Month: August 2020

O.K. After the War

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

Otho Farrell likely returned to Amarillo on June 18, 1919; the same day as most of the men of Potter County’s Company G. He had a couple months’ back pay and his sixty-dollar bonus in his pocket. Fortunately for O.K. Farrell, he could return to his old job at the Santa Fe Railroad. When he enlisted, he had been a stenographer in the Superintendent’s office at the Amarillo branch headquarters.

O. K. Farrell on right, 1919

Sooner rather than later, Otho would see his family in Waynoka, OK. His parents and two sisters lived in this small town, over two hundred miles from Amarillo. They had not seen him in over a year. That summer, on July 19, Waynoka had a banquet for its Great War veterans. Otho’s family very much wanted him to make the trip to attend. However Otho seemed ambivalent about attending. Like many veterans, he had experienced life in the military and was now ready to move on. Anyway, the program for that banquet has been kept, so it’s likely he did go.

Victory Medal

In 1920 the War Department began issuing the Victory Medal. The medal was authorized in April 1919 and everyone in uniform from April 1917 to November 1918 was eligible to wear it. 4,412,533 men and women served in the armed forces during this time. However only about half this number served overseas. The Army began issuing their version of the Victory Medal in June 1920. Most soldiers had already left the Army by that time. To get one, a veteran had to fill out an application and have it endorsed by a serving officer before mailing it to the Army. Two and a half million Victory Medals were distributed. Soldiers of the 36th Infantry Division were entitled to wear the “Meuse-Argonne” and “Defensive Sector” battle clasps. (Read more about the battle clasps here)

World War I Victory Medal as worn by the 36th Infantry Division

A courtship

Meanwhile, what about Gladys Loper, that girl Otho wrote home to? During the time Otho was in the army, Gladys graduated high school and attended teacher’s college. She had grown up. Both Otho and Gladys realized that, despite frequent letter-writing, they did not know each other well. A proper courtship, carried over 213 miles’ distance, was begun. It took some time before Otho felt secure enough in his new job at the Treasurer’s office at Santa Fe. But in December 1920, Otho and Gladys were married.

The couple made their home in Amarillo, where they were active at the First Baptist Church. Otho served there as a deacon. He was also a member of the American Legion and its honor society, the “40-and-8s”. Otho served as Chef de Gare (Post President) of the Amarillo chapter of the 40-and-8s and kept up with his Company G buddies for the rest of his life.

Otho and Gladys (left) on their honeymoon in San Francisco, December 1920

Working at the railroad

Otho’s organizational skills, good humor, and hard work characterized him at Santa Fe as it did in the army. In his long career at Santa Fe, he was promoted paymaster and cashier on his way to the top. O.K. Farrell became treasurer and secretary of the executive board at the Amarillo branch in 1962. He had started at the railroad in 1914 as a message boy.

As a Santa Fe executive, he was able to ride the rails for free anywhere in North America. Santa Fe had a club car that executives could attach to its trains so they could travel in extreme comfort. The Farrells used this perk from time to time, but Otho was known for keeping careful watch on expenses. For example, it appears that after Otho returned to Hoboken, NJ with the 142nd Infantry in 1919, he never left the United States again.

He was OK with that.

It’s over, over there

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

Back in the United States after almost one year, men of the 142nd infantry rested for a week at Camp Merritt in New Jersey. All of them would rather have been home instead of on the outskirts of New York. But it was significant as it was the last time the regiment was together. Although most of the soldiers of the 142nd were Texans or Oklahomans, a number from other states had been transferred to it. These men would not be making the journey southwest with the regiment. So, soldiers began to make their farewells during the first week of June at Camp Merritt.

Back in the Southwest

On June 8th, 1919, the 142nd Infantry Regiment entrained at Camp Merritt at 10 a.m. heading west. That night, they reached Cincinnati. The next night they had reached Springfield, Missouri. On June 11, the 142nd was in Enid, Oklahoma, where they marched through the streets to wild acclaim. Family members of soldiers were in the crowd, leaning in to get their first glimpse of a son, a brother, a husband. It was possible for these men to briefly reunite with family and friends, but the train had miles to go.

142nd Infantry in Enid, OK June 11 1919

The next day, the train stopped in El Reno, Oklahoma City, and Chickasha. Each time, the whole regiment got off the train, looking sharp, and carried their rifles in formation down the main street. They were among the first Oklahoma servicemen to return from the Great War. The greeting they received was tumultuous, but all the soldiers really wanted to do was get home fast.

Camp Bowie

On June 13, the train finally stopped in Fort Worth, which the 142nd had last seen eleven months before. Experienced veterans stepped off the train at the place they had once been green recruits. Once again they marched through the main thoroughfares, but happily returned to the train to get to Camp Bowie. Camp Bowie had been converted to a Demobilization Center in late 1918. Soldiers from overseas had been processing through it since February 1919; so the crowd along the parade route on that day in June was not as boisterous.

Members of the 36th Infantry on parade, June 1919

That is not to say that Texas was not happy to see its warriors come home. However, they were all coming home at the same time. Along with the other units of the 36th Infantry Division, the 90th “Alamo” Division was returning to Texas as well. Camp Bowie was a nest of activity as staff directed units to their tents and soldiers began the process of demobilizing out of the Army.

Demobilization

The process could take a few days, especially now that Camp Bowie was crowded. The 142nd found itself encamped in the area where the 61st Artillery Brigade was located back in 1917. Many, if not all of them, walked over to the area which had been their home at Camp Bowie for ten months. Soldiers turned in their rifles and all their equipment, keeping only their uniforms, shoes, gas mask, and helmet. There was a physical for all the men at the camp hospital. Then soldiers got in line to see the paymaster. Each one received his back pay plus a sixty-dollar bonus awarded to all soldiers returning from France.

142nd Infantry Regiment Band at Camp Bowie, 1917

Soldiers also received a travel allowance that paid for transportation to the location of their enlistment. Train tickets were sold right there in camp. There was an office of the US Employment Bureau for soldiers who wanted to apply for a job. The government also offered one last chance to purchase life or disability insurance before the men left the service.

“Farewell”

The men received their discharge paper from the Army. The moment had arrived; they were no longer working for Uncle Sam. “Oh boy, ain’t it a grand and glorious feeling” one ex-soldier exclaimed after he came out of the last barracks with his discharge. Friends and comrades who’d been through every stage of life in the service together now had to say goodbye. There was a train to catch or family waiting at the camp gate. Time did not allow for all that might have been said. But what they did communicate to each other in those few heady moments said it all.

On June 17, 1919, the 142nd Infantry Regiment stood down.

On June 18th, its parent organization, the 36th Infantry Division, was demobilized.

In the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by Germany on June 28th, ending the European war. The collapse of the Russian, German and Austrian Empires sparked fighting in Eastern Europe for two more years. Because of some of its provisions, especially the one establishing the League of Nations, the United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles. A state of war existed between the United States and Germany until August 25, 1921.

The last American soldier left occupied Germany on January 24, 1923.

Remembrance

Ten years after the Armistice of November 11, 1918, the Llano Estacado chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution unveiled a memorial in Amarillo. It was dedicated to “The Panhandle Boys”, young men who went to war in 1917, some of whom would never get to grow old. A local department store published a tribute that day in the Amarillo Daily News,

“The rancors of the struggle have vanished long ago. With our generation will die the distant recollections of undersea destroyers, Liberty Loan parades and ghostly troopships fading down the misty reaches of New York Bay. But the memory of the lad who marched into the east on those long ago mornings shall ever remain sacred in our hearts and those of our children and our children’s children.”

“But westward, look, the land is bright”

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

Two weeks after they had moved to Le Mans, the 36th Infantry Division began to move to port. Soldiers of the 142nd Infantry Regiment, quartered just outside Le Mans in and around the town of Savigné l’Évêque, boarded American trains on May 17, 1919. The American boxcars were much larger than the French 40-and-8s (40 Hommes/8 Chevaux). The rail journey took the men overnight to their port of embarkation, Brest.

Brest was the port of embarkation for the entire division. The rest camp at Pontanézen was uphill from the old port town. It was remembered negatively by those soldiers who had passed through it about nine months before. For example, it was primitive and the men had to sleep in a cow pasture. Returning in 1919, the 36th found it much enlarged and improved.

Au revoir

The 142nd Infantry barely got to know Pontanézen as they spent about twenty-four hours in it. They arrived on May 18 at 2 p.m. and, after the ritual delousing exercise, spent the night. By 4 p.m. the next day the whole regiment was on the dock at Brest, waiting to board ship. Most of the regiment boarded the old Navy cruiser, USS Pueblo. The 3rd Battalion boarded the British troopship, RMS Saxonia.

Pueblo and Saxonia left port that day, May 19. It was a bittersweet moment for the men of the 142nd Infantry. Buried in the old battlefield were nearly 200 of their comrades. In addition, the regiment had experienced the rigors of combat and the stresses of post-war deployment far from home. A number of the officers had requested reassignment to Germany in the Army of Occupation. Further, some officers were reassigned from the 36th Division to other Army units in France. These officers had a choice whether to stay or go home, but many stayed. However, only a small number of enlisted men from the 36th Division re-upped for more duty in Europe with the Army.

USS Pueblo

“All engines stop!”

The next day, May 20, the Pueblo was steaming homeward. The sun was out, and many men were on deck relaxing. A rogue wave crashed over the bow, sending men across the deck grasping parts of the ship. There were several injuries. Then two men were seen in the water. Life rings were thrown out to them. The Pueblo stopped. Sailors quickly lowered the lifeboats and rowed out to where the men were last seen. Subsequently they returned with the body of Corporal Harry S. Hovey, of E Company. After searching in rough seas for nearly an hour, the lifeboats returned to the Pueblo.

A roll call of everyone aboard ship revealed that Private Joseph C. Strong of Clarendon, Texas was missing, now lost at sea. Rough seas continued for much of the journey. As a result, hatches remained closed and the men were not allowed on deck until May 25th. The sea becalmed, a memorial service was held on deck on the 25th for Corporal Hovey and Private Strong.

On deck of the USS Pueblo

The Golden Door

By May 30, soldiers on deck of the Pueblo could see a difference in the sky before them. Birds flew overhead; the air smelled different. At dawn on May 31st, USS Pueblo approached New York Harbor. As they sailed past the Statue of Liberty and into the Hudson River, a small craft came alongside with a banner that read “OKLAHOMA”. Congressmen Jim McClintic and E. B. Howard, both of Oklahoma, were on board. McClintic greeted the crowd gathered on deck through a megaphone, “we are darn glad you are here and we will give you a big blowout in Oklahoma City.”

The Pueblo reached Hoboken and docked at 9:15 a.m. on May 31st. The RMS Saxonia had docked there on May 30. After ten and a half months, soldiers of the 142nd were on American soil once more. Most of the 36th Infantry Division disembarked at Hoboken, New Jersey. However, the 143rd Infantry Regiment entered the United States at Newport News, Virginia.

Soldiers at Hoboken, NJ

Once ashore, the 142nd Infantry were transported by ferry up the Hudson River to Alpine Landing and had to march five miles to Camp Merritt, NJ. Greeting them there at Camp Merritt was a long line for the “decootieizer”, the bane of every soldier’s existence. The war against lice finally over, the men of the 142nd Infantry marched to the mess hall and then to bed on their first night back in America.