Letters From a Doughboy

‘You had better get the potato masher ready for X-mas dinner.’

Photo: Hennessey Family photo

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Today in Free Expression, it’s Memorial Day.

Over There

—Matthew Hennessey

Joe Murphy was fit, unmarried and days away from his 26th birthday when the U.S. declared war on Germany on April 17, 1917. He enlisted in a patriotic fervor alongside dozens of his friends and neighbors. They became doughboys.

The War Department sent Joe to train at Camp Dix, about 70 miles south of his hometown, Morristown, N.J. It may have been the farthest from home he’d ever been. On Jan. 17, 1918, he wrote a letter to his younger sister Clara—my grandmother—in which he professed to be “feeling great” about what he was about to do. He and the other Morristown boys shipped out to Europe with Battery D, 308th Field Artillery, 78th Division in late May.

Joe landed on the Atlantic coast of France that summer. His unit traveled east, likely by rail. By early October they’d arrived at the front, near the village of Grandpré, about 40 miles northeast of the ancient city of Reims. There they joined an assembled Allied force of two million preparing to assault Germany’s heavily fortified Hindenburg line. Everyone expected it would be the final push of the long, brutal war to end wars.

Joe wrote to Clara again, this time in pencil on flimsy paper provided by the YMCA.

ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
Oct. 15, 1918
Dear Clara,
I received your letter and card the other day, also one from Mary, Marie, and Ella. We have had it pretty tough for the last six weeks but it looks now as though it is near over, and maybe I won’t be glad, and I imagine I am not alone either. I had a letter from John dated Sept. 12, he was then at a rest camp after two trips to the trenches, he must of been back in again and, so I am in hopes he had luck with him for the doughboys sure missed it. They caught us in a road one night and got twenty eight of our horses, and three of the fellows, poor Oldman was one of them, and it was a funny part of it was he had been talking to me just before, but left to go to the head of the column when the unit was hit, and I saw him and Charlie Miller, Stanley J— and S— Hall, and heard that Dom Meskal was killed, but that was all, and I am glad to hear none of the other fellows from home was hurt. I was talking to McIntosh yesterday, he said he had a card from you. Well the papers all have nothing but peace talks in them, and everybody here is betting we won’t fire another shot, so you had better get the potato masher ready for X-mas dinner for you know what it takes to mow down Pikes Peak. I haven’t had my clothes off me in six weeks, so you can imagine what the bath tub will say when it sees me. We are in a busy section now, after hiking for about ten days, but are in reserve, and I hope will not have to go into action again. I would like very much like to send you that hat you speak about, but we only have one so I don’t think it can be done. My pack now consists of two blankets and my comfort kit . . . but I imagine if you had to hike about fifteen or twenty miles a day with it on your back you would say it was plenty big enough. Well tell everybody I am feeling great, but when the big news comes I will feel much better. Tell John Hanley the old Germans are no good, but they sure are running now, they go out in trams and auto trucks, anything that will get them away the quickest.
Joe

The fighting in the Argonne forest and along the Meuse River was intense and relentless. French and American forces pounded the German fortifications for weeks, making slow progress. The campaign remains the deadliest in U.S. military history. More than 26,000 U.S. soldiers died and over 100,000 were wounded, all while advancing no more than 10 miles.

It’s possible the following telegram reached the family before Joe’s letter reached Clara:

MR JOHN T MURPHY
96 WESTERN AVE
MORRISTOWN N.J.
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT PRIVATE JOSEPH MURPHY FIELD ARTILLERY IS OFFICIALLY REPORTED AS KILLED IN ACTION OCTOBER TWENTIETH
HARRIS
THE ADJUTANT GENERAL
340 PM

The family was devastated. The following summer, another letter arrived from overseas:

Vierzy France
June 5 1919
Mr. John T. Murphy
Western Ave
Morristown
Dear Mr. Murphy,
According to army regulations friends are not allowed to write and let their people know of men killed in action until they are notified by the War Department. We all send our sincere sympathy and Joe was given a good burial. Father McConnell our chaplain took charge and had the grave dug and was there for the services. Bill Holton and I were among the pallbearers also Bill Meslar. Joe was buried in a town called Lancon Oct 21 opposite the church there. The boys had a cross made and Joe’s name put on it and put on the grave. All of Joe’s friends send sincere sympathy and miss his company very much.
Respectfully yours,
Wm F. Looney
Wm T. Holton
Wm G. Meslar
Edw F. Mulhall

Joe’s body was repatriated in September 1921. He was given a full Catholic funeral at the Church of the Assumption in Morristown. Fr. McConnell presided and those same four friends served once again as pallbearers. It was the church where Joe had been baptized into the faith in 1891. It was where his sister, Clara, would be married in 1925. It was where my father was baptized in 1935, and I was baptized in 1973.

I obviously never met my great-uncle Joe. I never even met my grandmother, Clara, who died before my parents were married. But I know she never got over the loss of her big brother. She carried that pain. The second worst day of her life came in 1944, when a telegram arrived announcing the death of her young nephew Buddy Doyle at Hochfelden in Alsace, France. So many American sisters, mothers, brothers and fathers have carried that pain.

Every Memorial Day I offer up my sincere gratitude in my own quiet way to all the doughboys, GIs, grunts, sailors, squids and flyboys I never met. Guys like Joe Murphy, Buddy Doyle, Dom Meskal and poor Oldman, who laid down their lives in far-away places so that we might enjoy peace and freedom here at home. It’s impossible to feel worthy of the sacrifice.

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