WAR ON CHRISTMAS
Military exhibit features hometown WWI soldiers
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.
» Soldiers in Saratoga Springs-based Company L of the 105th Infantry Regiment had a White Christmas 100 years ago this month.
The men were at Camp Wadsworth, near Spartanburg, S.C., where an unexpected snowfall reminded them of home, which some of them would never see again.
The soldiers were members of New York Army National Guard’s 27th Division, training to go overseas during World War I.
“It’s going to be rough work, hard work, and lots of it,” one soldier wrote. “But it’s going to be the sort of work we have to get used to because we’re going to be called upon to do a great deal of it over on the other side.”
The First World War was characterized by trench warfare, a hellish expe-
rience in which men lived in flooded, rat-infested, 6to 8-foot-deep holes in the ground.
“It was dangerous to stick your head above ground,” said Glen Lunde of Ballston Spa, a World War I historian and re-enactor. “There’s always poison gas going on, too. Nothing would have prepared them for this type of warfare.”
The first New York soldiers, in the 42nd “Rainbow” Division, arrived in France in late 1917.
Members of Company L, in the 27th Division, were still training at Camp Wadsworth, S.C., at that time. A soldier described life there with a poem published in the division newspaper, aptly named “Gas Attack.”
It starts: “The life down here is very nice, at 5:15 we crack the ice that gathers on the trough outside; I said ‘twas nice, you know I lied.
Another soldier there wrote, “Now they’re planning to bombard the trenches over on the hills back of camp just to see how well and how rapidly we doughboys and engineers can rebuild them.”
On Dec. 9, 1917, John Bowman of Jamestown, wrote that men were treated badly on the march back to camp, where he took his first bath in four weeks. One man froze to death, he said.
“General O’Ryan is back from France and he is the whole cause of our misery,” Bowman wrote.
However, soldiers were treated to Christmas dinner at Camp Wadsworth “with all the fixins.”
A menu in the New York State Military Museum collection says they had roast turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, cranberry, fruit salad, plum pudding, mince pie and ice cream. It was a taste of heaven compared to the battlefront rations they later survived on.
After months of training, Company L left Camp Wadsworth on May 4, 1918 for Newport News, Va., where it embarked aboard the USS President Grant on May 17, arriving in Brest, France on May 31.
Soldiers reached front lines on July 25.
“Most of us are trying to keep dry as we are now in the land of mud,” Bowman wrote.
A current Saratoga Springs History Museum exhibit, “Company L Goes to War,” shows the conditions soldiers enured, the equipment they used, and the facial disfigurement many suffered from gas attacks. the “Plastic surgery came about because of this war,” said Jamie Parillo, museum director.
World War I also marked the introduction of tank and airplane warfare.
“In addition, this was the first time you saw the government going to the populace, asking people to buy war bonds and saving stamps to help fund the war,” Parillo said.
Colorful posters designed to drum up support and sway public opinion are part of the museum exhibit. They were products of the government’s Committee on Public Information.
Soldiers on the front had one treat to enjoy amidst the hardships, a gift from Salvation Army women called “Doughnut Dollies.”
In September 1917, Helen Purviance and Margaret Sheldon, used shell casings and wine bottles as makeshift rolling pins to make doughnuts from excess rations. They filled a soldier’s helmet with lard to fry the doughnuts, which became an instant hit with soldiers.
“Salvation Army did a lot for morale,” Lunde said. “They also helped get mail and packages to soldiers and gave them food and warming clothing. They were very popular with the troops.”