fter
the end of two years, he determined that he had had enough of schoolbooks, and
decided to gain employment as a salesman of some sort, perhaps as a drygoods wholesaler
or something resembling the work he had done in college. He returned to Anthony,
but it was not long before an opportunity arose that he could not resist: in the
Spring of 1914 his brother Edward had gotten a job with a manufacturing concern
in Waco, Texas, and Claude decided to come with him, hoping there would be work
for him, too; and he would not be disappointed. No sooner were Ed and Claude settled
in Waco than through the agency of an old KU friend Claude met Pope Eckels and
Ed Hofmeister, partners in a new project, the Walk-Over Boot Shop, one of a chain
of stores run by the Walk-Over Company of Chicago and Boston; the two were looking
for a third manager, and soon they had a third partner in the venture as well.
The store opened in the Summer of 1914 at 617 Austin Street and was soon doing
a very good business, and the three young men were quickly mastering the shoe
trade and honing their retailing skills. Each took a turn at managing the books,
and shared the responsibilities of the day-to-day store operation, pooling their
funds for inventory enlargement and increasing the store staff. By 1916 the operation
was showing a modest profit and the partners were well satisfied with their labors.
nfortunately,
events on the world stage would soon change these comfortable arrangements: despite
efforts to maintain American neutrality, President Wilson soon found that - wholly
against his will - he could not realistically expect to keep us out of the European
conflict.Early outrage following the loss of American lives in the sinking of
the Lusitania in May 1915 was tempered by the suspension of unrestricted German
submarine warfare, but clearly sentiment had been steadily tilting towards the
Allied cause, not least for the sake of American trade overseas. By early 1917
the Germans were desperate: the military situation was stalemated, the British
naval blockade was slowly starving Germany of food and the materials of war, and
the powerful voices of their navy finally persuaded the Kaiser that the only hope
was to send out the U-boats once more and destroy Allied trade on the seas; unrestrcted
submarine warfare was formally resinstated February 1. As if this provocation
had not been enough to end American neutrality, another scheme was hatched by
the German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to distract the war effort by offering
German support to Mexico in a war with the U.S., promising the restoration of
Mexican territories lost since 1836 after German victory in Europe, and making
further veiled references to enlisting the support of Japan in the project. Ironically
this message, the notorious "Zimmermann Telegram," was sent via the
State Department cable to the German Ambassador in Washington, who was to forward
it to the German Ministry in Mexico City; the note was intercepted by the British
and decoded by the Admiralty, its contents sent to the White House. The Mexican
government maintained its nervous neutrality. Though diplomatic relations were
severed in February the release of the note was not enough to persuade a balky
Congress to act on the subject of arming merchant vessels, and after its adjournment
Wilson simply made an Executive Order to the same effect. In March, after several
American ships had been sunk, the President called a Special Session to consider
finally the question of belligerency; by now Congress was in quite a different
mood, and Wilson got his war declaration on April 6, 1917. We were officially
an Allied Power, and all America had to do was to build itself something it didn't
have much of at that date: an Army.
he
National Defense Act of June 1916 was designed to permit the Regular Army to increase
its actual strength to more than double the 1915 total: 11,450 officers and 223,580
men; at the same time the state militias were formally designated the National
Guard, requiring for the first time an oath by enlistees to both the state and
federal government, and a mandated strength increase to 17,000 officers and 440,000
men; but Army life was no great lure, and at the time of the War declaration the
Regulars were at roughly half their intended strength, and the state guardsmen
at about a quarter of the intended strength. T
he
only bright part to this picture was the fact that the Punitive Expedition against
Pancho Villa in 1916-17 gave employment to a little over 90,000 soldiers, mostly
wool-clad National Guardsmen led by the ambitious Brigadier General John Pershing.
In nearly all respects the Army of 1915-17 was poorly prepared to engage in the
sort of combat that had been raging in Europe since 1914: a lack of experienced
officers at nearly every level of command, a scarcity of trained enlisted men
and short supplies of more modern weapons were combined with old, lax Service
habits to produce what was an eminently peaceful Army. With the passage of the
Conscription Act in March 1917 and the appointment of now-Major General Pershing
to lead the planned American Expeditionary Forces to France, the creaking wheels
of a moribund War Department started speeding up, at first quietly and then gaining
momentum. Meanwhile, thoughtful young men across the country read the newspapers,
debated the rumors, and wondered about the notion of conscription and possiblity
of soldiering as the nation was put on as much of a war footing as possible: War
Loans were being subscribed, Victory Gardens were being planned, popular songwriters
were working at a feverish pace, and Americans of German ancestry found themselves
suddenly unpopular, especially since there was marked support among their numbers
for the German cause, at least initially. In Waco, the partners of the Walk-Over
Boot Shop were shrewd enough to see what was coming, and decided to make the best
of the situation by all enlisting in the National Guard and handing the store
operation over to the junior managers; it was common knowledge that the existing
Guard units would soon be absorbed into the Regular Army, and they who came in
early had a good chance of better rank and pay and, by extension, less onerous
duties to perform.
n
Claude's case, at least, it was a wise decision: at Camp Bowie, near Fort Worth,
he drew initial duty with the 141st Ambulance Company and quickly earned sergeant's
stripes and a variety of assignments that involved a great deal of what is
known as command and control: the noncomissioned officers of the 1917 military
had a great deal of 
authority
and were expected to order the privates to do all the work, which was what happened.
In Claude's case, his skills at commodity handling soon earned him a special place
- to quote from a letter written to his Aunt Gertie in November '17, "I am supply
and mess sergeant now and it keeps me as busy as a cranberry merchant. I have
to buy food and supplies and everything for our 150 men, and make out the menus
for every meal etc. what do you think I know about such stuff?" As it turned out,
a great deal, at least, about the wholesale end of things.
arly
in 1918, Claude volunteered to join the Sanitary Squad, which lightened his duties
no end: from handling the Company mess he joined several other enterprising sergeants
in the daily round of seeing that the tent-ropes were tight and the Company streets
free of debris, the latrines in order and the infirmary and mess hall clean and
operational; these chores occupied them until about 11AM, after which luncheon
and an afternoon of poker and relaxation were usually the order of the day, interspersed
with drill and target practice. All in all, it was as cushy a billet as a sergeant
could wish in peacetime, and gave a man a good feeling about the Army, or at least
about the Guard; but change was on its way.
he
first units of the AEF arrived in France in late June of 1917, though largely
a token force since the first of the anticipated two million American soldiers
were not ready to come over until later in the year, and the First Division
needed training by the
French Army in the niceities of trench warfare, something quite unknown to the
men of the AEF; the first Americans to see combat did so on October 21. By that
date the War Department's plans to convert the National Guards into Regular
units were well underway, and by December the Oklahoma and Texas Guards were
merged, and officially became the 36th Division, which was brought up to war
strength with the addition of units of regular Army from the two states; when
the details of organization and command had been finalized and the formation
fitted into the Big Picture, the anticipated moment arrived when all the non-officer
recruits of the Guard lost their substantive rank, at least temporarily, though
most of the noncoms were expected to get their stripes back in short order.
t
was at this juncture that now-Private First Class Claude Wakefield was given the
chance to volunteer for the Division Sanitary Squad; with pleasant recollections
in his mind and no thought about what combat might bring, he came forward to collect
his stripes again. At the end of a long, long journey he would learn just how
true the old saw about "never volunteering" could be.
