Even though World War I had ended November 11, 1918, a number of American servicemen stayed in Europe to assist the occupation army. Six months later, many assigned to the Headquarter Company's 357th Infantry set sail from St. Nazaire, France on May 26, 1919. Their transport ship home was the USS Huron. Among those soldiers was my grandfather (No. 45) who was soon to land in Newport News, Virginia at Camp Stuart. Well, not that soon. One paper I have shows he arrived on American soil on June 7th. His older brother, Urban, was also on that ship. He is listed as No. 61 on the second image below:
SOURCE: Ancestry's database: U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.
Wikipedia tells me: USS Huron was "formerly the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner SS Friedrich der Grosse (or Friedrich der Große) built in 1896, which sailed Atlantic routes from Germany and sometimes Italy to the United States and on the post run to Australia. At the outset of World War I the ship was interned by the U.S. and, when that country entered the conflict in 1917, was seized and converted to a troop transport. Originally commissioned as USS Fredrick Der Grosse, the ship was renamed Huron — after Lake Huron, the center lake of the Great Lakes — while undergoing repairs and conversion at a U.S. Navy yard. The ship carried almost 21,000 men to France during the hostilities, and returned over 22,000 healthy and wounded men after the Armistice."
Private Elton Wiser had enlisted October 3, 1917 from McClain County, Oklahoma. The Army officially released him from duty on June 18, 1919 at Camp Pike in Arkansas. You will see that he served in both France and Germany, and saw battle at St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. Other offensives recorded in his file: Villers-en-Haye, Puvenelle, Preny, and Sebastapol.
When I first requested his military file from the National Archives in St. Louis, we were told it had been destroyed in the 1973 fire. But in a later package we were happy to learn the NARA had indeed recovered much of his file--although a bit singed.
In his final years my grandfather spoke of his time in Europe. And, frequently! I regret I didn't record his stories via audio or pen. As a child I remember him describing the noise of battle as DEAFENING while the shells fell. How some men frozen with fear didn't duck from bullets headed their way. How his unit missed meals, and went for days without bathing. Funny the things you remember being told as a kid. In particular, Grandpa confused me by bragging that he abstained from drinking wine while in France, as did many of his comrades when off duty.
"Hey, Wiser! Come with us. We're going to the village to drink" they would call to him.
But, no. He was adamant that he never went to bars. Why, I watched the popular 1960's TV show Combat, and knew soldiers drank. Was he just saying this for my benefit? Or was he really a teetotaler. He spoke of it often enough that I thought he "doth protest too much." At least I hope so.
Older relatives recall his painful suffering from what we now call PTSD. Grandpa was so very proud of his service, and was especially honored to have served under General Black Jack Pershing. He kept an 8 x 10 photo of the good general on his wall. See Elton in uniform before his journey to Europe. He was 21 when he enlisted in 1917.
Decades later after learning of his genealogy, I've often wondered this: Elton's father was born in Sachsen (Germany) in 1845. La famille of his mother had immigrated from France in the early 1700s. Did he ever question the irony of fighting his dad's former countrymen in his mother's homeland?