Memorial Competition: A chance to keep World War I history alive

By Ashley Wright

The iconic wall for Vietnam, the fountains for WWII and the rows upon rows of white stones in Arlington hold tribute to those who perished for freedom from the Civil War to today. But there is something missing from the familiar landscape of our nation’s capital, and now is your chance to remedy that and pay tribute to the heroes of the Great War.

The U.S. World War I Centennial Commission opened a design competition for a National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC, May 21. The site approved by Congress for the monument is Pershing Park in Washington, DC.

While the nation erected monuments for other conflicts over the years, WWI remained unnoticed, despite costing more American lives than Vietnam and Korea combined and shifting the world in ways still evident today.

The two-stage design competition is an open, international contest for professionals, university-level students or any other interested participants.

In the first stage, participants will submit narrative and graphic descriptions of a design concept responding to the competition’s design goals. Submissions from Stage I selected as finalists will be further refined and developed in Stage II.

Read more: Memorial Competition: A chance to keep World War I history alive

World War I Memorial's Backers seek World Class Design

By Terri Yinmeng Liu
Medill News Service via Military Times

In the near future, American parents bringing their kids to the nation's capital for Memorial Day weekend to see the city's military memorials will be able to add another attraction to their sightseeing list.

Not far from the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the National World War II Memorial, the United States World War I Centennial Commission plans to properly recognize a conflict once thought of as "the war to end all wars." The nonprofit has launched a design competition to redevelop Pershing Square Park into a designated national monument.

"It was a war that brought on an American century. It was a war that changed the world for Americans. I think it's so important for so many reasons that we honor these people," said Rob Dalessandro, chairman of the centennial commission, who retired from the Army as a colonel in 2009.

The Great War, as it was called, began after fighting broke out in Europe in 1914. The U.S. entered the conflict in 1917. It came to an end with Germany's surrender on Nov. 11, 1918.

Pershing Square Park is in a plaza just off Pennsylvania Avenue between the Department of Commerce and the historic Willard Hotel, on the edge of downtown Washington. It was erected in 1981 with a statue honoring Gen. John J. Pershing, leader of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.

Read more: World War I Memorial's Backers seek World Class Design

July 21 is deadline for Stage I design entries

Less than one week remains for competitors to submit entries for Stage I of the Design Competition for the National World War One Memorial in Washington DC. The deadline for entries is Tuesday July 21.

The selected memorial site is Pershing Park, located on Pennsylvania Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets NW.

The competition is a two-stage design competition, and is an open, international competition -- open to any professionals, university-level students, or any other interested participants.

In the first stage, participants will submit narrative and graphic descriptions of a design concept responding to the competition’s design goals.

Three to five submissions from Stage I will be selected as finalists, and those entries will be further refined and developed in Stage II.

Both stages of the competition will be evaluated by a jury of individuals representing the worlds of government, the military, the arts, and the citizens of Washington DC. The Commission selected the jurors and will have final decision on the selected design, based on the recommendation of the jury.

Documenting the First Modern War 100 Years Ago

By Darroch Greer

In 2007, a friend of mine from college called me after seeing a photograph of his grandfather on a cover of a book about World War One aviation. He asked me how to make a documentary. Ron King is the grandson of First Yale Unit member John Vorys (Yale 1918, ten-term congressman from Ohio), and his grandfather was sitting next to six classmates in Palm Beach Florida on the cover of a book called The Millionaires' Unit by Marc Wortman (Public Affairs, 2006). The photo was taken in April 1917, and the Yale students had left school to train as pilots in more hospitable weather ten days before the United States declared war on Germany. The Yale Unit became the founding squadron of the U.S. Navy Air Reserve.

Having done most of my documentary work in 19th century American history, I didn't have a strong frame of reference for the Great War. It wasn't touched on at all in secondary school, and my college degree had been in fine arts. Ron attended a talk by the book's author at the Yale Club in Manhattan, and it seemed there might be some unique photos in private family collections. The story was a good one: young, dynamic personalities tackling a new and dangerous technology, running off to war at a time when it seemed romantic.

Several questions raised themselves immediately: how important were these young men to the war effort and to naval aviation in particular? What part did naval aviation play in the War? What can we claim as the Unit's legitimate accomplishments, and how can those accomplishments be communicated in a dramatic and accurate way? Is there enough footage and photos to cover the story? And, how can we pay for what looks to be an ambitious film?

Read more: Documenting the First Modern War 100 Years Ago

Lusitania commemoration events in NYC and DC

On Thursday, May 7th, 2015, the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission hosted two commemorative events to honor the 100th anniversary of the tragic sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915.

In New York City, at 10 a.m. EDT, there was a wreath-laying ceremony at Pier A in Battery Park, with honored guests and descendants of Lusitania passengers. The location is symbolic, as it houses the first dedicated memorial to World War One in the United States. Further, the location overlooks the Statue of Liberty, and is not far from Pier 54, where the RMS Lusitania departed on her final voyage one hundred years ago.

In Washington, DC, at 6:30 p.m. EDT, the Commission hosted a panel discussion with noted historians at the National Press Club. The panel included: John Maxwell Hamilton from Louisiana State University, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Professor Richard Striner from Washington College, an expert on President Wilson; and RADM Samuel Cox (USN, Retired), the Director of the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command. The panel was moderated by noted national correspondent Gil Klein. Discussion focused on the wartime role of Lusitania, the worldwide reaction to her tragedy, and the impact of Lusitania's sinking on public opinion in the United States. (Click here for more information on the Washington, DC event.

Commisioner O'Connell has family link to Lusitania tragedy

World War One Centennial Commissioner Dr. Libby O’Connell had always heard that an ancestor of hers died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland May 7, 1915.

Her father taught European History so she was raised on stories from the continent, including the sinking of the Lusitania. Still, she found it difficult to believe that a relative of hers had been aboard the ill-fated ship, since she could never verify the story.

As the 100th anniversary of the historic sinking approached, O’Connell, now Chief Historian for the History Channel, was finally able to piece together the fascinating details of her great-great grandmother’s life.

Catherine Sterrit was a singer and pianist in Pennsylvania when she divorced her first husband and remarried. It was this second marriage to Cameron Willey, unknown to O’Connell during her initial archives search, which finally led her to discover the truth.

When her second marriage also ended in divorce—an almost unheard of circumstance in the early part of the 20th century--Catherine Willey left the country. “Like so many other women of her time who had the means, she left America and went to Paris,” O’Connell said. At the outbreak of war in Europe, Willey returned to the United States to visit family and raise money for those in need. “She collected money and jewelry and planned to use the proceeds to set up a home for penniless war widows,” O’Connell said.

Despite German warnings that any ship flying the flag of Great Britain would be sunk upon entering the war zone, Willey was one of more than 1,900 passengers aboard the Lusitania when it sailed from New York’s Pier 54 on May 1, 1915.

The Lusitania was sunk by a single torpedo, killing more than 1,100 passengers and crew, including Catherine Willey.

The sinking of the Lusitania was “one of the pivotal moments of World War I,” O’Connell said. “The United States was neutral at the time, but the sinking brought us much closer to joining the war.” Still, it would be nearly two years before the U.S. officially entered the conflict.

Jersey Boys: Irish Soldiers in World War I

By Megan Smolenyak April/May 2015

America entered World War One on April 6th, 1917, and though the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 greatly angered the influential Irish-American community on America’s East Coast, many Irish and Irish-Americans saw it as their duty to enlist. Megan Smolenyak looks at the great state of New Jersey and profiles several of those soldiers, including her grandfather, who heard the call of duty.

He was Pop-Pop to me, and I remembered him as the gentle, older fellow who would give me a penny for gum when we went on a stroll to the neighborhood drug store. Other times, he would sit on the bottom step leading up to the bedrooms in his Chatham, New Jersey split level – the driver accepting my pretend fare as I climbed the stairs behind him to take a seat in our imaginary city bus.

But we lost him when I was only four, so the life of James Vincent Shields remained a mystery to me until I became a genealogist in the sixth grade and started pestering my nana for memories of the past. And even then, it would take some time to learn that he had served in World War I.Born in Jersey City in 1898 to Irish immigrants David and Margaret (McKaig) Shields, James was the ninth of eleven children. In 1923, he married Beatrice Agnes Reynolds after she accepted his proposal with a specially made ring engraved with shamrocks.

Read more: Jersey Boys: Irish Soldiers in World War I

Doomed Doctor wrote 'In Flanders Fields,' the poem of World War I

By Michael E. Ruane

There are stories that may not have made the textbooks, offbeat tales of people and events, fragments and glimpses of surprising lives. This is one in a series of vignettes from the forgotten corners of history.

On Sunday morning, May 2, 1915, Lt. Alexis Helmer, 22, of the Canadian field artillery, stepped out of his bunker on the Western Front and was hit by a big German artillery shell.

What was left of him was gathered up in sandbags, the story goes, and buried that day on the battlefield.

A death like Helmer's was commonplace during World War I. But his became famous because of a poem written in his honor, the most popular English-language poem of World War I.

One hundred years ago next month, a Canadian officer and poet, Lt. Col. John McCrae, drafted these lines after reading the "committal service" over Helmer's grave.

Read more: Doomed Doctor wrote 'In Flanders Fields,' the poem of World War I

‘In Flanders Fields' Centennial event May 3 in DC

The Lt. Col. John McCrae, M.D. Fellowship will commemorate the centennial of McCrae's timeless poem "In Flanders Fields" at noon on Sunday, May 3, 2015 at the DC War Memorial on the National Mall, 1900 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC.

McCrae's poem immortalized the fear and mystery of a life lived in the face of destruction. His clarion call to carry on in the face of all odds has inspired generations to don a poppy pin, a powerful metaphor for the persistence and beauty of life, in memory of the lost.

The commemoration of the poem's centennial is taking place in support of the honored tradition of soldiers in the arts, and remembrance of all lives lost in World War One. Proceedings will begin at noon and will conclude by 1:00 p.m. with Rear Admiral [Ret.] James J. Carey reading the poem and offering remarks.

The Lt. Col. John McCrae, M.D. Fellowship was founded to continue McCrae's dream of the creation of beauty in any and all situations, no matter how dire they appear. The fellowship will pay for retired soldiers to pursue work in the arts and their curation in and around the Washington area. Donation towards the Fellowship's mission may be made at http://www.inflandersfields.org/donate.html.

Views from the Embassy: Diplomacy and World War One

For many, the guns of August 1914 seem like a story from long ago. Sepia-toned images of dusty, musty relics, mustached gentlemen in pinstripe pants, and ladies in near floor-length skirts dominate images in popular culture. Yet, surprisingly, those who witnessed civilization unraveling at the seams were very 'modern' and through their memoirs, letters home, and correspondence with Washington, they convey similar attitudes and concerns that we would recognize today.

For the men and women in the U.S. diplomatic community in France, as elsewhere in war-torn Europe, their unique, front row seats to events ensured that they had a rendezvous with history. What was it like to experience war on the front lines while representing a neutral nation? How did the actions of the U.S. diplomatic community impact foreign public opinion of the United States? What role did African Americans and women play in the United States' neutral response prior to 1917? What were the tensions between diplomacy and neutrality, and how did the 1914-1918 experience change the U.S. diplomatic corps and the conduct of U.S. diplomacy—and how does it inform our actions today? How did the media coverage of the war change European opinion of the United States—and Americans—and how did U.S. reporters' accounts of war-torn Europe alter the way American culture viewed the larger world? In what ways did the war experience change the world in which we know it? What were the elements that we'd still recognize today?

The centennial of the First World War offers us the opportunity to reexamine events and better understand how the world was irrecoverably altered over the course of four years. Watch the recording of the discussion that took place on Wednesday, April 15 in the video window above to hear the findings of the Office of the Historian's recent "Views From the Embassy" project and contextualize it into the larger picture of the era—and its impacts today.

For more information on the World War One project, please visit the project page.