capture.
The 27th division started the battle with only 18 officers (less than half the officers normally assigned), and lost all but one officer to casualty by 10AM. The number of Non-comms were similarly reduced. Corporal Doane who wrote the letter, became senior in his Company due to attrition, until wounded by a German grenade, and handed company "command" to a junior Corporal. Despite the officer shortage, the 27th needed to go farther to their objective than the other divisions, and do it without the close artillery support the other divisions received.
Eventually, Australian officers in the reserve division took command over the leaderless 27th Division, and they took their objectives that broke the Hindenburg line.

Thank you for the both the original post and the followup. We shall not, cannot, ever forget what these folks did for us.

Thanks for sharing that piece of history with the personal connection.

Outstanding post and thread. Very much appreciate. Sincerely. bruce.

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<><

Truly amazing what many did in past especially WW1 and WW2.
Unfortunately I feel many have already forgotten the sacrifices made that allow us our freedoms. As it seems so many are willing to and willfully do give up the freedoms these men fought and died for.

RIP all who have fallen and bless all those who serve!




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Your most welcome. Late forum member CYRANO's sharing of his father's WWI diary with me, was the impetus for my learning about these soldiers from my hometown.

After reading many first hand accounts of this division's battle, from the French, the adjoining divisions of British and Australians, and from the combatant officers and men, I've found it very interesting how the descriptions differ, depending on the observers point of view.

Anyone interested in the wartime observations of Cpl. Doane, can read his diary at the link on this thread I made last year, on the centenary of Pvt. Spire's death.

A WWI Doughboys Diary

While at the Somme American Cemetery, I visited with another Lewis gunner in the same regiment as Spire and Doane, Corporal Thomas E. O'Shea. I'm adding this photo to the thread, for anyone interested to see the way a Medal of Honor recipient is interred.



"Citation:
Becoming separated from their platoon by a smoke barrage, Cpl. O'Shea, with 2 other soldiers, took cover in a shell hole well within the enemy's lines. Upon hearing a call for help from an American tank, which had become disabled 30 yards from them, the 3 soldiers left their shelter and started toward the tank under heavy fire from German machineguns and trench mortars. In crossing the fire-swept area Cpl. O'Shea was mortally wounded and died of his wounds shortly afterwards."


After O'Shea's mortal wound, the two soldiers with him proceeded to extract the wounded tank crewmen, then removed the tank's machine gun and used it to fight their way to safety, and also received Medals of Honor.

Thank you for such a sentimental reminder of the sacrifices made by others, for the freedoms we have today. I tried to read that letter to my wife but I didn’t quite make it without a pause to regroup. Thanks for sharing this.

bigwheelzip....thank you for the tributes to our fallen protectors and heroes. May they all R.I.P. God Bless.

Don

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Laus Deo! <><

When I read things like this I am reminded of President Reagan's speech, Where Did We Find Such Men?":

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Only a cold warrior

That was the "War To End All Wars".

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No baby we aint

My grandfather was a veteran of WW1, serving overseas 18 months, was in active combat with the Germans something like 180+/- days of that time. His division, the 42nd (Rainbow), had nearly 15,000 casualties in their nine months of combat. They also served as occupation troops along the Rhine after the Armistice, so he got to see and understand the German fairly well.
Around 1935, he told my Mom they never should have agreed to an Armistice, which allowed the German Army to go back to Germany intact. He said we should have driven them to Berlin and demanded surrender, and because we did not do that, that there was going to be another terrible war. He was startlingly prescient, but didn't live to see his prediction come true, dying in 1936 from the effects of being gassed in WW1.

Sorry to read of the gas's effect on your grandfather. Cpl Doane's diary speaks to the fear of those attacks. Even the division newsletter was named "Gas Attack".