WWI DISPATCH December 2023

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December 2023

Mary Bowden

On December 15, 2023, the Doughboy Foundation welcomed a special guest bugler for Daily Taps at the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC. Mary Bowden is the creator of Seraph Brass (an all-female brass quintet) and trumpet professor at Shenandoah University. Wearing a WWI U.S. Army Hello Girls uniform, Mary sounded Taps in honor of WWI Veteran Raymond A. Walling, Battery E., 56th Coast Artillery Corp. Walling was KIA in France on 8/31/1918 and is the namesake for CT VFW Post No. 149. Check next month's issue of DISPATCH for more about Mary Bowden, and find out why sounding Taps meant a lot to her. (Photo © Bruce Guthrie)

Campaign To Win Congressional Gold Medal For The Hello Girls Featured In Podcasts

Battles of the First World War Podcast logo

The Hello Girls of the World War I U.S. Army have never been officially recognized for the groundbreaking service they provided as America’s first women soldiers. In this call to action, an incredible group of people joined the Battles of the First World War Podcast to talk about why the Hello Girls should receive a  Congressional Gold Medal to honor them.  Click here to read more, and find links to two podcasts featuring the campaign for the Congressional Gold Medal for America's First Women Soldiers.


WWI Enemies Played Football During A Christmas Truce – Except...Maybe Not...

Xmas truce memorial soccer ball

Over the Christmas period in 1914, some  fraternization took place in No Man’s Land between British and German soldiers at St. Yvon in Belgium. Memorials in the Belgian villages of St. Yvon and Messines commemorate a football game played between the British and the Germans during the Truce. However, evidence from accounts by those who took part in the Truce casts doubt over whether such a game took place at all. Take a look at this in-depth exploration of the history behind this story of Christmastime soccer, and learn what conclusion the author draws about the putative match on Christmas 1914.


Send A Holiday Greeting To Capitol Hill: Ask Them To Deliver A Congressional Gold Medal For The Hello Girls in 2024

Hello Girls pullup banner

The ongoing campaign for passage of the current Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal legislation in the 118th Congress continues through the holidays, and will ramp up even more in 2024 -- will you answer their call, and make a call to help?

The Hello Girls made critical battlefield tactical communications work effectively for U.S. and French military forces on the front lines of World War I, saving many lives by helping bring the long war to a quicker end. However, when the Hello Girls returned home after WWI ended, they were denied veterans status and benefits until 1977. The Hello Girls earned and deserve the recognition of a Congressional Gold Medal, and the World War I Centennial Commission asks you to help make that happen in the 118th Congress! 

Click here for our toolbox that makes the process of reaching out to your Representative and Senators very straightforward. Congress is going home for the holidays shortly, so you can also reach out to the local and district offices of your Senators and Representative, and tell them that you want them to cosponsor the Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal legislation in the 118th Congress.

When their nation called in 1918, the Hello Girls answered --please answer their call for recognition in 2024!


The Trauma And Slaughter Of World War I Is Examined In A New LACMA Show

 LACMA

World War I is something of a blank spot amid the general American habit of forgetfulness. The epic bloodbath has almost disappeared down the memory hole. It returns now as the focus of an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where its representation as perhaps the first “media war” gets examined. Click here to read more about this show that pulls together about 200 objects to look at how the war was presented to an international public through emerging mass media 100 years ago.


Sabaton’s “History Rocks” WWI Project Deemed Tremendous Success By Museums Around The World

Sabaton movie at NWWIM&M

Sabaton’s recently concluded “History Rocks” museum charity project, which revolved around the global premiere of the heavy metal band’s animated film, “The War To End All Wars – The Movie“, was a resounding success according to the participating museums. It played to a packed house at the National World War I Museum & Memorial in Kansas City, MO (left), and at 140 other museums big and small spanning 30 countries. Click here to read more, and find out why 100% of the museum respondents in a post-event survey stated that they would be open to future collaborations with Sabaton on projects of a similar nature.


Wreaths Across America 2023 remembers and honors our veterans from the past

Wreaths Across America

National Wreaths Across America Day 2023 saw wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as over 4,000+ additional locations in all 50 U.S. states, at sea, and abroad. The Doughboy Foundation participated in  the event in 2023. Many organizations take part in the annual event for a variety of reasons. Click here to learn how American Legion World War I Memorial Post 109 decided to focus its energies by taking over responsibility for several cemeteries in and around Mechanicsburg, PA.


Daily Taps at the National World War I Memorial

Honoring William & George Gurtler

During the week of December 24, 2023Daily Taps at the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC will sound in honor of World War I veterans Cpl. William and Pvt. George Gurtler of Saratoga Springs, NY. Both brothers were KIA on Oct. 20, 1918 during the Hindenburg Line Offensive. They are the namesakes for VFW Post No. 420 in Saratoga Springs, NY 

William and George Gurtler served in the 105th Infantry Regiment of the 27th Division, a local National Guard unit once once based in part at the Lake Avenue Armory, now the state Military Museum and Veterans Research Center. The regiment shipped out to Europe in May 1918 with 2,720 officers and men. Both brothers were assigned to the regiment’s headquarters company. The two brothers were part of a column of troops on October 20, 1918, when German artillery shells landed on the unit. The brothers ended up in the same foxhole; one shell killed both of them. The armistice that ended the fighting came on November 11, less than a month after their deaths. Daily Taps will Honor William and George Gurtler from December 24 to December 30, 2023.

William & George Gurtler

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.


Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials Now Available In Paperback

Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials

Friend of the Doughboy Foundation, historian Allison S. Finkelstein, is excited to share with our readers that her book is now available in paperback. Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945 investigates the groundbreaking role American women played in commemorating those who served and sacrificed in World War I. The book reveals how an overlooked community of women who supported the war effort fought to be recognized for their contributions while pursuing service-based memorialization projects. Click here to read more, and learn how the book seeks to raise awareness about the pioneering unrecognized female veterans of World War I.


The Great War Atrocity That Changed War Crimes Prosecutions Forever

Atrocity on the Atlantic

Writes Nate Hendley "I first encountered the story of His Majesty’s Hospital Ship (HMHS) Llandovery Castle while doing online research about the First World War. I came across a reference to the Leipzig War Crimes Trials—the forgotten attempt to bring German war criminals to justice in the early 1920s. To my surprise, one of the pivotal cases involved a Canadian hospital ship called the Llandovery Castle. Surprise turned to astonishment when I discovered the Llandovery Castle ruling set an epochal precedent that was regularly cited in Nazi-era war crime prosecutions." Click here to learn how Hendley's discovery led him to write the book Atrocity on the Atlantic to renew interest in the World War I Llandovery Castle tragedy and its reverberations in post-World War II events and after.


“Trench Talk, Trench Life”:
Origins Of A Book About World War I

Trench Talk, Trench Life

It was Fredric Winkowski's third-grade teacher who, "on November 11on the day then called Armistice Daymade a statement that was literally burned into my consciousness."  Over the years since then, "the 'what' and 'why' " of World War I have kept his intense interest. Recently,  Winkowski' wrote and illustrated the book “Trench Talk, Trench Life, A Beginner’s Guide to World War One” in an attempt to answer the questions raised by "the distant voice of that elderly lady.Click here to read more about Trench Talk, and find out how Winkowski's discovery of "an old book in a used-book shop in downtown Albany" was a major influence for his latest work.


Corporal Elmer Bowman &
The First Gas Regiment

Elmer W. Bowman

DISPATCH readers were introduced to Michael Santoro’s World War I Militaria Collection back in October of 2023. Now Santoro is back with the first of what will be an ongoing series of articles about the fascinating WWI artifacts that he has accumulated, and the human stories behind them. The helmet shown at left, "gracefully covered by century-old burlap," belonged to Elmer W. Bowman, Company D, 30th U.S. Engineers. Click here to learn more about this helmet and "an American regiment made up of engineers, pharmacists, & chemists made proficient in chemical warfare" during World War I.


In World War I, France Started To Build A Fake Paris To Confuse German Bombers

German aircraft

Just after noon on August 30, 1914, about a month into World War I, a biplane marked with the German iron cross under its wings flew 6,000 feet above France’s capital city. Soon, to the surprise of Parisians below, four explosions rocked the city as Ferdinand von Hiddessen (in the aft cockpit at left) dropped four bombs, by hand, in the world’s first aerial raid on a national capital. As an increasing number of attacks came from German planes (as well as the first wartime Zeppelins), Parisians decided to take drastic action. Click here to read how, in late 1917, engineers commissioned by the French government began creating a fake Paris just outside the capital in an effort to fool the German air force.


Massachusetts Maritime Academy Gets Donation From VFW Post 3152 In Honor Of World War I Navy Vet Lewis A. Young

Massachusetts Maritime Academy donation

Massachusetts Maritime Academy is the recent recipient of a $50,000 donation from the Provincetown VFW Post 3152 to establish an annual scholarship in tribute to Lewis Armstrong Young, a Provincetown native and World War I veteran who died in 1918. Young enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force as a machinist’s mate in July of 1917, and died onboard the U.S.S. Marietta from the influenza pandemic in 1918. In the 1930s, charter members of the Provincetown Veterans of Foreign Wars named their post in honor of Young. Click here to read more, and learn how this donation is .intended to "keep the legacy of the Provincetown hometown hero alive."


Tanks, Scout Planes, and Combined Arms: How the Allies Finally Broke the World War I Trench Stalemate

Popular Mechanics

"Mud, blood, and barbed wire. To an Allied soldier in the trenches of the Western Front in 1917, that seemed to be the future as well as the present." So begins the Popular Mechanics look at the situation on the Western Front in 1917, and what new technology and tactics the Allies used to finally break the stalemate and in the Hundred Days Offensive of 1918, smash through the deep fortifications of the Hindenburg Line, and compel Germany to sue for peace. Click here to read the entire article, and learn what the lessons learned in World War I mean for the current trench stalemate in Ukraine.


Harris County, TX Issues Apology To Black Soldiers Convicted After 1917 Camp Logan Riot during World War I

Camp Logan trial

Harris County has issued a formal apology to the African American soldiers convicted in the wake of the 1917 Camp Logan riot. County commissioners voted unanimously for the resolution. The vote came just a few weeks after the U.S. Army set aside the convictions of 110 Black soldiers sentenced for their participation in the incident. The soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, U.S. 24th Infantry Regiment had been sent to Harris County to guard the construction of Camp Logan, on the grounds of what is now Memorial Park, during the First World War. Click here to read more, and learn how Harris County "will remain committed to creating a more equitable justice system for all and standing against the scourge of racism wherever it exists.”


How A Hospital Meeting Inspired
Wilfred Owen’s World War I Poetry

Wilfred Owen

The horrors of World War One were expressed by many of the soldiers who fought in the conflict but few did so with such power and eloquence as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Owen is often regarded as the best wartime poet of his generation but his potential may never have been realized had he not met Sassoon at Craiglockhart, a hospital in Edinburgh for shell-shocked soldiers. Click here to read more, and find out about a new book exploring how enlightened treatment of what was then called "shell shock" at Craiglockhart was able to return more soldiers to the front than other mental hospitals during the war, as well as play a role in the writing of "the best poetry of the First World war."


World War I News Digest December 2023

Hello Girls Christmas Camp Upton

World War I was The War that Changed the World, and its impact on the United States continues to be felt over a century later, as people across the nation learn more about and remember those who served in the Great War. Here's a collection of news items from the last month related to World War I and America.

The Hello Girls Christmas Party At Camp Upton in 1918

Why Gary Sinise Is A National Treasure

Father Duffy On The Wait Before The Big Fight

The Secret Plot To Bring America Into World War I

Discovering The Magnificent “Dixie Doughboy”

American Look At New Map Of Europe After WWI, 1918

World War I Code Talkers

Navy Department World War I Concrete Barges

How A Vision For World Peace Failed

Friends Of Fort Caswell Rifle Range Honor WWI Veterans

Weathering The Front: How Nature’s Fury Defined World War I


Doughboy MIA for December 2023

Corporal Everett Hogoboom

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is Corporal Everett Hogoboom. He was born on November 13th, 1895, in Onetta, New York. He was a Firefighter for the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Buffalo, New York. He was inducted on September 20th, 1918, in Laporte, Pennsylvania, and sent to Camp Meade for basic training. Initially a member of HQ Co. 314th Infantry, 79th Division, he was transferred to Company “M” of the same regiment before sailing to France in July of 1918.

On September 27th, 1918, Company “M” of the 314th Infantry led the attack towards Nantillois from Montfaucon when they came under intense bombardment and machine gun fire. CPL Hogoboom was declared Killed in Action and reportedly buried the following day by Chaplain H.L. Kearns. After the war, the graves registration service could not locate the grave of CPL Hogoboom, and a search of the reported burial site was completed in 1927 without results. Chaplain Kearns recalled burying the remains of a shell-torn body near the listed burial location of CPL Hogoboom but could not recall the man's identity. CPL Hogoboom is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France.

Would you like to be involved with solving the case of Corporal Everett Hogoboom, and all the other Americans still in MIA status from World War I? You can! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization today, and help us bring them home! Help us do the best job possible and give today, with our thanks.  Remember: A man is only missing if he is forgotten.


Merchandise from the Official
Doughboy Foundation WWI Store

Holiday Specials continues through 12/24/2023

Shop Holiday Specials

The 2023 Holiday Special continues through Dec. 24, 2023 with free standard shipping on orders over $100 and Bonus Surprises on orders over $50. Click here to visit the Doughboy Shop now!

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.



John Franklin Funkhouser

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

John Franklin Funkhouser

Submitted by: Joey Funkhouser {1st Cousin 4x Removed}

John Franklin Funkhouser was born around 1892. John Funkhouser served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1918 and the service was completed in 1918.

Story of Service

John Franklin Funkhouser was born June 17th, 1892 at Baker, West Virginia. He grew up on his family homestead, built by his grandfather. It is said that he was an excellent conversationalist and could liven-up any meeting with his outgoing personality. In 1916, John followed his older brother, William, to Dayton, Ohio where he found work. While in Ohio, John had an ear and mastoid operation probably due to an ear infection.

In April 1917, America entered the war and the call to arms began. John was called to the services of his country in May 1918. In John's surviving letters, he described his six weeks of extensive training. Writing to his sister, Della, he states, "I just got back from the big rifle range. It is 8 miles out from here. We marched those 8 miles and carried about 50 lbs. I never was so tired in all my life as I was when I got here."

Growing up in the backwoods, John learned to hunt and shoot. Those years of helping his family put food on the table paid off in training. He goes on, "We shot all day, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I made some good scores. We had slow and rapid fire, on the rapid fire I had to shoot and load ten times to a minute. I got every shot fired and hit 8 bulls eyes out of 10 at 300 yards. I made the points for sharpshooter."

Read John Franklin Funkhouser's entire Story of Service here.

Submit your family's Story of Service here.