Month: May 2020

Armistice

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

On November 11, 1918, the men of the 142nd Infantry Regiment were at drill practice in the tiny village of Louppy-le-Petit. The whole division, 36th Infantry, was preparing to reenter the battlefield. Just miles away raged what remains the largest land battle in American history.

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive had started just before midnight on September 25th, over six weeks before. A massive cannon bombardment opened the attack and advancing American and French soldiers burst into German defenses. After surprising gains by Allied forces in the first two days of fighting, the German armies organized themselves. The American advance grinds to a halt. Consequently, casualties were high on both sides.

Since early October the American front had been reorganized twice, with depleted divisions taken out of the fight and new ones taking their place. For example, it took three weeks and 100,000 American casualties to reach the first day’s objective. Some American divisions had never been in combat before, others were seasoned veterans by now.

American commanding General John J. Pershing was now, in November, preparing a fourth phase of the Meuse-Argonne battle. He’d created a Second American Army and placed the 36th Infantry Division in it. In a renewed attack on November 1, American forces had smashed through the German line and forced a general retreat. Now American soldiers and marines are advancing miles per day where before it was just yards. Further, Pershing’s fourth phase was to begin on November 14. With it, he intended to break the back of the German Army and force it all the way home.

Louppy-le-Petit during the war

Germany offers a cease-fire

German military leaders, after flip-flopping for weeks, finally admitted to their government that the war was unwinnable in late October. Civilian leaders in the German government requested peace talks with the Allied powers and, on November 7th, sent a peace delegation to France. French terms, however, were uncompromising; but the situation was growing dire. An agreement was worked out on November 8th and governmental leaders on all sides considered their assent. In addition, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his roles as Prussian king and Kaiser of the German Empire. A new German government indicated on November 10 it was ready to accept terms.

On November 11th, the German peace delegation was in France to sign a cease-fire, or Armistice. Once again, they went to the headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, French general Ferdinand Foch. The Germans signed at 5:12 a.m., Marshal Foch and his British counterpart signed at 5:20 a.m. There were no Americans (or Belgians, another important ally) at the meeting. (Read more about the signing of the Armistice here.)

Word reaches the 142nd

The Armistice called for the cessation of hostilities that day, at 11:00 a.m. Paris time. American general Pershing’s headquarters was notified at about 6 a.m. As a result, word reached the 142nd Infantry Regiment by radio later that morning. The 142nd was behind the lines training and had expected to be on their way to battle when the news arrived. As 11 a.m. approached, they could hear the artillery fire at the front getting louder. Soldiers of the 142nd wondered if, through some act of treachery, the Germans had decided to counterattack. However, the increase in artillery fire in the last hour of World War One was nothing more than artillerymen firing so as not to have any shells to carry back.

Eleven o’clock a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month passed, and the firing stopped. The fighting was finally over.

The celebration begins

Concerns of fighting again gave way to thrilling release for the men of the 142nd Infantry. As an eyewitness put it,

“That night the little, shell-torn village of Louppy-le-Petit, woke up. It had lain dormant for almost four long years. That night it was lighted by all the lights that could be obtained. The 142nd Infantry Band broke the stillness that had shrouded that sleepy little town, and inspiring strains of music vibrated through the hills. The inhabitants were hilarious and mingled with the Americans as they gave expression to their feelings.”

O. K. Farrell’s copy of General Pershing’s proclamation

The celebration continues

“On the morning of November 12th, about 11 o’clock, the solemn tones of a funeral dirge came floating into Regimental Headquarters. No one knew what it could mean…”

“Soldiers will be soldiers and what one cannot think of the other will. They had planned to bury the Kaiser. There before the inhabitants and a street crowded with soldiers, came the Band leading a procession. Slowly and apparently mournfully they passed along.”

“Behind the Band, with a step measured and slow, marched tall, slim “Gloomy Gus” of Headquarters Company. He wore a long coat for a robe and in his hand carried an open book, thus representing the “Sky Pilot”. He was followed by four supposed pall bearers carrying a stretcher upon which was the supposed Kaiser. Following these was a long line of supposed mourners.”

“The seriousness of the occasion, and the splendid manner in which it had been carried out, was appealing. The procession proceeded leisurely to the bridge, and, after due ceremony, the remains were raised tenderly to the bannister and at the proper time were gracefully dropped into the creek.”

“The Band lit up a lively tune and amid cheers returned to quarters feeling they had expressed themselves.”

An Unlikely Journey

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

“You should hear some of the big shells whistle over. Makes you get ‘gully low.’” E.P. Taylor of Supply Company, 142nd Infantry, wrote to his family. He continued, “You good folks back home, no matter how many descriptions you read, can have no idea of the destruction and slaughter going on and of what an infantry man has to go through.”

On October 29, 1918, the 142nd Infantry Regiment marched away from the front line after twenty-three days in harm’s way. Buried where they fell were over 180 of their comrades, four unidentified. In addition, over six hundred wounded in the 142nd made their absence felt. Battalions looked like companies.  The men wore the same clothes they entered the line wearing.

Graves of 142nd Infantry soldiers near Saint-Etienne

As they made their way back through the old battlefields, the 36th Division passed through the old Hindenburg Line, which the French captured at the beginning of the battle over four weeks ago. Before that, it had been the front line for over three years. James McCan wrote home, “We crossed what used to be the Hindenburg Line and such a sight I never saw before or since. There was not a tree or even a bunch of grass living for four miles across it.”

After spending the night at Camp Montpellier near Suippes, the 36th moved southeast toward the Argonne Forest, where an American-French group of armies was waging a colossal battle with the retreating Germans. However, the German armies would abandon a fortified line only to withdraw to another.

March to the Argonne

On October 30th, the 36th Division was on the march again and passed into control of the First American Army. In other words, they were no longer under French command. That day the division marched about fifteen miles and camped at Valmy. Moreover, the next day they marched eleven miles, to Dommartin-sur-Yevre, and took a day off. They were about to enter the Argonne Forest, the western boundary of the American battle zone. Two American armies and one French army were slowly advancing in this zone. John J. Pershing, Commanding General of American Forces, planned for his armies to seize important rail transport hubs behind German lines. If he succeeded, Germany would have to quit France and lose the war. (Read more about the Meuse-Argonne Offensive here.)

Louppy-le-Petit before the war

On November 2nd, the 36th entered the Argonne Forest, marching twelve miles to Les Charmontois. At this time, the division was passed from the American First Army to the Second Army, where they were assigned to VII Corps. The Second Army, with its six divisions, was going to attack in the direction of Metz, a fortified city and transportation center. As a result, the 36th Division was scheduled to leave for the front on November 11th, 1918.

While the marching was tough for the men, many of whom were still recovering, on November 3rd the 36th Division marched another fifteen miles. As they marched, they began to hear the distant roar of artillery fire again. Many of them arrived at their destination that day. That is to say, at the villages near Bar-le-Duc, just back of the front lines. In seven days of marching, the 36th Division had traveled over seventy-eight miles.

Louppy-le-Petit

The division was allowed two days to rest. The 142nd Infantry Regiment was quartered in and around the tiny village of Louppy-le-Petit. The area around Bar-le-Duc was just recently vacated by the 1st Infantry Division, the ‘Big Red One’. The 1st Division had been in the fighting since day six of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and was recuperating around Bar-le-Duc after heavy losses. Now they were back in the battle; and the 36th Division would soon follow.

Replacement soldiers for the 36th Division were already arriving. Most of the replacements were from the 34th Infantry Division. The 34th was made up of National Guard units from Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, as well as North and South Dakota. These plainsmen trained at Camp Cody, New Mexico, and the Southwesterners of the 36th learned to like them. Moreover, the new men were well trained, and their morale was good.

Damaged church in Louppy-le-Petit

Captain Ethan Simpson of H Company, wounded on October 8th near Saint-Etienne, returned to his men on November 4th. In addition, others returned to the 142nd from the hospital or from their assignments away from the battlefield. These officers and men, who had missed the fighting, were most eager to see the regiment back in action. However the rest of the men, who had seen it, were not as enthusiastic.

New uniforms and boots arrived. Consequently soldiers were able to change clothes, many of them for the first time in a month. What they took off wasn’t worth saving; so piles of old ruined clothing had to be trucked away. New weapons and equipment were arriving every day.

Training again

From November 6th the men were drilling again. Veterans of the Champagne front used best practices from combat to improve the training. They used every hour of daylight to train. But on November 7th came news that the German government was asking for a cease-fire. Many of the men didn’t believe it. The French people in Louppy-le-Petit sadly shook their heads, saying the war has been going on for over four years, how many times we have heard these rumors?

For six days the men trained and grew once again into a fighting force. More men were returning from the hospital. Soldiers were gaining confidence in their mission. The 36th Division was on track to be in the combat area once more on Thursday, November 14.

On Sunday, November 10th, the division paused to remember those who had died. There were memorial services in each unit, spread out as they were across the countryside. Soldiers in the 142nd stood in a solemn vigil as each of the names were read at the service. They had been away from combat for nearly two weeks now. But they knew they might return to battle. So the men took a moment to meditate on those desperate moments in battle and the loss of so many brothers in arms.

O.K. Farrell’s stripes

Promoted

On that same day, Color Sergeant O. K. Farrell of Headquarters Company was promoted three ranks to the highest enlisted rank in the army, Regimental Sergeant Major. As Color Sergeant, he led a small platoon of Headquarters men who ran the Regimental office. Since there were two Color Sergeants, they probably each worked twelve hours every day. Now O. K. Farrell was the ranking NCO at Headquarters Company. He’d just turned twenty-two when he was promoted.

It was an unlikely journey for the men of the 36th Infantry and for O. K. Farrell. Unlikely for the division that so soon they were combat veterans, now heading back into battle. Unlikely for Farrell, now promoted to the top. However, his superiors would have seen that he was superlatively well organized and hardworking. His job before the war in the Superintendent’s Office at the Santa Fe Railroad prepared him marvelously for administering a 24/7 operations nerve center of a fighting force. To end the war, Farrell and the 36th were ready to go the distance once more.

O.K. Farrell’s promotion

In Harm’s Way

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

By 5:30 p.m. on October 27, 1918 it was dark. Men of the 36th Infantry Division unpacked their pickaxes and shovels and started digging. They had just seized Forêt-Ferme, a series of German strongholds along the Ardennes canal and Aisne river. However, the German defenders were taken completely by surprise; nearly two hundred had surrendered. Enemy artillery fell on Forêt-Ferme sporadically, but darkness hindered the Germans’ aim. So the men dug in and were protected by daybreak.

The hill had been taken by 2nd Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment and 3rd Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment. 3rd Battalion, 142nd was commanded by Captain Steve Lillard, who led L Company at Saint-Étienne. Lillard moved up from L Company to 3rd Battalion just three days before, because of his leadership and calmness under fire at Saint-Étienne. With experience of that battle as his guide, Captain Lillard made sure his men were prepared and that artillery support was on target.

German POWs in line at a 36th Division field kitchen, October 1918

The last day

German shelling resumed the next morning, October 28th. The men who had captured Forêt-Ferme held for thirty-six hours while waiting to be relieved from the line. German artillery had little effect this time but waiting was all the worse for those expecting to leave combat. Lillard wrote that “all of our supporting troops, including the artillery were withdrawn and we were left to the mercy of the German artillery with French infantry to support us and with French artillery to give excuses for not firing when we called upon them to do so.”

So, the men stayed in their holes, watched, and waited. First Lieutenant F.W. Mogford of the 142nd Infantry wrote about the enemy: “He is a curious rascal and tries all kinds of tricks. First he would shell us with high explosive, if that didn’t do much harm he would give us gas, and then combine the two. Occasionally his air planes would drop enough German propaganda to furnish us with reading material for several hours, such as it was. The 164th French Infantry relieved us during the night of Oct. 28th. Then the hardened Texas boys and Indians began their march back to safety.”

Ambulance Section, 141st Infantry Regiment

Medical Men

Close to the action were the medical men of the 36th Division. Each regiment was equipped with an Ambulance section and a Field Hospital company. In addition to these, each regiment also had First Aidmen who would treat wounded men in battle conditions. For the assault on Forêt-Ferme, 3rd Battalion, 142nd Infantry set up its Aid Station in Méry, a tiny village about two kilometers from the fighting. Aidmen would carry the wounded to the Aid Station there, and then another kilometer to the Regimental Aid Station at Chouffilly. Ambulances were there at Chouffilly to evacuate more severely wounded men.

Four Ambulance sections of the 36th Division were joined by United States Army Ambulance Service section No. 586. The 36th Division located its four Field Hospitals in the Leffincourt – Dricourt area, about eight miles away. Ambulances would wait near Dricourt until one left the Aid Station in Méry, then an Ambulance would move to replace it. The most seriously wounded men were evacuated to Evacuation Hospital No. 3, Mobile Hospital No. 7, and Evacuation Hospital No. 5, all near Suippes, about 22 miles away. It was hazardous work: On October 9th, a direct hit on an Aid Station killed seven 143rd Infantry Aidmen.

The way out

As early as October 27th, the 143rd Infantry Regiment and other elements of the 36th Infantry Division began to pull out of position on the front line. These soldiers spent the night of the 27th in Machault, about seven miles from the front. In addition, the 144th Infantry and parts of the 141st and 142nd Regiments pulled out on the 28th, marching to the south. On their way some of the men were able to stop by Saint-Étienne, where they had fought just two and-a-half weeks before. For men of the 142nd, it was a chance to see the graves of 144 of their comrades and to reacquaint themselves with the exact place and circumstance of their deaths.

Withdrawing soldiers spent the night of October 28th just south of Somme-Py, where the 36th first entered the combat area on September 6th. After three weeks, the surviving veterans of the 36th noticed how thin their ranks had become. Now they were out of harm’s way, they were relieved to be off the line.

Withdrawal

At Forêt-Ferme, soldiers of the 141st and 142nd Infantry were relieved by the French around 3:30 a.m. on October 29th. Within the hour they marched out, having spent 23 days in harm’s way. They marched several miles to trucks the French provided, and were transported through Saint-Étienne to Somme-Py. From there they made their way to Camp Montpellier, a bivouac between Souain and Suippes.

There wasn’t much to Camp Montpellier; just some barns and haysheds. No straw, but for many of the men it was their first night under a roof in three weeks. Just to have a warm meal and a campfire began what was, for the men of the 36th Division, an unlikely journey away from the front.

Forêt-Ferme

Peter Larsen1 Comment

By October 22nd, 1918, the 36th U.S. Infantry Division was anticipating its relief. It had spent two weeks on the front and had advanced over thirteen miles. The 36th had suffered over two thousand casualties. A planned attack over the Aisne River, where the 36th Division was located, was postponed.

Meanwhile, over twenty miles away, a larger battle roiled the French countryside. The Argonne Forest area was witness to what is still the largest land battle in U.S. military history. The battle was entering its fifth week and was chewing up American and French divisions almost as fast as they could enter the fray.

The 36th Division was needed in the Meuse-Argonne. To get there, they would have to finish their fight in the Champagne area.

142nd Infantry map of battlefield

Forest Farm

The 71st Brigade of the 36th Infantry Division (141st and 142nd Infantry Regiments, plus the 132nd Machine Gun Battalion) moved into a new position on the night of October 18. This position was directly in front of a German outpost on the south side of the Aisne River. It was the only German presence on the south side of the river for miles. Two previous attempts by the French 73rd Infantry Division to seize the position had only minimal success. German observers in the outpost could direct artillery with deadly effect. For example on October 22nd, a shell burst near the 142nd Infantry Headquarters, killing three men.

The German position was well defended. They had cut down trees to improve their field of fire around the hilltop on the south side of the Aisne. Three bands of barbed wire, each about twenty feet thick separated them from the Allies. A trench line ran most of the way across the German outpost, which was located on a U-shaped area marked by a bend in the river. In addition to the trench, there were concrete bunkers and some cannon. More than thirty machine guns defended the hilltop. Across the river, German artillery could hit any spot for miles around.

On October 23rd, the 71st Brigade was formally ordered to take the hill, known as Forêt-Ferme, or “Forest Farm”. It was to be their last action on the Champagne front before their relief. As a result, leaders of all the units devoted themselves to preparing.

Making preparations

Bitter experience was the reason for their hard work now. Two weeks before, the 71st Brigade went into battle with next to no preparation and endured horrendous casualties. Firstly, there was scant advance warning of the attack. In addition, artillery was mostly ineffective, and French tank support was a disaster. That they succeeded at all on October 8-10 was because, as U.S. Marine private Elton Macklin (who was there) observed,

“They were green untried troops who charged in reckless ignorance and won. They paid a price in taking Saint-Étienne.”

Therefore maps were copied and passed around. Company commanders instructed their platoon leaders. Each soldier knew his job and the job of the guy next to him. Weapons like the Browning Automatic Rifle were given to men in the first wave. Soldiers in the outpost holes kept close watch on the Germans, some of whom were just sixty yards away.

Preparing the way for the attack was the artillery. The U.S. 2nd Artillery Brigade had every foot of Forêt-Ferme dialed in. French artillery was on hand to harass German artillery across the river. When the attack began, many targets would be shelled. As a result, the Germans would not be sure of the real objective. In addition, the Brigade’s Mortar Battery was moved into the trenches near the front line. Men from the U.S. 2nd Engineers with large wire cutters embedded with each of the assault battalions.

Standoff

As preparations were made, opposing forces were still locked in a standoff along the river. German artillery strikes just opposite Forêt-Ferme increased when the Americans replaced the French there. As a result, American gunners in the 2nd Artillery, using captured German cannon, sent over the gas shells the Germans left behind. Incensed at being given a dose of their own medicine, the Germans lobbed shell after shell of mustard gas on the Americans on October 26th. The Americans were by this point experienced in gas warfare. Clouds of the yellowish gas in open fields could be avoided. The chemical, which spread after the explosion and penetrated clothes before turning into a gas, was more dangerous. The Germans sent over so many gas shells that villages near the front were spattered with the orange-yellow chemical.

Waiting

On October 27th, Americans were withdrawn from their listening posts. They would be too close to the Germans once the attack began. The day was sunny and clear. Assault troops had moved forward into the front line before sunrise that day. Throughout the 27th they remained there, lying still and waiting. German positions were closely watched, looking for any changes in their routine. There were none. In the late afternoon, five German planes flew over American lines. Nothing they saw caused alarm.

Four o’clock, and it started to grow dark over the Aisne river valley. Still nothing changed. If the Germans were paying attention, they might have noticed that the observation balloon opposite Forêt-Ferme was not reeled in, as it had been every day, promptly at 4:05 p.m.

At 4:10 p.m. a single cannon fired from the Allied side. It signaled the beginning of a devastating barrage into the German position. Artillery shells hit all along the German side of the river. Smoke shells made a black curtain around the bend in the river. The mortar battery started firing. French artillery pounded German observation posts on the hills across from Forêt-Ferme. German artillery opened on the Allies but, for once, it was scattered and ineffective.

Attack

At 4:30 p.m. the American barrage shifted forward, and Americans were out of their trenches. Engineers with wire cutters in their hands and rifles slung on their backs crawled forward. They worked on cutting strands of barbed wire while soldiers crept forward. American machine guns kept up fire just above the heads of assaulting troops.

American soldiers cleared the first belt of wire. German machine guns were silent, their crews dead or hiding in bunkers. Smoke screens kept German artillery from firing accurately. As the assault wave reached the second belt of wire, follow-up troops were already advancing behind them.

Artillery was still falling on the German main line. American soldiers, keeping their space, were advancing just out of range of the explosives. Men moved forward as a unit and did not lose formation. Likewise, the support wave kept its distance from the assault wave. It may have looked like an exercise, but it was no exercise. German shells were hitting the battlefield. Some men in the 142nd Infantry were hit by American shells that inexplicably fell short while they left their foxholes.

Moving up the hill

Meanwhile, the second belt of barbed wire was crossed. American machine gunners kept firing over the heads of the assaulting wave. In addition, American shells were pounding the main German line as they advanced. Lieutenant Ben Chastaine remarked they were practically “leaning against it” when the assault troops crossed the last barrier before the German trench line. The barrage moved forward.

With bayonets fixed and grenades at the ready, men of the 71st Brigade leapt into the trenches. Fire teams moved through the maze, searching every corner. Machine gun teams carried their weapons forward through the wire barriers to set up closer to the concrete bunkers at the top. Meanwhile, assault troops carefully made their way through the trenches to the bunker exits, while others moved past to other objectives.

German soldiers exited the bunkers expecting to return to the trenches when instead they stared down rifle barrels. Immediately, they lifted their hands and called out, “Kamerad!” They were caught completely by surprise. Some German machine gun nests behind the main line fired on the attackers, but these were surrounded and silenced in short order.

Rilly-aux-Oies after the battle

Exploitation

As instructed, American patrols advanced past the dugouts toward the village of Rilly-aux-Oies and the river. They found no Germans there, but discovered the bridge over the Aisne had been blown. Patrols combed the riverside for stragglers and brought back twenty-seven prisoners.

German artillery reaching the hill was infrequent and inaccurate, thanks to the smoke screens. Teams of American soldiers were clearing out the last of the bunkers, and one soldier wrote that:

“The first Germans I saw were coming out of a dugout yelling ‘Kamerad’ at every breath, so I picked up a few German hand grenades, which we call potato mashers, and when I come to a dug-out would pull the string and throw a couple in. If any one was at home, they had a hard day.”

As the last of the bunkers was being cleared a German runner made a break down the hill toward Rilly. The battalion intelligence officer had a shotgun and winged him, and he was made prisoner. His documents were very helpful at Brigade Headquarters.

Aftermath

The Americans had been up against a battalion of the 9th Colberg Grenadier Regiment, part of the 3rd Prussian Guards Division. They were considered a first-rate outfit, but the men in American custody seemed relieved to have been captured.

Not so lucky were their commanding officer and the artillery officer, dead along with nearly fifty other defenders. Moreover, one hundred ninety-four Germans were captured. The battalion was smashed.

American losses were fourteen killed and thirty-six wounded. National Guard troops from the Southwest had met a well protected enemy and routed him. Four of the German prisoners were officers. After interrogation, they were asked if they had anything to say. One spoke up and wanted to know, “What nationality were the telephone men?”

(Read more about Native American code talkers here.)

Codetalkers

Peter Larsen1 Comment

In October 1918 Allied forces and the German army faced each other in a tense standoff along the Aisne river in northeast France. Near the devastated towns of Attigny and Givry, the American 36th Division held the south side of the Aisne. The 36th was at the time part of the French Fourth Army. The French wanted to advance, but German defenses on the north side of the river were strong enough to give any attacker pause. There were rows of barbed wire and machine gun nests along the riverbank. Behind these defenses the Germans were building concrete bunkers and a trench system. Every day French and American troops received artillery hits from German long range guns; sometimes in the thousands.

In the meantime, the Germans had to be moved out of one outpost on the south side of the river.

Assault on the Loop

The Aisne river runs east – west through the Ardennes region of France until it reaches Attigny, where it curves around a hill and then runs to the southeast. On a map, the loop in the river looks like an inverted “U”. When the Germans retreated over the Aisne on October 12, they remained on this hill south of the river.

If the Fourth Army were going to get over the Aisne, it would have to first evict the Germans from the hill. Two attempts by the French 73rd Division resulted in minimal gains. As a result, the American 71st Infantry Brigade (141st and 142nd Infantry Regiments, plus the 132nd Machine Gun Battalion) moved in front of the loop on the night of October 22-23. The 71st began to plan their assault.

A communications problem

The best way to plan an assault is to keep the enemy in the dark about what you are about to do. This was difficult for the Americans because they were in a river valley with the Germans. Almost everything was in plain sight of the enemy. Even small movements during daylight would attract artillery fire. When Allied forces occupied the area, they reused the field telephone wires left behind by the Germans. Using the existing system saved time, but now commanders wondered if the Germans were listening in to their conversations.

American commanders tried a test: each regiment was given the location of a fictional ammunition dump over field telephone. In half an hour the location was pounded by German artillery. Now that they knew their field telephone communications were insecure, what was the solution? Messages carried by runners were slow and dangerous. Many runners became casualties in combat; and messages could take hours to arrive. As commanders in the 36th Division deliberated the answer, one captain at 142nd Infantry headquarters stepped outside to hear two men in HQ Company speaking in their native language, Choctaw. And he had an idea.

Company E, 142nd Infantry in France

American Indians join the war

Oklahoma became the forty-sixth state in 1907. Decades before, what became Oklahoma was set aside by the Federal Government as Indian Territory. As late as 1890, one in four people living in Oklahoma Territory was Native American, about 65,000. Oklahoma still had a substantial Native American population by 1917. About two-thirds were U.S. citizens. The remaining one-third were citizens of one of over thirty tribal nations in Oklahoma.

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, thousands of American Indians and Native Alaskans volunteered to serve. Many volunteers in Oklahoma joined the National Guard. This included both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens.

When the Oklahoma and Texas Guards merged into the 36th Infantry Division, several organizations in the 36th had multiple American Indians in the ranks. For example, E Company, 142nd Infantry was almost entirely American Indian; over 200 members. The reason for this was that the 142nd Infantry was itself a merger of a Texas unit and one from Oklahoma. Another Oklahoma outfit with several Native Americans as members was the 1st Squadron, Oklahoma Cavalry. The 1st Squadron became the 111th Ammunition Train when it joined the 36th Division.

About 12,500 American Indians and Native Alaskans served in American uniform in World War I. Though it is impossible to be exact, researchers and family members have now identified over six hundred American Indians who were members of the 36th Infantry Division at least for part of its World War I service. (See more about the effort to document their heritage here.)

Code talkers of the 36th. Left to right: Solomon Bond Lewis, Mitchell Bobb, James Edwards, Calvin Wilson, Joseph Davenport, and Captain Elijah Horner at Camp Merritt in 1919.

Secure communications

While planning to attack the Germans, leaders in the 142nd Infantry developed the idea to carry out voice communications exclusively in Choctaw. Their commanding officer, Colonel A.W. Bloor, reasoned that “there was hardly one chance in a million that Fritz could translate these dialects.” Two American Indian officers of the 142nd Infantry, possibly Lieutenants Templeton Black and Ben Cloud, formed a group of “Code Talkers”.

Adapting their native language to the realities of Twentieth-Century warfare took some imagination and discipline. The men agreed that code for “regiment” would be “tribe”; similarly “machine gun” would be “little gun shoot fast”. Having worked out every military term they would likely encounter, the Code Talkers dispersed. In a very short period, there was a Code Talker at the phone in every command post from brigade to regiment to battalion to company levels.

It was time to test the plan in action. In preparation for the attack, it was necessary to move two companies of the 142nd Infantry closer to where the attack was to begin. The Germans were watchful; any clue from telephone intercepts could expose the operation. On the night of October 26th, 1918, two companies from 2nd Battalion slid out of their position and moved closer to the front. The Germans did not notice anything. After that, the Code Talkers would have to handle communications for a furious battle, just hours away.

Innovations in action changed the battlefield to the advantage of American Expeditionary Forces in 1918. Almost simultaneously, a number of American Indians used their skills as Code Talkers. These include men in the U.S. 3rd, 30th, 32nd, 36th and 90th Infantry Divisions in France. Their example would show the way to the World War II U.S. Marine Code Talkers.