WWI DISPATCH April 2023

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April 2023

The "Return Home" section of the  sculpture clay for the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC

The "Return Home" section of the monumental sculpture clay for the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC is assembled and prepped for final sculpting at the Sabin Howard Studio in Englewood, NJ in April. The completed section will be shipped to the Pangolin Foundry in the UK this June to be cast in bronze. Sabin has some eight feet left to complete of the almost 60-foot long "A Soldier's Journey" sculpture that will be the largest high relief freestanding bronze in the Western Hemisphere when installed at the Memorial in September 2024.

Hello Girls header image

Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal Gaining Support in House of Representatives, Senate

In March of 2023, legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate chambers of Congress to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the U.S. Army Signal Corps telephone operators, known as "The Hello Girls." The legislation has already secured the cosponsorship of 13 Representatives and four Senators.

Congress has been out of session the past few weeks, but they will be back in business for the next several weeks on Capitol Hill from this week until Memorial Day. That makes this the perfect time for you to contact your Senators and Representatives, and tell them that you support this legislation honoring these brave American women who connected U.S. and French military forces on the front lines of World War I, but were denied veterans status or benefits for some 70 years.

We are asking for your help to get this legislation passed through both Houses of Congress and onto the President's desk for signature. Yes, you can help!  Click here for our toolbox that makes the process of reaching out to your Representative and Senators very straightforward. Please tell your Senators and  Representative that you support the Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal legislation. Please answer their call!


Daily Taps at the National World War I Memorial

Honoring CW4 Eugenio Rivera, USA

On April 4, 2023, Daily Taps at the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC was sounded in honor of Eugenio Rivera, 32-year Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army and Vietnam Veteran, and father of the NFL Washington Commanders Head Coach Ron Rivera.

Taps was sounded by bugler Kevin Paul, who is currently an active-duty trumpeter in a premier military band which performs regularly at the White House, Arlington National Cemetery, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and other venues in the national capital region. Coach Rivera is the recipient of the 2022 Salute to Service Award, presented by USAA. Paul and Rivera are pictured at right.

Eugenio Rivera was a CW4 (Chief Warrant Officer). He served with a number of units with his final unit and station being 519th Engineers 707 Maintenance in Fort Ord, California. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and one tour of duty in Korea. The Rivera Family is very proud of his service to our great country. In growing up in a military family it provided them the opportunity to serve alongside Mr. Rivera and support our troops.

Ron Rivera and Kevin Paul

The Daily Taps program of the Doughboy Foundation provides a unique opportunity to dedicate a livestreamed sounding of Taps in honor of a special person of your choice while supporting the important work of the Doughboy Foundation. Choose a day, or even establish this honor in perpetuityClick here for more information on how to honor a loved veteran with the sounding of Taps.


2023 Veterans Clinic Symposium at Mizzou Law School Spotlights World War I Hello Girls

Veterans Clinic poster

On April 28, 2023, the Missouri University School of Law Veterans Clinic Symposium will present Discrimination in the Military and Thereafter: United We Stand, Divided We Fall. Since 1775, when the U.S. military was founded, a wide range of discrimination has been practiced, including formal segregation, cultural racism, and gender inequality throughout the years. One of the historical episodes that will be in focus is the case of the WWI Hello Girls telephone operators, who served in uniform but were denied veterans benefits. Click here to read more about America’s first women soldiers, the long effort to give them the recognition that they earned with their wartime service, and how you can attend the Clinic in person or remotely.


Remembering Nimrod Frazer

Frazer and Seefried

Nimrod Thompson (Rod) Frazer, a decorated Korean War Veteran, and honorary chairman of the Alabama World War I Centennial Committee, died on March 7th, 2023, in his native city of Montgomery. Commissioner Monique Seefried of the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, a long-time friend and associate of Frazer, recalls how his initial interest in WWI, driven by the wartime service of his own father, blossomed into a lifetime focus on remembering those who served. Click here to to read her entire thoughtful and fond remembrance of the man from Alabama who "always gave the image of an America where everyone could realize their dreams.”


American Battle Monuments Commission Celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month

James Reese Europe conducting

For Jazz Appreciation Month, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) honors one of the most famous regimental bands of World War I — the regimental band of the 369th U.S. Infantry, led by Lt. James Reese Europe. Europe joined the regiment at the request of the Regimental Commander to form a band. He was already a famous musician leading the Clef Club band since 1912. He also arranged musical numbers and performed with Irene and Vernon Castle, a famous dance duo of the time. Click here to read the entire article, and learn how James Reese Europe and his band changed history, especially musical history, in World War I. 


This Photographer Went Around The World To Capture Every Single WWI Battle. Here Are His Photos.

Original trenches northeast of Reims

On the HISTORYNET web site, writer Zita Ballinger Fletcher spotlights the extraordinary work of photographer Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, who retraced important World War I battles in his book series, “In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War.” Says Fletcher: "Szalay-Berzeviczy’s images succeed in capturing the essence of both the triumphant and tragic milestones of this sweeping conflict."  Click here to read the entire article, and view a selection of stunning photographs from Szalay-Berzeviczy's two books.


Monticello, KY Doughboy Statue 100 Year Celebration unites local community

Monticello, KY Doughboy Statue

The Doughboy arrived in Monticello on January 19, 1923, and was dedicated on April 8, 1923. On April 6, 2023, the 100th-year Celebration of the Doughboy took place at historic Wayne Theater in Monticello. Held indoors due to inclement weather, the celebration drew both current and expatriate members of the Monticello community to celebrate the iconic figure. Click here to read more, see photos, and watch a wonderful video about the celebration of a monument that has meant so much to a community for over 100 years.


Veteran's Persistence Solves Mystery of World War I Funeral Flag

WWI Funeral Flag returned

One afternoon in February, Rich Urban walked into the newsroom of The Greeneville Sun with a century-old mystery to share. By late March, the mystery was solved, and on April 4, Urban’s persistence paid off with a trip to the home of Cynthia Cox in Knoxville. A USAF vet and and secretary of the local American Legion Post, Urban delivered a funeral flag for Cox’s ancestor, James “Henry” White, a local World War I soldier killed in action in France. Click here to read the entire article, and learn how Urban wouldn't quit short of his goal of seeing the World War I flag "get back to family if it’s at all possible."


Yakima County Gets Ready To Fight As World War I Is Declared In 1917

Yakima Morning Herald April 6 1917

When the U.S. Congress voted to declare war on Germany and join World War I, Yakima County in Washington State quickly moved to a war footing. Even before the overwhelming vote in Congress to declare war — 50 House members and six senators objected —Yakima County was gearing up for a possible fight. Click here to read more about the county's running start on war preparation, and learn how all but one member of a local high school’s graduating class that year enlisted; the one who didn’t was turned away due to a physical disability.


Storm Knocks Down 100-Year-Old Tree Honoring Rochelle, IL’s WWI Dead

Rochelle, IL memorial tree uprooted

One of the casualties of the March 31 storm that hit the Rochelle, IL area was a 100-year-old tree at Memorial Park honoring those that died serving their country in World War I. The tree was uprooted completely and was found the morning of April 1. Near the upturned roots, the plaque commemorating it that reads “This tree planted in memory of Rochelle World War dead” still stood. Now local historian Tom McDermott has sprouted a plan to bring the century-old tree back to life again to continue its mission of honoring those who served. Click here to read more, and learn what he is doing and how perhaps you can assist the effort with the right kind of expertise.


Embracing Remembrance

John Sterkendries

We have previously published articles here and here about Belgian John Sterkendries' mission to ride his motorcycle around the border of the continental United States "with a goal of raising awareness of the sacrifices of the past while seeing American sites of remembrance." Next month we'll have a new article about the third leg of his journey around and across the USA. But this month, the American Legion web site has published a great article about John and his amazing journey honoring Americans and Belgians who served their nations in World War I.


Lonesome Memorials: The U.S. 4th Division, Meuse-Argonne Monument

U.S. 4th Division, Meuse-Argonne Monument, Brieulles-Sur-Meuse

Mike Hanlon has begun a new series on his Roads to the Great War web site that looks at "out-of-the-way monuments and memorials that are sometimes very substantial but have only the barest inscriptions and few or no details about what happened in this location that was worthy of memorialization. It’s also often evident that there have been few visitors to the site. In this series, I’m going to try tell the stories of some of the little-visited, little-remembered memorials." Click here to read the first article in the new series, about the monument to the AEF’s 4th Division near Brieulles-sur-Meuse for its service in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign .


How World War I-Era Biplanes Ended The Reign Of Battleships

A Depiction of Air Combat Between WWI Biplanes

By World War I, most navies centered their power around massive battleships. However, the recent introduction of biplanes to warfare would change that. While most think of Pearl Harbor in 1941 as the first event to highlight the shift from battleships to carriers, the first crack in the Dreadnoughts' armor came in WWI when biplanes armed with machine guns for defense and bombs for offense created a new field of warfare. Click here to read the entire insightful article on TheCollector web site, and learn how "Few took note of this new weapon’s potential in naval warfare" that would ultimately doom the mighty battleships.


A Most Unusual Cutter—Revenue Cutter Service & Coast Guard Cutter Snohomish

USCG Cutter Snohomish

Among all the vessels built as cutters for either the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service or Coast Guard, one of the most unique was the Cutter Snohomish. The Norfolk-built cutter, designed specifically for operations on the stormy Pacific Northwest coast, served in the Atlantic during World War I. In his The Long Blue Line series article on the United States Coast Guard web site, writer Timothy Dring looks at the novel origins of Snohomish, her early days on the Pacific Coast, and how 1917 changed everything for the plucky vessel. Click here to read the entire article, and find out how, almost 10 years to the day from the cutter’s first departure from Norfolk to the West Coast, Snohomish found herself at war in the Atlantic.


When Will We Ever Learn: Lessons From WWI Shine Light On Russia And China

Ambassador Tibor Nagy

Writing for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper in Texas, Ambassador Tibor Nagy, former ,Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, looks at "Russia’s international gangsterism and China’s moves to replace America’s carefully constructed international system," and notes that "Our nation’s responses to these two serious international challenges – which imperil not only global stability but our own future – bear remarkable parallels to how America’s naivete, isolationism, and dithering were major factors in the collapse of global order in the aftermath of World War I and led to the catastrophe of World War II." Click here to read the entire article, and learn how, after World I, "Our absence from the international arena had devastating consequences" that could very well happen again in the Twenty-first Century.


The WWI Editorial That W.E.B. Du Bois Regretted For Years

Wounded World cover

Writing for the Washington Post newspaper, Vaughn Rasberry looks at the new book Wounded World by Chad L. Williams that "recounts Du Bois’s disillusionment over the war and his struggle to publish a book about Black soldiers’ experiences." The new book "narrates the impact of the war on Du Bois and his anguished effort to write a definitive history of Black participation in the Great War. " Click here to read more, and find out about the lifelong fallout Du Bois endured because of his decision "to encourage his readers to set aside their struggles in the name of patriotism and national unity."


Navy History Matters:
Loretta Perfectus Walsh

Loretta Perfectus Walsh

On March 21, 1917, Loretta Perfectus Walsh was sworn in as a chief yeoman, becoming the first female chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy. Four days earlier, Walsh had been the first woman to enlist in the Navy, having the distinction of being the first woman to serve in any of the U.S. armed forces other than a nursing assignment. Click here to read her entire story, and see how the career of the Navy pioneer was cut short by the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 - and how her legacy is now honored on the Navy's oldest warship.


Your WWI Mission: ‘Get The Americans Onside To Help End The Conflict!’

Major L. Gordon Sandford

In 1918, Major L. Gordon Sandford — an Australian who had fought with the British army in France and Belgium and had been injured — sailed to New York. He was one of several officers sent to the United States to help raise money for World War I which America had joined the previous year. But there were two things about Sandford that no one knew: (1) he was on a secret mission from the British Ministry of Information, and (2) he would go on to become the grandfather of Euronews writer Alasdair Sandford. Click here for the grandson's recounting of Gordon's secret mission, and learn how "the end of my grandfather’s tour brought letters of appreciation and “gratifying” loan pledges" for the Liberty Loan program. 


Conservation Of World War I Cartoons

ZSR Library conserving WWI cartoons

Stars and Stripes newspaper was first published during World War I (1914-1918) and then continuously since World War II. A donation was made to Special Collections and Archives of the ZSR Library at Wake Forest University which consisted of a group of cartoons from the WWI Stars and Stripes. Printed on newsprint over 100 years old, the yellowed and very brittle cartoon pages presented a real challenge to conservators at the Museum. Click here to read the entire article, and learn how Preservation Librarian Craig Fansler found just the right approach to preserve this "capsule of one aspect of the war and life in the trenches" for present and future researchers.


How A World War I Film From 1919 Set The Stage For The Zombie Film Genre

Zombie snip from “J’Accuse” (1919).

Zombie myths trace their roots back as far as ancient Greece, and they have a particular infamy in West African culture, but the first portrayal on the silver screen of the reanimated dead returning to wreak havoc may, in fact, have been in a French silent film about the horrors of World War I called “J’Accuse” (1919). Director Abel Gance set the stage for the genre by featuring soldiers of World War I rising from their graves. Click here to read more about this genre pioneer, and how World War I soldiers risen from the dead created the zombie paradigm that movie makers have followed for over 100 years. Sort of like... zombies...it's like zombie movies is the genre that just won't die...


Doughboy MIA for April 2023

First Lieutenant George Vaughn Seibold

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is First Lieutenant George Vaughn Seibold, 148th Aero Squadron and grandson to two Union Officers in the Civil War, one who received the Medal of Honor leading an attack at Reams Stations, Virginia. First Lieutenant Seibold shot down two enemy aircraft while fighting for his survival on his last day.  If he had survived his last aerial battle, and had the two victories been confirmed, his total enemy aircraft destroyed would be six, making him an American fighter ace.

George V. Seibold was born on 6 February 1893 in Washington D.C. to George G Seibold, a proofreader and linotype operator with the Washington Star and secretary of the Columbia Typographical Union, and Grace Darling (Whitaker) Seibold, daughter to Brigadier General Edward Washburn Whitaker (1st CT Cavalry). His family were prominently known Republicans in Washington circles.  Grace Seibold being close friends with Grace Coolidge, wife to Calvin Coolidge, the wartime Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and man who would be Vice President (1921-1923) and then President (1923-1929).

George V. Seibold was known as kind, protective of his siblings, fun loving, easy-going, and charming. He was a good student and capable athlete. Popular with his classmates, George Seibold graduated from Washington’s Central High School enrolled in the McKinley Manual Training School instead of attending a university. In 1912 he worked in the Government Printing Office and then as the private secretary to Congressman Dr. Thomas Nelson Page. George Seibold then moved to Chicago to work in a law firm of a family member but left that employment to work as a real estate broker for Aldis & Company. He would work there for four years only leaving in 1917 to fight for the United States in Europe.

While at Aldis & Company he attended the first Reserve Officer’s Training Camp in Plattsburgh, New York in 1916. His many positive traits made him ideal leadership material and as a result received an evaluation as an excellent candidate to become an Army Officer. During his time in Chicago he met and began dating his future wife, Kathryn Irene Benson, a fellow Aldis & Company employee.

On 2 April 1918 the United States declared war on Germany and George V. Seibold entered the Officer’s Reserve Corps Training Camp at Fort Sheridan, Illinois in July 1917. Before the end of that month, he would find out he was accepted into the Army’s Aviator training program. He immediately proposed marriage to Kathryn on 17 July 1917, and married four days later. They would spend a day and a half together before he departed for Toronto, Canada to begin his flight training.

Click to read George Seibold's whole story.

Would you like to be involved with solving these cases? You can! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization today, and help us bring them home! Doughboy MIA will be mounting another mission to France this summer. Help us do the best job possible and give today, with our thanks.


Merchandise from the Official
Doughboy Foundation WWI Store

Poppy Flag

WWI Poppy Flag 5’X7′

  • A Doughboy.shop Exclusive
  • Premium, Dual sided Poppy Design
  • 5’ x 7’ Digital Nylon
  • Grommets for rigging
  • Limited Edition
  • Made in USA
WWI Poppy Lapel Pin

Poppy Lapel Pin

Back In Stock!!

  • Exclusive Commemorative WW1 Poppy Lapel Pin
  • Soft enamel color design
  • Approx. 1.5 inch in dia.
  • Standard military clasp

Proceeds from the sale of these items will help build the new National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC.

This and many other items are available as Official Merchandise of the Doughboy Foundation.



Nelson Howard Ulmer

A Story of Service from the Stories of Service section of ww1cc.org

Nelson Howard Ulmer

Submitted by: Barrett Young {great-grandson}

Nelson Howard Ulmer served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The dates of service are: Known August 20, 1918 – September 23, 1919.

Story of Service

Nelson H. Ulmer, my great-grandfather, was born on May 16, 1896 in Dawson, Nebraska.

Nelson began his military career on August 20, 1918, at the local draft board in Falls City, Nebraska. In the afternoon, he and seven others boarded a train for Des Moines, Iowa. Near midnight, the train reached Camp Dodge, Iowa where Nelson spent 43 days getting equipment, vaccinations, drilling, hiking, tests, and was even placed on stable duty for a time.

On September 21, he started for Camp Jesup (Near Fort McPherson, Georgia) passing through St. Louis, Missouri, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, Evansville, Indiana, Nashville, Tennessee, and arrived at Camp Jesup on September 23.

On October 20, new companies were formed and he became a part of Co. G. Unit 310. Motor Transport Corps. (The Motor Transport Corps (M.T.C.) was formed out of the Quartermaster Corps on 15 August 1918, by General Order No. 75. Men needed to staff this new corps were recruited from the skilled tradesmen working for automotive manufacturers in the US.)

Nelson rolled his pack for the last time at Camp Jesup and boarded a train due north on October 24. He passed thru Greenwood, South Carolina, Monroe, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and reached Camp Merritt, New Jersey Sunday morning, October. 27. There he was issued equipment, inspected, and in his words “shearing our beautiful curls”. The next day he set out for Alpine Landing where he boarded a ferry boat for Hoboken, New Jersey. Upon arrival in Hoboken, he boarded the Princess Matoika, (formerly Princess Alice of Germany) and at noon was France bound. During the voyage Nelson wrote: “The voyage was rather uneventful with the exception of one day of storm.”

Read Nelson Howard Ulmer's entire Story of Service here.

Submit your family's Story of Service here.


Honor the Stories of Service of ALL Who Served.

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