2017 eclipse across U.S. recalls WWI eclipse 99 years ago
By Chris Isleib
Director of Public Affairs, U.S. World War One Centennial Commission
“There will not be another total eclipse visible ever so large an area of the United States until 2017”
-- The Kansas City Times, Saturday, June 8,1918
100 years later, it’s here! Hidden in between #WW1 reports about U.S. regiments fighting overseas and war bond propaganda was a report about the Total Eclipse casting the moon’s shadow over the country.
In 1918, the path of the eclipse started south of Japan, went across the Pacific Ocean, and then across the United States.
The largest city to see totality was Denver although many could theoretically see it as the size of the shadow was between 70 and 44 miles across as it travelled across America.
The longest duration of totality was in the Pacific at a point south of Alaska. The path of the eclipse finished near Bermuda.
Just as it did on July 8, 1918, a total eclipse will once more sweep across the Midwest on Aug. 21, 2017.
Other newspapers across the nation carried stories of the great celestial event in 1918, some pondering the connection between the darkening sky and the great conflict underway across the world.
Read more: 2017 eclipse across U.S. recalls WWI eclipse 99 years ago
"Part of the story of our families."
Finding the Great War on the way to the Bad Inn
By Christy Leskovar
It all started in 1997. I was living in Las Vegas, working as a project manager for Bechtel. My background is mechanical engineering. Earlier in my career I did engineering design for commercial nuclear power plants. While on a trip to my hometown of Butte, Montana, I heard about a fire on my great-grandparents’ ranch; a dead body was discovered in the ruins, determined to be my great-grandfather; and his wife, my great-grandmother, was arrested for his murder. I was floored. I decided to leave my engineering career, go find out what happened, and write a book about it.
Before I knew it, I was in Flanders.
I was determined to keep the book nonfiction. I wanted you to get to know the people in the story. For that I needed familial and historical context. I started a timeline with three columns: date, events in family history, events in local and world history. The “protagonists” of the story were my maternal grandparents and great-grandparents. I wanted to know how they bumped into history and how history changed their lives.
Christy Leskovar
When I began, I knew that my Irish grandpa, Peter Thompson, fought in the First World War in the American army, he was an immigrant. He saved a man’s life and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. I knew that the archduke was shot, the Lusitania was sunk, and we joined the war toward the end. Therein lay the sum of what I knew about the First World War when I began this quest.
I needed context. I found books about the war when visiting my parents, books at the library. History books. My library had only a handful of books about the war. I read the bibliographies of the books I did find and ordered those books. I read General Pershing’s book, soldiers memoirs, soldiers letters. I read voluminously about the war, concentrating for the most part on the American involvement, so I could tell the story of this one particular soldier, not any soldier, this soldier, Peter Thompson, my grandfather. I wanted you to feel like you were right there with him on the battlefield, while keeping the book nonfiction.
I had no idea how difficult this would be. The first books I read gave simplistic reasons for the start of the war which made no sense to me. It can be an advantage not to have any preconceived notions before beginning research, otherwise I might have accepted “nationalism” as the reason. I was starting with a blank sheet. I wanted to know why the war started, why we got in it. I also wanted to know what Peter’s sweetheart, my grandmother, was experiencing at home, a high school girl in Butte, Montana, while he was fighting on the Western Front. I had some of his military records. Grandma made sure that all her children had copies. Those gave me his regiment (362nd), brigade (181st), and division (91st). Someone told me I could get the rest of his military records from St. Louis. I did. One of my Bechtel colleagues, Miguel Monteverde, a retired Army officer, told me about the Center of Military History. He knew the man who ran it. I didn’t know there was such a place. To delve into Peter’s battle experience, I need much more than what I could find in books. I was writing ground-level history. I needed details, details specific to Peter. Until Miguel told me about the Center of Military History, I didn’t know where to turn. I called. Roma answered. She had a memo with a regimental history. She sent it to me. She suggested that I contact the U.S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I did and quickly realized that I needed to go there. I went. The woman asked for the brigade number. 181st, I said. She brought out a box. The largest folder was from Farley Granger, who was an officer in Grandpa Peter’s regiment. He was the father of the actor of the same name. I’d seen him in Alfred Hitchcock movies. I read field messages, orders, some with code names, who were they? Day after day, I pored through the papers in the box. Then to the library. The librarian said there is a regimental history, the official one. They didn’t have it, but he gave me the name of a man in Springfield, Massachusetts, who had it. I called. He sent it to me.
Read more: Finding the Great War on the Way to the Bad Inn
Four Questions for David O’Neal
"These are the stories that stick with people when you talk to them."
By Chris Isleib
Director of Public Affairs, U.S. World War One Centennial Commission
David O’Neal acquired his first artifact when he was 16 years old. It was a 37 mm tank round from WWI dated 1917. Some 40 years later, he is still an avid student of the Great War....and still collecting WW1 artifacts. But now he is restoring priceless relics of World War I back into their original condition, so that their stories can be told to new generations. We caught up with David to see what is going on now at his WWI Preservation Collection.
You have a pretty amazing collection of World War I artifacts. What do you have?
David O’NealObviously I can’t list everything in the collection, but there are some very impressive items, along with the mundane utilitarian items that were used by the soldiers every day during WW1. Some of the impressive things are of course the WW1 M1917 Ford ambulance re-creation. I brought this vehicle back from extinction, there are no known surviving examples of this version of the WW1 Ambulance produced at the Ford Plant in Detroit in 1917. 
The award-winning M1917 Ford ambulance re-creation. (Photo © 2015 by David O'Neal)The Model of 1917 Machine gun cart is an impressive Machine Gun Company artifact that is restored and complete. I also have the 1915 Vickers water cooled heavy machine gun and the Browning 1917 water cooled heavy that were used in conjunction with the cart.
There are uniforms, helmets and accoutrements from many of the combatants specifically on the Western Front. I have a wide variety of small arms, pistols and rifles from all combatants as well as disabled machine guns and ordnance.
There are items that are very rare and hold special attention in the collection. A captured Imperial German Battle Flag. A steel German sniper loop that would have been carried out and set up in no-man’s land. Melted pieces of aluminum that were recovered from the crash site of Zeppelin L48 that was shot down in England in 1917. I have the U.S. First designed WW1 hand Grenade the Mark I, very rare and very interesting story. Pulled from service immediately after implementation.
There are quite few fascinating things in the WW1 Preservation Collection and I am always looking for more artifacts to bring in to preserve them.
Read more: Four Questions for David O’Neal
