rom a letter written
by Claude Wakefield to his mother, Monday, July 8, 1918: 'We are making a very
short stay at this place - are leaving in the morning - don't know where to of
course but guess it is "over there"...I am just as well as possible and feeling
fine and will be that way until I get back.' And so beg
an
a six-day train journey from Camp Bowie, Texas, to Camp Mills, New York followed
by three days of leave to see the sights of New York City, and then a return to
camp to draw the last pieces of equipment prior to embarkation on the S.S. Lenape
at Hoboken on July 18th for the transatlantic crossing. On that day, in France,
the American First and Second Divisions began the Battle of Soissons. On the Home
Front, the Office of War Information churned out wartime propaganda to focus American
minds on the sacred mission of Smashing the Hun, while Tin Pan Alley was working
overtime to give the public such timeless classics as "If He can Fight Like He
Can Love Good Night Germany!," "When We Wind Up the Watch On the Rhine," " We
Stopped Them At the Marne (It's Up the Pole With Germany)," "Don't Bite the Hand
That's Fee
ding
You" (a savage little patriotic ditty aimed at German-Americans), together with
the more familiar "Over There" - it has to be remembered that the AEF was a Singing
Army: it was thought that this particular activity was good for morale, and during
training song leaders were appointed for each company of troops, who were expected
to sing an appropriate number whenever they were in formation and on duty. [As
Claude told me once, this "soured a lot of fellows on music for a long, long time,
but when it came time for reunions, you never heard such bellowing in your life!"
- MWF] The Lenape crossed the Atlantic without incident, as did nearly all the
thousands of troop transports bound for France, due to the efficient convoy system
and protection by the Navy, whose destroyers and cruisers kept the deadly U-boats
at a distance. The ship dropped anchor in the harbor of Brest on July 30th, and
the troops aboard disembarked the following day; after a spell of rest, Claude
and his unit left Brest on August 2, arriving in Bar-sur-Aube, 25 miles east of
Troyes, two day's train ride later. Two weeks later a 25-mile march southeast
brought him to Langres, where he was detailed a month's duty at the Camp Hospital,
acting as nurse, orderly, and a dozen other things, including ambulance driving
and
maintaining the hospital's 
laundry
facilities.
n
September 17 he left Langres for a short day's trip southeast to Valdahon, via
nearby Besançon, where he was based for detached duty with both the the 36th
and 77th Divisions as the Meuse-Argonne offensive was taking shape, and it was
during this period that he finally found out that in France the Sanitary Squads
would have little time for playing poker; in fact, in addtion to a large number
of varied duties they were obliged to spend a fair amount of their time spreading
quicklime over the bodies of the slain on the battlefield since identification
and burial was generally a delayed process, and tens of thousands of men had gone
permanently missing on the Western Front. Since Claude had the road experience,
he was called upon more than once to drive ambulances under shell-fire, and once,
operating at the northern end of the 77th's sector, was thrown a rifle and ordered
to hold a reserve trench against an expected German counterattack that luckily
never materialized. Whether by temperament or a farm upbringing, Claude performed
the most distasteful parts of his job without comment, and still found time to
photograph some of his colleagues. The first week in November saw a slackening
of combat at the southern end of the Front as the action shifted to the Meuse
and plans to take Sedan and Metz as the Germans 
began
to give ground, their great 1918 Offensive a failure, their allies in desperate
straits and their country on the brink of revolution.
nd
on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, the Armistice was declared,
ending over four years of terrible slaughter in Belgium and France. Pershing,
though he was unable to keep his forces under sole American command (the AEF carried
out French plans for the most part), was quick to ascribe Victory to the superior
abilities of the Yanks to break the stalemate; his allies accepted these notions,
at least in public, but when the time came for drawing up a treaty to prevent
such a war from happening again, President Wilson soon found that French ideas
of revenge would dominate the 
proceedings.
While the political maneuverings were beginning, the first order of business for
the men of the AEF was to find out when they were going to go home; most were
told "By Christmas," and most units were withdrawn from the front lines to be
sorted out for that return.
n
November 27, Claude's unit was moved from Valdahon to Chateauvillain-haute-Marne,
a few miles south of Bar-sur-Aube, where on December 22 he was given an 11-day
leave; he used this to take in as much of the country as he could: Paris, Lyons
(where he spent Christmas), Grenoble. Back in Chateuvillain, he found himself
at the end of January 1919 still wondering when he was going to get back to the
store. Arrangements were still pending, so he and many others were given more
extended leave, which was used for a return to Paris and visits to places seen
only briefly on the way to the front: Le Mans, Chartres, Orleans, Besançon,
Chaumont. A card to Aunt Gertie bought in Alençon, dated March 13, notes,
"I know you think I am 'gone,' but I am still here and feeling fine and good."
By
this time the bulk of the AEF had returned (though a few found themselves in Siberia,
alongside the Japanese, fighting Bolsheviks on behalf of the British and French),
and Claude was beginning to doubt the Army's sincerity - and so one fine March
afternoon he disassembled his service .45 and sent the pieces to various addresses
in the US, in a fit of pique. In late April he boarded the S.S. Mongolia for the
trip back to New York, arriving May 9; my copy of his honorable discharge shows
that he attended his final pay parade at Camp Dix, NJ, May 15 - he received his
staggering $60 bonus then - and soon after began the journey to Waco, where his
partners had been back for almost a month; though both had been in the trenches
for varying periods with the 36th Division, they had thankfully come home unscathed.
He was officially approved for the Victory Medal with France clasp early in 1921
("They mailed it to me.") and his discharge was duly filed with the McClennan
County Clerk on May 23, 1922; the military career, active and reservist, of #1507390
had come to a quiet close.
here
was a letter waiting in Waco for Sergeant First Class C. H. Wakefield Sanitary
Squad 55, from the War Department, informing him that the Government knew exactly
what he had done with his sidearm, though the letter didn't say much more than
that; so over a period of time he retrieved the various parts and put the pistol
back together again. [He kept it in operating condition, and now so do I, along
with his souvenir pool cue - MWF] Ironically, the active enlistments of Claude
and his partners all ran out several months before the long-awaited victory parade
in New York City on September 10, 1919, but they didn't seem to mind. 
n
one of those little ironies of life, unbeknownst to Claude he served in the AEF
with his three future Lindemann brothers-in-law: Harry, who was in the Navy; Leroy,
a ground crewman for the Flying Corps; and Loui, a cadet pilot, who stayed in
France after the war to serve with the Hoover Food Relief Commission.
mong
the many things Claude brought back from France was a box of printed items he
had picked up in Paris on his second and more extended visit; and of all the
souvenirs of that particular journey, this is the one thing that did not survive
the years - my grandmother made him burn the contents soon after their marriage
in 1920, and he would never tell me what was in the box, though I can make an
educated guess...At any event, the postwar years brought both joy and a little
disappointment, and after a sixty-year period Claude joined the Buddies of the
Veterans of World War One of America organization, active in their ranks for
nearly a decade. As for the time in between, well, that is another story, which
I hope I might have the opportunity to tell some day; as it is, I feel lucky
to have been able to hear and then to retell this one. "There's a long, long
road, a-winding..."
