Stories of Service

You can search for the name or unit and you will get a list of the stories that contain them.

Frank J. Dunleavy

Submitted by: Ellen Kazimer {Granddaughter}

Frank J Dunleavy Frank J. Dunleavy was born around 1889. Frank Dunleavy served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1918 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

My grandfather, Frank J. Dunleavy, was drafted in April of 1918. He was 29, and by the time he arrived at the front, the war was over. French soldiers informed him, but he didn’t believe it until he reported to the front.

Frank Dunleavy worked in the Central Records Office in Bourges, France compiling the service records of every soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces. For six months there were 6000 soldiers and five to six hundred women from Great Britain’s auxiliary army corps working in the records office.

My grandfather sent an amusing letter to his family detailing a week of leave touring the Rivera on seven dollars. He slept on the baggage rack of the train, went to a dance where he said the French danced fairly good, toured museums, and watched Charlie Chaplin at the movies.

Thomas J Kehoe

Submitted by: Carl Oprey {Great Nephew}

Thomas J. Kehoe was born around 1900. Thomas Kehoe served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1915 and the service was completed in 1918.

Story of Service

It begins with the story of a book my mother Patty often talked about, which her uncle supposedly wrote in 1918 and published in New York. However, since he and his brothers were poor street boys from Liverpool, England, it all seemed highly improbable. Together with the fact he would be just seventeen at the time of the publication I dismissed the entire issue as my mother’s aging ramblings. Then I discovered his book, The Fighting Mascot in a Chicago bookstore.

This personal account of World War 1, published in New York in 1918 - ten years before All Quiet on the Western Front - remains the only real-life version published before the end of the war. It later transpired that my great uncle, Tommy Kehoe, aged fifteen when he enrolled, became one of the youngest boy soldiers to fight in The Great War.

Following injury, convalescence and an emotional meeting with King George V upon his return to England, he joined the crew of a cargo liner sailing from Liverpool to New York. It was here that he was discovered giving first-hand talks on street corners about the war still raging in Europe.

Sanco Thompson, Sr.

Submitted by: Sonya R. Grantham {Granddaughter}

Sanco Thompson, Sr. served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

My grandfather Sanco Thompson, Sr. from Columbia, South Carolina. He was a member of the 371st Infantry Regiment 93rd Division Colored, WWI and I have found service records for the 369th Harlem Hell Fighters.

My grandfather is buried in the Childs Cemetery in Richland County, South Carolina. The cemetery is located on the grounds of a former manufacturing plant. The site was also the former Wade Hampton Plantation. The Llysander D. Child's purchased the plantation during the Reconstruction Era.

I have restored and documented people that are buried in the cemetery-for nine and have for years - solo. I'm proud to be the granddaughter of a WWI Soldier.

The Cemetery is home to the first and only memorial markers in the United States to memorialize the 371st Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division; Colored of WWI. I plan to make the site into a memorial Park.

Spiro Thomas

Submitted by: Spiro Thomas Grandson

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Spiro Thomas born around 1899. Spiro Thomas served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1917.

Story of Service

Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Frank Elmer Laurent

Submitted by: Kristine Henry {3rd great niece}

Frank Elmer Laurent mug

Frank Elmer Laurent was born around 1889. Frank Laurent served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1918.

Story of Service

My 3rd great Uncle Frank, enlisted in 1917, and trained at near San Antonio with the 90th division. He eventually made his way to New York, and set sail for France on the S.S. Orduna, a ship that had been built by the same company that had built the Titanic. It also happened to be the same ship that Quentin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's youngest son, over to France.

Frank spent his entire time with the 359th infantry, 90th division, until November 2, 1918. Frank Elmer Laurent died of wounds he received, 2 months after his 29th birthday, during the battle in the Meuse- Argonne sector.

His mom, my 3rd great grandma, travelled over to France to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in 1930 with the Gold Star Mothers.

John A. Dean

Submitted by: Elmer J Bott, Jr. {Legion Post Adjutant}

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John A Dean born around 1893, John Dean served in World War 1 with the the United States Army . The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1918.

Story of Service

John A. Dean was born about 1893, his mother Anna (Kelly) Dean and William Dean were residents of Butler.

John A. Dean enlisted August 31, 1917 in the Ambulance Co #33, which trained at the Van Wyck estate bordering on Lake Apshawa. He then traveled to Syracuse, New York, Allentown, Pennsylvania and lastly Camp Greene, Charlotte, North Carolina for further training.

At Camp Greene his company was incorporated into the 4th Division Regular Army. They left the United States for service overseas on May 13, 1918. In whole or part he served at Belleau Wood, Chateau Thierry, and the Aisne-Marne offensive, St. Mihiel, the Meuse Argonne in France and in the Army of Occupation in Germany.

Charles William Sutton

Submitted by: Phyllis Johnson {Daughter}

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Charles William Sutton born 10/17/1894. Charles Sutton served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

My father was the oldest of 10 siblings . WWI - 10/17/904 Registration Card FHL Roll Number 1439779 Corporal and WWII 1942 Draft Card.

I have Final Payment Roll copy July 31, 1919. Pictures of his group was on display at the WW1 Memorial in the basement at Indianapolis and was destroyed by a flood.

Contacted St Louis and was told records were destroyed by fire. 1569758 .

My nephew has dress jacket with Medical Quarter Masters Corps button attached. with 2 strips and tags.

Louis Arthur "Slip" Paquette

Submitted by: Thomas, "T.J." Cullinane {Town Historian}

pacquette mug Louis Arthur "Slip" Paquette was born in 1890. Louis Paquette served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1918 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

A Derry Shoemaker in the Coast Artillery

Few portraits in the Derry, New Hampshire Great War Soldier’s Album are more compelling than that of Louis Arthur Paquette, late of Battery A, 71st Coast Artillery Corps. Upright and earnest, the handsome young Paquette proudly displays his New Hampshire War Service Medal and First Army artillery patch. “Slip,” as he was popularly known, was born in Derry on December 30, 1890. The town records state that the industrious shoe maker enlisted at age 26 on March 8, 1918.

Like many New England soldiers, he would begin his Army career with recruit training at Fort Slocum, New York. This post was located on David’s Island at the southern end of Long Island Sound in the city environs of New Rochelle.

Soon after completing his training, he was given serial number 402214 and assigned to Battery A of the 71st Coast Artillery Corps. At this juncture, Slip was destined to spend the war manning a huge coastal artillery battery in Boston Harbor’s Fort Strong. This was not to be however, as there was an urgent need for heavy mobile artillery in the American Expeditionary Force deployed in France. Slip’s unit was among those selected to fulfill this demand and soon he would embark on the former Cunard liner S.S. Margha to cross the Atlantic. On a preserved copy of the ship’s manifest, one can see that Slip claimed his brother Albert Augustus Paquette of Box #86 in Derry as his next of kin.

Hyman Freiberg

Submitted by: James C. Leichtung {Grand Nephew}

freiburg mug Hyman Freiberg was born around 1899. Hyman Freiberg served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1918.

Story of Service

Second Lieutenant Hyman Freiberg, USNG 131 Infantry, 33d Division.

Member of the American Expeditionary Forces. Killed in action August 9, 1918.

Received the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously July 1919. Interred in Somme American Cemetery. Bony (Aisne), France.

William Edward Allen

Submitted by: Paula Thistlewaite {Granddaughter}

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William Edward Allen was born around 1898. William Allen served in World War 1 with the United States Army. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1919.

Story of Service

William Edward Allen enlisted in the Army on May 8, 1917 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On May 17, 1917, he was transferred to Company E, 303 Engineers. He was promoted to Corporal on July 1, 1917; sergeant on October 4, 1917; and Sergeant First Class on May 15, 1918.

He left the U.S on May 26, 1918 and arrived overseas on June 7, 1918. He engaged in the battles of St. Mihiel, Sept.12-16; Limey Sector; and Meuse-Argonne offensive, October 12-November 8, 1918, St. Juvin sector. His vocation was a machinist.

He arrived back in the U.S. on June 3, 1919. He was honorably discharged from Fort Dix, New Jersey on June 12, 1919. Miraculously, he was never wounded. He came home to marry and raise a family a boy and a girl, my mother.

Guy E Golterman Sr.

Submitted by: Ed Golterman {Grandson}

guygolterman mug Guy E Golterman Sr. born around 1879. Guy Golterman served in World War 1 with the American wartime industry supplying the armed forces. The enlistment was in 1917 and the service was completed in 1917.

Story of Service

As Director of the Nation’s Forum, Guy Golterman produced the most important series of recordings in US History, led by Pershing’s Address from the Battlefields. Mr. Golterman marshaled the recording and radio industries to the war effort, and to capture all the major statements leading up to the elections of 1920. Pershing’s was the first recording of a General made on a battlefield in history. The Forum did its job well a century ago and we have the voices today.

Guy Golterman went back to St. Louis, where he produced grand opera at the Municipal Theater in Forest Park and in Kiel opera house.