They Abhorred Hoarding

Model Jodie Kidd's great-grandfather was a shipping tycoon and a baronet. He was also a convicted food hoarder.

In the final year of the Great War the Government introduced strict food rationing. Food cards were issued to everyone, including the King and the hoarding of food had become a serious offence carrying heavy penalties.

The Tyne and Wear Archives holds Gosforth Urban District Council records and specifically those of the Gosforth Local Food Control Committee 1917-1919, including the Profiteering Committee minutes, which details the conviction of one Rowland Frederick William Hodge for food hoarding in 1918.

Chief archivist Liz Rees explains: “We weren’t aware of the scandal. We knew his name and we knew that the shipyard had closed but we didn’t know the story behind it.” [Link]

An Army of One

With the death on Monday of Harry Richard Landis, the last surviving American World War I veteran is Frank Buckles, 107, of West Virginia.

In addition, John Babcock of Spokane, Washington, 107, served in the Canadian army and is the last known Canadian veteran of the war.

Another World War I vet, Ohioan J. Russell Coffey, died in December at 109. The last known German World War I veteran, Erich Kaestner, died New Year's Day at 107. [Link]

Trench Testaments

A New York Times article from Sept. 30, 1917, reported that "trench wills" drawn up by soldiers in combat had been found valid in English courts even when unwitnessed.

In every case the War Office authorities make every effort to carry out the soldier's wishes, however crudely they are expressed, or however fantistic [sic] they may be.

Many of these trench wills have Tommy Atkins's characteristic touch of humor. Some are in dialect, some in phonetic spelling. Several have been in ciphers, solution of which has taxed the War Office experts. Occasionally they leave purely imaginary possessions to institutions of fictitious persons. Here is a will in rhyme which was written while the soldier was on duty at a "listening post" in No Man's Land:

I haven't a sweetheart, I haven't a mother.
I've only one sister, not even a brother;
My sister, Susan, is all I've got,
So of ought that's mine she can have the lot.

This will went through the courts without question, despite its unusual form. Another will in rhyme, leaving money to the "first comer," is the following:

Whoever first sets eyes on this
   Gets everything I leave,
For my kith and kin are dead and gone,
   And I've not a friend to grieve.
There's a tidy bit in the bank you'll find,
   And my army pay, though small,
So, stranger, breathe one sigh for me,
   You're welcome to it all.

This will was forwarded to England by the young sergeant who found it and he shortly afterwards received notification that the "tidy bit," which turned out to be a substantial sum of money, had been deposited to his account.

Still another will in rhyme was written by a private who had been cut off from his comrades for three days, without food or water and probably without sleep, for the greater part of that time, until the greatest desire in life seemed to him to get a big drink. It was as follows:

If I'm knocked out by bullet or bomb
   When over the top we go,
A gallon of beer I leave to Tom,
   Another to squint-eyed Joe.
We've borne the worst of a soldier's thirst
   Through days and nights of woe;
Give my dad the rest—but if I go west
   There's a drink for Tom and Joe.

There was some difficulty in carrying out this bequest, owing to the fact that half the men in the company insisted they have been called "Tom" and "Joe" by the testator, and the whole estate was finally turned over to the father, it being left to him to carry out the "two gallons clause" as he should see fit. [Link (pdf)]

You Must Be Wrecked to Join

Unique among American veterans organizations is La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux—The Forty & Eight. The name dates to World War I, when American servicemen were transported to French battlefields in cramped and often odorous boxcars.

Each French boxcar was stenciled with a “40/8”, denoting its capacity to hold either forty men or eight horses. This ignominious and uncomfortable mode of transportation was familiar to all who traveled from the coast to the trenches; a common small misery among American soldiers who thereafter found “40/8” a lighthearted symbol of the deeper service, sacrifice and unspoken horrors of war that truly bind those who have borne the battle.

Candidates for membership are called Prisonniers de Guerre (Prisoners of War). Once "wrecked" (initiated), they become Voyageurs Militaire (military travelers). The head of the organization is the Chef de Chemin de Fer (President of the Railroad).

Through the Time Tunnel

David Gepp has been researching graffiti scrawled on the walls of the disused "Time Tunnel" of Llangollen, Wales.

David said: "When the tunnel was built, about 1864, it was lined with a type of tile that took pencil readily and local people took to writing their names or messages to loved ones.

"It soon became apparent that a great number [were] written by young men of the area heading off to the First World War, and it became a real obsession trying to discover who they were, and what fate befell them in the trenches."

The fading signatures scrawled on the tiled brick were a poignant reminder of the Great War, the first kindlings of romance and the unrefined humour of youth.

One message says "Berlin last stop", another is signed "Balls from Belgium", and a third the schoolboyish "Hoof Hearted". [Link]

He Was Looking For a Fight

At 106, Frank Buckles is the youngest of three surviving American World War I veterans. He tried to sign up with the Marines when he was 16, telling them he was 18. They told him he was too young, so he tried again a week later.

"I went back to the recruiting sergeant, and this time I was 21," he said with a grin. "I passed the inspection ... but he told me I just wasn't heavy enough."

Then he tried the Navy, whose recruiter told Buckles he was flat-footed.

Still, Buckles would not quit. In Oklahoma City, an Army captain demanded a birth certificate.

"I told him birth certificates were not made in Missouri when I was born, that the record was in a family Bible. I said, 'You don't want me to bring the family Bible down, do you?"' Buckles said with a laugh. "He said, 'OK, we'll take you."' [Link]

He was too old to serve in the military in World War II, but managed to get captured by the Japanese while on a business trip to the Philippines, and spent 3 1/2 years as a civilian POW.

Please Don't Take My Pony

The Imperial War Museum North is looking for relatives of a little girl who sent Lord Kitchener a letter pleading for the life of her pony.

Young Freda Hewlett wrote to the Secretary of State for War begging him not to call up her 17-year-old pony Betty for active duty at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914.

She appeals to Kitchener's softer side, pointing out that the pony is in foal, reminding him that her family have already given two horses to the Army while three family members have responded to his famous "Your Country Needs You" poster and joined the Navy as the Great War got under way. [Link]

A Brief History of Nose-Thumbing

Walking the Berkshires has a neat analysis of a WWI photograph that purportedly shows a Canadian soldier thumbing his nose as "a gesture expressing his contempt for the Germans."

I wonder if this is an accurate description of what the camera actually captured. Is that soldier thumbing his nose or grimacing at the point of impact? Is anyone holding that rifle, or did he just drop it? And was "cocking a snoot" a standard gesture of contempt utilized by Canadians in 1917 as the American Heritage editors suggest?

Without His Watch Since World War I

A wristwatch lost in a World War I poker game by a soldier in France will be returned to his family today. The watch—inscribed "W.B. Gill, Sioux City, IA, U.S.A."—wound up in the possession of Carl Grothaus of Bemis, South Dakota.

How he acquired it was one of the few war stories he shared with his inquisitive boys.

"It was part of the pot in a poker game," son Dewey Grothaus said, laughing that he had never seen his father gamble or even play cards. "That part he would talk about. I don't know if he knew Gill or if he served with him."

"He did try to look the guy up" after returning from the war, Grothaus said. During a trip to sell cattle at the Sioux City Stockyards, Carl Grothaus asked around about W.B. Gill, but found nothing. The watch returned to his dresser, where it sat until he died in 1991. [Link]

Three More Days to Bring Your Soldiers Home

Just a reminder that the Ancestry.com U.S. Military Collection is free until Wednesday.

Here's the World War I Draft Registration card of the guy my great-grandmother dumped her husband for and eventually married. It proves that he had not yet entered the service at the time my grandfather was conceived. Hmmm....

And Then There Were Three

Frank Buckles, 106, is one of only three living U.S. veterans of World War I, and will serve as a marshal in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington today.

The other living World War I veterans are Harry Landis, a 107-year-old in Sun City Center, Fla., and Russell Coffey, a 108-year-old in North Baltimore, Ohio.

After the last Navy veteran and the last American woman to serve in World War I died days apart in March, the Department of Veterans Affairs made a public appeal to identify additional veterans of the war besides Buckles, Landis and Coffey. There were no responses. [Link]

Doughboy Diaries In Demand

The superb Veterans History Project has launched a new effort to collect firsthand accounts of the First World War. Learn more at Experiencing War (World War I, the Great War).

World War I is among the least documented wars of those covered by the Veterans History Project, and the number of collections relating its experiences are not likely to grow dramatically. Because all but a handful of WWI vets are no longer alive, oral history interviews are out of the question, so we must rely on the generosity of relatives and friends of deceased veterans to donate written accounts in letters, diaries, and memoirs, as well as precious collections of photographs.

Army Poster Boy Was a Deserter

Marcel Caux died in 2004 at age 105. He was given a state funeral as one of Australia's last five World War I veterans, and an army recruitment poster bearing his image recently won a competition. But soon after his death, historians discovered that he was a deserter and a bigamist.

Ms [Lynette] Silver and Ms [Di] Elliott discovered that records issued in the name of Marcel Caux described the war service of Harold Katte, who was born in 1899 in Marrickville, although some records say Hurstville. Ms Silver points out that he had five names, five signatures, three nationalities, three places of birth, three dates of birth, three mothers, three fathers and two wives, simultaneously.

Though injured three times in battle, Katte's service was not wholly exemplary.

He had gone absent without leave for seven days in July 1917, for which he served 14 days in close confinement. He went AWL again in June 1918, when French authorities arrested him in the port of Brest, where he was said to be posing as a Frenchman. [Link]

Australia placed 376,000 World War I service records online this week, so you can search for the two-timing Aussie deserters in your own family tree.

Alphabetize Your Tommies

Ancestry.co.uk has begun adding World War I British Army service and pension records, starting with 100,000 records for A and B surnames. If your ancestor's name began with "zed," you might have to wait until 2008.

They reveal intriguing personal details, such as how Pte Thomas Beedham, a 34-year-old fitter from Leicester, was "admonished" and fined four days pay for absenting himself from a draft on Aug 28, 1916. The forms also show how Pte John William Ballinger, of 1bn Manchester Regiment, had a "distinctive" scar on his right leg and how one soldier was almost 64 when he fought. [Link]

To the question "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?" the British Army evidently answered, "So long as you fit the uniform."

Most Impersonal Love Letter Ever

A postcard sent by World War I soldier Walter Butler to his fiancée Amy Hicks in Wiltshire was finally delivered this week—90 years late, and to their 86-year-old daughter Joyce. What interests me most is the narrow range of sentiments Walter was allowed to express.

Wartime security restrictions meant that soldiers were only allowed to send the most basic messages for fear of accidentally giving vital information to the enemy.

Soldiers were [...] provided with a list of printed options which they had to cross out or leave to be read as appropriate.

Walter left the line “I am quite well” undeleted, along with another saying that he had not received a letter from Amy “for a long time.” [Link]

Non-Essential Sites: WWI Draft Registration Cards of the Rich and Famous

As the World War I Civilian Draft Registrations Database at Ancestry.com slowly grows toward completion, one cannot help but wonder: What color were Jack Benny's eyes?

The answers to this question and others may be found at World War I Draft Registration Cards of the Rich and Famous, another Ancestry.com preview provided by Michael John Neill. Those interested should also check out Neill's 2004 article "World War I Draft Cards of the Rich and Famous".

Some other celebrities whose cards may be viewed:

• Babe Ruth - Back when he still played for my beloved Red Sox (sigh).
• Gabby Hayes - Already employed as an actor, but not yet as a sidekick.
  
• George M. Cohan - Who apparently was "born on fourth of July."

More Reading:

• 24,000,000 Men Feel a Draft
• Non-Essential Sites: Famous Folks in the US Census

24,000,000 Men Feel a Draft

From the New York Times of Aug. 18, 1942:

1918 RECORDS GOOD AS PROOF OF BIRTH
Census Officials to Provide Basis for Certificates

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17— Americans who have had trouble proving that they were actually born and where and when will have no further trouble if they happen to have been among the 24,000,000 men who signed draft registration cards in 1917 and 1918.

These cards have been transferred from the War Department archives to the Census Bureau, where they will be available as a source of evidence on age and place of birth for individuals who have no birth certificates.

[snip]

Good advice in 1942, and still good advice now. If your male ancestor was living in United States in 1917-18, and was born between 1872 and 1900, there's a good chance he registered for the draft. The World War I Civilian Draft Registrations Database at Ancestry.com so far includes records from Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, and Nevada, with "good representation" from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New York City, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont.