The nation tolled its bells on November 11 in honor of the service and sacrifice of its World War I veterans, and all who have served in its Armed Forces. The Washington National Cathedral led the national bell tolling with 21 somber, muffled tolls.  Also in Washington, D.C., the Netherlands Carillon near Arlington Cemetery, the Old Post Office bell on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Robert Taft Carillon on the U.S. Capitol participated in the toll. Military installations everywhere paused to toll bells at the direction of the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the Commandant of the Coast Guard. Click here to read more about how the Bells of Peace project rang out across the nation and around the world.

In honor of the centennial of the World War I armistice on November 11, NYC Parks’ Citywide Monuments Conservation Program (CMCP) staff joined forces with park partners this fall to refurbish and care for several monuments, including Father Duffy in Times Square, the Pleasant Plains Memorial on Staten Island, the Abingdon Square Doughboy in Greenwich Village, and the Carroll Park monument in Brooklyn. With 103 memorials of all shapes and sizes erected in the aftermath of World War I, Parks has one of the most prevalent collections of memorials to this important moment in history. Memorials can be found across the city, with 21 in Brooklyn, 18 in the Bronx, 23 in Manhattan, 12 on Staten Island, and 29 in Queens. Click here to read more about the NYC WWI memorials, and the restoration work that has been done to preserve them.

One hundred years ago on November 11, the First World War mercifully drew to a close. Across a devastated Western Front, British Tommies and French Poilus emerged from the trenches as their German adversaries capitulated. What few remember is that over two million American Doughboys stood in the Allied lines when the guns finally fell silent on November 11, 1918, after four years of slaughter that claimed 18 million lives. Daniel J. Samet, a foreign affairs researcher based in Washington, D.C., writes that if our nation forgets the events of World War One, "we also overlook one of its key consequences: the rescue of democracy around the world." Click here to read this thoughtful essay on the key legacy of World War I.

To mark the Armistice Centennial, the World War I Centennial Commission's commemorative partners, American Heritage magazine, have a new special issue that is all about World War I. There’s some important writing here, including an essay that Herbert Hoover wrote in 1958 about his experiences as an aide to Wilson at the peace talks after World War I. This important first-person narrative candidly details the difficulties that Wilson faced in what Hoover called “the greatest drama of intellectual leadership in all history.” Click here to read more about the important contents of the special issue of American Heritage Magazine.

The Virginia War Museum will be running a temporary exhibit "Flags of War: Virginia’s First World War Regimental Colors" until November 18, 2018. The temporary exhibit will feature the regimental flags of Virginia’s units that served overseas in the 42nd, 29th and 80th Divisions as well as African American Engineer Battalions and Coast Artillery units. This is the first time ever that all of the flags have been displayed for public viewing. Click here to read more about this once in a lifetime opportunity to view these sacred artifacts of Virginia’s role in the Great War.

The nation of Italy commemorated the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, this week. In official ceremonies in Rome and in Trieste, Italy's president Sergio Mattaella recalled Europe’s history, and urged young people to remember the conflict's lessons while striving for peaceful coexistence. “To celebrate together the end of the war and to jointly honor the fallen — all the fallen — signifies to reiterate with force, all together, that over the path of war, we prefer to develop friendship and collaboration,” he said at a ceremony in Trieste, a port city not far from some of the deadliest battles between Italian soldiers and troops of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. Click here to read more about these events, part of a week of observances for the centenary of Armistice Day in Italy.

The WW1 Centennial News Podcast is about WW1 THEN: 100 years ago this week, and it's about WW1 NOW: News and updates about the centennial and the commemoration.  

Available on our web site, iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, TuneIn, Stitcher Radio on Demand.  Spotify  listen on Youtube. New - Comment and ask questions via twitter @TheWW1podcast

Episode 97
Highlights: The Run-up to the Armistice

100 Years Ago… The Run-up to the Armistice - Host | @02:10

Was America crucial to winning the war? - Prof. Geoffrey Wawro | @09:10

A reading of the Armistice - Host | @18:50

The 369th Experience - performance | @39:05

Veterans Day/Armistice Day Centennial Day WWrite Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winner Robert Olen Butler on the Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller Series and the Importance of WWI.

For Veterans Day and the Armistice Day Centennial, WWrite has had the honor to speak with Robert Olen Butler. Butler, who has been called the “best American living writer.” Butler won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1993 and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature in 2013. A Vietnam veteran and a former reporter, Butler unites war and journalism in his Christopher Marlowe Cobb espionage thriller series. Four books trace the journey of American spy, Kit Cobb, as he navigates his way through the most important aspects of the WWI-era. The Hot Country(2012), The Star of Istanbul (2013), The Empire of the Night (2014), and Paris in the Dark (2018), take the characters and plot through the Mexican Civil War, the sinking of the Lusitania, the use of Zeppelins, and trench warfare. Butler is best known for his literary fiction, but in this interview, he explains the equally-intricate, equally-literary process of writing spy novels against the historical tectonic shifts of 1914-1918, a time, he says, closely resembles our present era. 

Listen to the fascinating interview at WWrite here today!

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Monday's MIA this week is Sergeant Richard Parks. Born in Gilmer County, Georgia, Sergeant Parks enlisted on September 11th, 1916 at Columbus Barracks, Ohio, and served on the Mexican Border before going overseas with Company L/9th Infantry Regiment/2nd Division. Sergeant Parks served through the battle at Belleau Wood, but was hit during the attack at Soissons by a high explosive shell on July 18th, 1918. He later died of his wounds. Nothing else is known of his case at this time.

Would you like to help us solve Sergeant Parks’ case? Can you spare just ten dollars? Why not give 'Ten For Them' to Doughboy MIA and help us make a full accounting of the 4,423 American service personnel still listed as missing in action from WW1. Make your tax deductible donation now, with our thanks.

Honoring the Doughboys Book

The Great War may have ended 100 years ago, but the ways in which it influences and affects the generations today are diverse and fascinating. Upon receiving the diary of his grandfather, a World War I veteran, writer and photographer Jeffrey Lowdermilk was inspired to honor the memory of George A. Carlson by traversing the same journey he took across Europe, reliving the experiences by visiting the towns, battlefields, and landscapes described in the diary. He has since published a book, Honoring The Doughboys: Following My Grandfather’s WWI Diary, describing his journey,  with contemporary photographs of the places he visited as well as diary excerpts. In addition, Mr. Lowdermilk has donated several copies of Honoring the Doughboys to be sold as Official Centennial Merchandise to benefit the Centennial Commission’s Memorial Fund.

This and many other items are available as Official Merchandise of the United States World War One Centennial.

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