Anchor’s Aweigh: Getting the 51st Pioneer Infantry to France and Back

Anchor’s Aweigh: Getting the 51st Pioneer Infantry to France and Back

The history of the 51st Pioneer Infantry included information about the ships that brought Joseph McMahon to France and back home again. Gathering images and more information about these ships fleshes out the details of his WWI service.

 

From U.S. to Brest, France

On 29 July 1918 the 51st Pioneer Infantry left Camp Merritt, NJ, and marched to Alpine Landing. From there they were placed on ferries to Hoboken, NJ. Then they boarded the steamer USS Kroonland. On 8 Aug 1918 the U.S.S. Kroonland arrived in Brest, France in the rain.

The U.S.S. Kroonland brought troops to France six times. She also made postwar trips, then was returned to International Mercantile Marine Company.

The journal of Gordon Van Kleeck, a private in Company F of the U.S. 51st Pioneer Infantry, includes the story of the crossing. The soldiers wore overalls rather than uniforms, and sat in the lifeboats during the early morning until sunrise in case there was a submarine attack. You can read Pvt. Van Kleeck’s journal at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~treebz65/momside/vankleeck/gordonvk/gvkjournal/gvkjournalindex.html

Brest was the location of the American Naval Headquarters in France. More than 30 destroyers and multiple yachts escorted troop and supply convoys were based at Brest.

While the Kroonland sailed past St. Mathieu lighthouse through LeGoulet Channel into Bay of Brest, French and British airplanes flew low looking for submarines. Several lighter-than-air blimp ships flew low in front of the convoy.

The image below shows the U.S.S. Kroonland at the New York Navy Yard, on 24 July 1918, just before its trip to bring the 51st to France. It is painted in “dazzle” camouflage.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy,  photo NH 52093, Source: Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC).

Below, an airship escorts a convoy into Brest Harbor in 1918.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy photo NH 121616. Source: Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC)

This picture shows a landing at Brest, France, 8 August 1919.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy photo NH 965. Source: Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC)

 

From St. Nazaire, France to the United States

On 23 June 1919 the 51st Pioneer Infantry sailed from St. Nazaire on the U.S.S. Wilhelmina. On 3 July 1919 they arrived in New York harbor After the Armistice she made 7 round trips returning the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) troops from France. She was decommissioned on or after 6 Aug 1919 and on 16 Aug 1919 she was returned to the Matson Navigation Company. She was originally bought to carry passengers and cargo between the west coast of the US and Hawaii. She purchased by a British shipping company was sunk by a U-boat in 1940 while in a convoy between Nova Scotia and Liverpool.

The USS Wilhelmina is shown in front of a coaling facility at the New York Navy Yard on 1 May 1918, painted in dazzle camouflage.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy photo NH 47885. Source: Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC).

 

Dazzle ships

The dazzle camoflauge patterns were painted on the ships in grey, black and blue. They were effective at distorting a ship’s silhouette and making it harder for the enemy to estimate a ship’s type, size, speed, and heading. You can read more about the dazzle ships at The Vintage News.

To learn more about ships in your ancestor’s history I recommend visiting the websites for the Naval History and Heritage Command Photography Collection,  Nav Source Naval History  and Wikipedia.

WWI Battles and Cemeteries

A little while ago, I saw a request on a genealogical Facebook page and tried to locate an obituary for a soldier who died in World War I. Although I did not find the obituary, it led to some interesting websites and resources that I was able to share with the obituary seeker.

If you have an ancestor who died overseas in WWI, you should search the American Battle Monument Commission website.

If you have not lost an ancestor overseas in WWI, you should still check out the resources about the battles and the World War I accessible from this website.

Search the American Battle Monument Commission for soldiers buried overseas.

 

 

To search for only WWI soldiers, uncheck all but the WWI box.

 

You do not have to fill in all the fields; try a first and last name.

I searched for soldiers killed in the Battle of St. Mihiel without a name.

Entered Service From: New York

Branch of Service: U. S. Army

War Conflict: World War I

Keyword: Mihiel

 

 

The details about SGT Walsh indicate that he is memorialized in the Tablet of the Missing at the St. Mihiel American Cemetery France.

 

 

Click on the link for the St. Mihiel American Cemetery page.

 

 

From this page, you can download electronic copies of pamphlets.

The St. Mihiel American Cemetery Booklet contains a history of the battle.

You can view a video about the cemetery.

The ABMC has a channel on YouTube.

Check out The ABMC Learning & Resources Page.

 

 

From this page you can download the 1938 version of the “American Armies and Battlefields in Europe: A History, Guide and Reference Book.” It updated the original 1927 book, “A Guide to the American Battle Fields in Europe” to include the AEF accomplishments.

The members of the Pioneer Infantry are referred to as Pioneer Troops in this book, so you may want to search for “pioneer”.

 

(p 177)

(p 201)

(p 530)

FamilySearch has links to more information about World War I Casualties.

If your ancestor died in WWI, follow the links to the books that can be downloaded from Google Books, as there are some pictures of the soldiers. The books are organized by state. You can also check the books contents through Ancestry.com.

Looking for the 51st Pioneers in the New York State Military Museum

The New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center is part of the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs (DMNA). It is located in Saratoga Springs, NY.

This blog post takes you on a tour of the Museum’s website. Hopefully will inspire those who have military ancestors from New York to investigate the material that can be found. Remember to look not only for your ancestor, but for information about the places and times that s/he served. Letters from or pictures of contemporaries may shed light on your ancestor’s experiences. (This approach might help you when you search the websites of military museums in other states.)

My particular interest is about the 51st Pioneer Infantry in World War I. The 51st Pioneer Infantry was formed from New York’s State 10th Infantry Regiment.

Since the Museum can only take request via mail, I did send them a letter and a small contribution. In the letter I told them that I was researching my Grandfather and the 51st Pioneer Infantry. I also shared a copy of my Grandfather’s Service Summary Card in case that would help, or prevent them from duplicating work that had already been done. I received information about the 10th in World War I, and the information that the digitized images that I found in their inventory were not yet available on the website.

 

 

When you start, learn About the Museum.

 

 

Here you can learn about the holdings of the museum, as well as its location and hours. Key information is that you have to send your research inquiries by mail, as they do not have the staff to handle telephone requests.

Click on Research to find out what Resources they have online.

 

 

Veteran Burial Locations links to a page with links for Civil War Burial Cards and a link to a the New Horizons Genealogy website’s collection of Revolutionary War Graves of Soldiers Buried in New York. We are warned this list may be incomplete.

Scrolling down there is a link to Digitized Books. Click on it to see which digitized books are available on the Museum website.

 

 

The Digitized books were worth checking out. “New York in the War of the Rebellion” might be interesting another time.

If you are a New York State veteran, you can select the link for Veteran’s Oral History, where you can learn about how to fill in a questionnaire, learn about the methods to record your history, or find a self-interview packet.

Click on the Unit History Project to view the New York State Unit History Project collecting Unit Histories for major conflicts. The website advertises that it is updated weekly.

 

 

I clicked on World War One, and the current offerings are shown below.

 

 

To search the collections, select Search from the menu on the left side.

 

 

There is a choice of topics to search. To search everything except the roster database, select Search everything.

 

 

In the unit field, I entered: 51st Pioneer Infantry

 

 

Click on the Submit Query button.

The results were in a book about Armories.

 

 

Searching for Keyword: Joseph McMahon gave no results. (To check I was doing this correctly, I went back and searched for the surname of a soldier who appeared in the search results. It worked.)

Searching for Unit: 51st and Conflict WW1 gave no results.

So, I searched for Unit: 51st

 

The results included World War, 1914-1918 United States. Army; World War, 1914-1918; and the unit United States. Army. Pioneer Infantry, 51st (1917-1919).

The results also included New York Infantry 51st Regiment in the Civil War.

 

 

A couple of interesting entries were:

 

 

In the Photographs section there were several entries for the 51st Pioneer Infantry.

 

 

I did click through to the record description, but the links to the pictures were not working. I contacted the Museum and asked about the pictures and was told that they had been scanned, but not loaded onto the web server.

 

 

The individual records contain great information. Remember that you are looking for your ancestor, and also for pictures about the times where and when s/he served.

Good hunting and let me know if your find anything!

 

51st Pioneer Infantry in the Library of Congress American Memory Collection

The American Memory Collection documents the American experience. I searched for the 51st Pioneer Infantry in this collection.

In the search box, I entered “51st Pioneer Infantry” and got only two results. So I tried “51st Pioneer”.

The results were:

There is a choice to download the pdf of the page or of the whole issue.

Be sure to note the page number and position of the article; searching in the pdf may not work.

The first result in “The Stars and Stripes” was:

The second result in “The Stars and Stripes” was from the The Army’s Poets column:

The third result in “The Stars and Stripes” was:

The fourth result was in the Serial Set. It was dated 1863, so it was not relevant.

To take this another step, you can search within the “Stars and Stripes” collection for the terms: 51st Pioneer Infantry. There are other results, but the terms were not adjacent.

Search the American Memory Collection for your ancestors’ military units, and see what you can find. Remember to search for other information about their lives and times in this collection.

The St. Mihiel Offensive and the 51st Pioneer Infantry

General Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force (AEF)  launched the Saint-Mihiel offensive. This was the AEF’s first independent offensive, with an American Army under American command. The goal was to cut off the rail lines between Paris and the Eastern Front. The St. Mihiel salient was a fortified bulge into France that was 15 miles on either side of St. Mihiel, 20 miles south of Verdun.

The 51st Pioneer Infantry was divided. My Grandfather’s Company, B, was attached to First Division. They had their first experience with exploding shells, and enemy machine guns and airplanes dropping bombs. The Pioneers kept roads and bridges repaired and rebuilt. They were tasked with keeping the lines of communication open. Trucks were filled with broken brick and stone from destroyed cities and villages, and were prepositioned where enemy attacks were expected. As soon as a shell exploded in a road, the crew came and repaired it.

The map above is from “The War with Germany A Statistical Summary” by Leonard P. Ayres, Colonel, General Staff, Washington Government Printing Office, 1919.

St. Mihiel by the Numbers

• 1st Time American Expeditionary Forces were under American Command
• 1st Use of the term D-Day
• 7 American Divisions Advanced at 5 A.M. on 12 Sept 1918
• 1 million artillery shells were fired in the first 4 hours
• 1476 allied air planes participated in the greatest air battle of the Great War
• 16,000 Prisoners were taken in two days

5 Web Resources:

1. St. Mihiel Drive 1918 United States Army, World War I from the Official films of the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army taken in France. Note: This video does contain images of fallen soldiers.
   
2. Pershing’s Description of the Battle of Saint Mihiel [Excerpted from the Final Report of Gen. John J. Pershing (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 38-43 ]
3. American Expeditionary Force at St. Mihiel
4. The Library of Congress American Memories, Today in History: September 12 Saint-Mihiel Offensive
5. “The War with Germany A Statistical Summary” by Leonard P. Ayres, Colonel, General Staff, Washington Government Printing Office, 1919, Chapter VIII. Two Hundred Days of Battle.

Get Children Involved: Revolutionary War

My son had to do a PowerPoint presentation for his social studies class about the Battles of Lexington and Concord. His Father’s family has been involved in many of the military conflicts throughout the history of the United States. I recalled one ancestor in Massachusetts, so I dug out the details.

I looked at the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) Membership Applications on Ancestry.com. The application I found included both John Fife and his Father-in-Law, Return Strong.

Sure enough, John Fyfe (Fife) had been a minute man in Groton, CT, and appears on the Lexington Alarm Roll. They marched on 19 Apr 1775 from Groton. (The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought on 19 April 1775.

 

 

My son recognized the name of Col. William Prescott from his research of the event.

How amazing it is to be able combine his family history with what he is learning in school!

But let’s dig a little deeper.

I searched the DAR Ancestor (Patriot) Index.

Select Genealogy in the upper right.

Under Genealogical Research (GRS), select Ancestor Search.

Alternately, you can go to the DAR Descendants Search page.

I searched the DAR database for Fyfe, and it was suggested I try the alternate spelling of Fife. There he was, with a reference.

 

 

I searched for the book that was used as the source on Google, using the search terms:

massachusetts soldiers and sailors volume 5

The pdf with the Guide to Sources on the American Revolution looks interesting, so I will try that, too. It has background information about Maryland’s role in the American Revolution.

The Internet Archive has a copy of the Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors Volume 5.

 

The book could be downloaded, so I chose the pdf format.

 

 

After I downloaded the pdf and began searching for Fife. Naturally that brought up fife players, so looking at the format of the names, I searched for: Fife, John

On page 664 of the book (page 658 of the pdf document) we find the correct John Fife.

I wanted to be able to find the file when I searched for it, and to know the page number. I saved the file with the filename:

massachusettssoldfoymass – rev war p664 (658) – Fife, John

This is the John Fife who matches the details on the SAR application. The SAR application also gave the lineage, so I could match it against what I knew about the family.

 

 

Note: This volume had Duarell – Foys

Then I went back to the DAR Descendants Ssearch page to look for John Fife’s Father-in-Law, Return Strong. There are several listings for that name.

There is a Return Strong listed with no ancestor number. His wife is Elizabeth Andrus.

Ancestor #: A111710 This Return Strong’s wife is Elizabeth Andros. I have seen her family name spelled in a variety of ways.

Ancestor #: A111712 This is a different Return Strong. His wife is Hannah Harman.

You can click on the name (shown in blue) and see the Descendants. By clicking on the icon next to a Descendant’s name you can open the Descendant’s List. The Descendant’s List is the submitted lineage, but the webpage does not include the proof documents. Those would have to be ordered from the DAR.  See the “Associated Applications and Supplementals”.

My son looked up the information about the trip from Groton, CT, to Lexington, MA. According to Google Maps, the trip is at least 109 miles by car. He clicked the walking icon and learned that it is 100 miles when walking, and that the trip takes approximately 33 hours. We will need to learn more about how John Fife traveled, but now we know more about the routes.

 

Armed with this knowledge and a tricorn hat, he did well on his presentation.