Greetings once again! 
I realized that there was a necessary addendum to the blog, subect: my Uncle Josh who served in the 347th Machine Gun Battalion, 2nd Division, out of Camp Lewis. As readers of the blog and my "Family History Blog" and "Primary Sources" posts (to the left) know, Joshua Henry Bates died in the Meuse-Argonne on 4 October 1918 after running orders to an outlying platoon to fall back due to relief by the 32nd Division. Such a loss of an amazing young man (His officers' detailed comments).

In my research, I discovered that the Purple Heart could be awarded posthumously to the fallen or wounded World War I soldiers, starting with 1917 service, if a descendant requested the award. Since I had volumes of documentation (far more than they needed) I applied. What really made the Department of the Army and me happy is that Uncle Josh's records I owned were part of those destroyed in the St Louis, MO Archive fire. Two weeks after I sent the documentation, I received this:

I was not a sibling or child, so I could not receive an actual medal, but that did not dampen the receipt! Opening and viewing it was worth my surprising sobs. It was good to be able to honor him 100 years later.

These listings range from PDFs about their soldiers' remembrances to websites  created to share all cemeteries in France, that even include worldwide soldiers.  The German link is particularly artistic, a result of years of work. Take time to review it.  

Also, this is not a comprehensive list, and certainly I discovered that much information about cemeteries and memorials was overlapping.

This is the last of the "'25 WEEKS TO ARMISTICE 100" blog.  If you enjoyed it or have questions or comments or suggestions for improvements, I would appreciate them in the short surveys or in a "Comment"  below.  Again, this was not to be an extensive and scholarly blog, but a weekly reminder for us of the men and women who sacrificed themselves by heeding the call of patriotism. World War I is hotly debated, or ignored, due to the politics surrounding the settlement of the war.  All agree that the milieu left in Europe after the war was the breeding ground for Nazism and fanaticism. We hope and pray that war go away quietly, and the end of  World War I was the most exceptional example of that kind of thinking.

​Thank you for reading!

German Memorials:  
​http://vova.pomortzeff.com/german?fbclid=IwAR3PMLwwJU43Jh-KGGC_--1IOU_HAE9uW_EMWmGVPB2osRK2tNYW3JMk5iI

BritishMemorials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_military_memorials_and_cemeteries​

French Memorials:  https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/france-ww1-a.html​

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American Memorials:  http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials#.W992XKeZNZ0​

Italian Memorials:  From Italian Monuments to the Fallen of World War I to ... - RIHA Journalhttps://www.riha-journal.org/...war-graves/.../RIHA_Journal_0165_Pisani.odt.pdf

Canadian Memorials:    http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canada​

Australian Memorials: https://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/wwone_soldiers/cemeteries​

Scot Memorials:  https://www.snwm.org​

Belgian Memorials:  https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/belgium.html​

Austrian Memorials:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_War_Graves_Commission​

Turkish Memorials:  https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/gallipoli-and-anzacs/locations/explore-turkish-memorials​ (by Australia)

Japanese Memorials:  (Have a suggestion)?

Russian Memorials:  https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/commemoration_cult_of_the_fallen_russian_empire​

Greek Memorials:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitenlik​
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This Brigham Young University "Special Collections Exhibit" shared the military firsts of the Great War.  Warfare would never been the same again.

http://exhibits.lib.byu.edu/the-great-war/a-war-of-firsts.html

Yes, it is November 11, 2018! I hope you have enjoyed BELLS OF PEACE today at 11:oo AM. I am winding up next week, and had to tuck in a posting about animals.

I had to post the photography of Jack the rooster first.  My bantie rooster, Romeo, was smaller but similarly marked. Romeo did not live up to his name.  He and his spurs were on attack 24/7. So when I read about Jack and how he kept intruders out I thought, "Yep.  I can totally see that. Weaponized enough. Territorial enough. Hoo Yah!"

I have enjoyed the "Voices of the First World War" podcasts.  In this one "The Animals of War" specific conscripted war animals are shared through journal stories of UK soldiers and sailors.  I agree with one, that the death of animals was horrendous, almost more than the men, as they had no choice, or idea, about what they were getting into. Over 16 millions animals served in World War I!

For more stories I suggest War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. Many of you are familiar with the stage adaptation of the book. Michael reads the audiobook if you prefer them as I do.  Fair warning: Horse lovers will bawl their eyes out. The Lost Battalion, with Richie Schroeder, shows the amazing flights of carrier pigeons.

I received an email with a link to the Commission's site which lists the events in Washington, D.C.  Lucky for those of us who are not able to go, the events are LIVE streaming.  Here is the link to the event page.  




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The Commission also extended a personal invitation to the WWI Armistice Centennial Day Sacred Service at Washington National Cathedral on November 11, starting at 10am Eastern.  It is also LIVE streaming, and this is the link to attend remotely. The Bells for Peace start at 11 AM in each time zone, so that service will be under an hour in length.

The World War One Centennial Commission has invited all to participate in a bell ringing for peace on November, 11, 2018 at 11:00 AM. You can go to their participation webpage to participate and browse through resources prepared for group and individual use.   WEBPAGE

​I have set up an app to transform my smartphone into bells. Join me by reviewing the materials and downloading the app now. We often hear "Let Freedom Ring." That is true.  But letting peace ring can indeed be music to our ears.

My Uncle Josh, 347th Machine Gun Battalion, 91st Division, out of Camp Lewis, religiously wrote in his tiny camp diary. He brought it from Salt Lake City, a freebie from a cleaners.  He wrote about rain, a lot.  I am not surprised as Pacific Northwest rain had to be impressive to a high-desert native. He wrote about training, learning French, drills, shooting awards, football games, Secretary McAdoo's visit, and his clerical work at the hospital. ​Intriguing were the non-entries of March 1918. He was in the hospital as a patient for sixteen plus days. After returning to his barracks for more rest, fellow soldiers brought him food and checked up on him.  He only felt like reading and writing letters. In a letter home he asked his mother to verify that he had already had mumps as a child. Mumps? Influenza? He never wrote about the diagnosis. However, it does appear that Camp Lewis did have an early exposure to some strain of flu. 

"On April 15, however, it was reported that at the army’s Camp Lewis south of Tacoma (now part of Joint Base Lewis-McChord), pneumonia has slightly increased during the week, most of the cases follow influenza, which was at its maximum two weeks ago.” (“Civilian Workers Fast Being Eliminated ...”).  The 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ Pandemic in Washington. 

Another online article discusses the flu at Camp Lewis called "Now Part of JBLM, Was at the Center of the Beginning of the Lethal Disease in Washington State", HistoryLink.org, Nov 8, 2017. According to it, the flu of March 1918 was just a normal flu, with soldiers recovering quickly.  But Josh was sick for weeks. It is still a mystery if he had the Spanish flu, mumps, scarlet fever, more than one health problem, or something else. We only know that he was very weak after the prolonged hospital stay.

The U.S. Army website relates the effects of the Spanish flu worldwide and throughout the American Expeditionary Force. Here is the link for those wishing to read more about the influenza worldwide plague of 1918.  Speaking of plagues and pandemics, "The Plague," considering the smaller world population, was still a much greater pandemic than the Spanish Flu...but tell that to someone who lost a family member or who suffered through it and survived. Americans lost over 45,000 soldiers to the Spanish flu. My university campus turned over large classroom halls to house sick soldiers.

And here we are today, battling another influenza with deaths already mounting at the beginning of the flu season.

​I have to share a photograph from Alex Vdy of France. He and reenactor friends are honoring the American Doughboys, and yes, even playing a little baseball. He writes his permission, "Yes of course !! Its my friends and me, in north of France (fort de seclin), the last week, we have members of YMCA and infantry regiment." His photograph is from 21 October 2018.  

​Many of you may not realize that across Europe there are individuals and organizations that religiously research, analyze battle sites, reenact, adopt American soldiers and their graves, and write about World War I and World War II. Right now, in the meuse.argonne.com Facebook group, a discussion is buzzing about a dog tag found in a home garden in Gercourt.  Everyone is trying their hand at identifying the private of the 47th to whom it belongs:  Louis Co_e_. of the 47th Infantry. I have a feeling that the mystery will be solved by this tenacious group.

Honoring the Doughboys and the GIs is truly a passion born of gratitude for what the United States committed to for our allies during the two world conflicts in Europe. When my sister and I visited Bayeux and the beaches of Normandy, many told us that the French will never, never forget.   Merci!

You can read more about Fort de Seclin in this Wikipedia article.

A reenactment of the Battle of Somme is shared by BBC.

Baseball and World War I 
September 27, 2018 by Wendi Maloney

***From the Library of Congress World War I Blog***

This is a guest post by Naomi Coquillon, an education specialist in the Interpretive Programs Office. The post ties together themes from two major concurrent exhibitions on display at the Library: Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I and Baseball Americana.

​When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, baseball had been known as the “national pastime” for 60 years and was on the cusp of a golden era. Wrigley Stadium was about to celebrate its third birthday. The Red Sox had just begun a sixth season in Fenway Park. Babe Ruth was almost three years into his storied career. And the massive national effort to raise an army and mobilize public support for the war touched nearly every aspect of American society – including the sport of baseball.

Major League Baseball players and teams supported the war effort by conducting demonstration trainings, opening stadiums for war-related charity events and participating in Liberty Loan bond drives – Christy Mathewson, pitcher for the New York Giants then manager for the Cincinnati Reds, helped sell more than $100,000 in bonds in a single day.

For American forces overseas, baseball was a means of boosting morale. The American military created 77 baseball diamonds in France, and on any given day some 200 games were played throughout the country. “The soldiers like to play ball. … You can’t get enough baseballs to go around here,” the Harrisburg (Pa.) Telegraph reported in August 1918.

On the home front, shipyards and steel manufacturers hired professional baseball players to do industrial work and recruited them to play on company baseball teams. Workers in shipyards, steel mills and munitions factories were exempt from the draft; among the major leaguers who joined these teams were “Shoeless” Joe Jackson of the Chicago White Sox and Charles “Jeff” Tesreau, pitcher for the New York Giants. Although these games were reportedly well attended, the players were often derided as “slackers” and accused of taking these positions to avoid military service.
In May 1918, the Selective Service Division issued the “work or fight” rule, which stated that by July 1, all men of draft age not involved in “useful” work could be brought before a draft board and compelled to participate in war work or military service. The regulation came to include such service professions as elevator operators and doormen as well as those involved in games and sports.

According to historian Jim Leeke, author of “From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During the Great War,” approximately 38 percent of active Major League players went on to serve, and eight current or former players were either killed in action or died of illness during the war. Among them was former Philadelphia and Cincinnati third baseman Eddie Grant, who perished during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, during which he led troops on a search for the famous Lost Battalion.
Branch Rickey.

Future Hall-of-Famers Christy Mathewson and Ty Cobb served in the Chemical Warfare Service of the U.S. Army under Branch Rickey, the former manager of the St. Louis Browns who would go on to his greatest fame as general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mathewson suffered exposure to gas during a training exercise that left his lungs permanently weakened; he died of tuberculosis in 1925. George Sisler, who would also be inducted into the Hall of Fame, trained for the Chemical Warfare Service but did not serve abroad.

Baseball players who served overseas made their way home during the winter of 1918–19, and Major League Baseball began a shortened season the following April. Fans and players alike looked forward to the sport’s return; as the New York Times reported in January 1919, “Baseball stands in high favor among the soldiers. Since the armistice was signed they have talked about nothing else but the game. They are all anxious to get back home to see a good ball game.”

If you plan to be in Washington, D.C., this fall, consider stopping by our Echoes of the Great War exhibition in person to learn more about the story of baseball during World War I. And visit our Baseball Americana exhibition, too, located in an adjacent gallery on the same floor of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building.