World War I, 100 years later

State begins commemorations of its role in the Great War.

During the first full-frontal attack on American troops by German soldiers in World War I, a first lieutenant from Lonoke County found himself in the thick of the fighting.

Lt. William Heber McLaughlin, who was 35 at the time, was a commander with the U.S. 16th Infantry Regiment when he became one of the first American officers, if not the first, to be wounded in combat in World War I. That injury contributed to his death less than 14 years later, according to a 2003 biography about McLaughlin written by Russell Pierce Baker, retired archival manager for the Arkansas State Archives.

The United States entered World War I 100 years ago last Thursday. A state centennial year observance, Arkansas and the Great War: Remembering 1917, officially began Saturday with festivities at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, sponsored by the Arkansas World War I Centennial Commemoration Committee and the museum. Arkansas Heritage Month in May will also focus on World War I.

American troops didn’t land in Europe until June 1917 and weren’t at the front

until late October that year. On Nov. 2, 1917, the 16th Infantry relieved French troops on the front lines near Bathelemont-les-Bauzemont in northeastern France, according to historical accounts.

An overnight German assault — an artillery bombardment first, then hand-to-hand fighting in the darkness — early on Nov. 3, 1917, was repulsed by the Americans. There were three American deaths, the first of the war, and several others were taken prisoner as the Germans fell back almost as quickly as they had attacked.

McLaughlin, who went by Heber, was among those wounded, but he stayed in the brief, intense fight, Baker said in an interview last week. McLaughlin suffered a “serious injury” when shrapnel struck his helmet during the German bombardment, Baker wrote in his article submitted to the Pulaski County Historical Review.

“He refused to leave the field of battle despite being severely wounded,” Baker, now editor of the Arkansas Genealogical Society’s Arkansas Family Historian, said last week. “That was sort of characteristic of the American soldiers. The French were brave, but they were mentally and physically tired of the war by that time.

“The Americans brought a new and aggressive spirit, which the Germans had difficulty coping with and which amazed the French,” Baker said. “That same thing could be said about our American soldiers who fought in France in World War II, as well.”

McLaughlin ended up in a military hospital but “begged to remain on the fighting line,” Baker wrote in his article. He again took a command in December, “only to return to the hospital” because of his wounds from that first engagement, according to the article.

There were 71,862 Arkansans who served in World War I, with 2,183 killed in combat or by illness, and 1,751 wounded, according to the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, encyclopediaofarkansas.net. Approximately 7,000 more Arkansans died during a flu outbreak in 1918.

McLaughlin earned a promotion to the rank of captain and was sent home by May 1918 where he spent the remainder of the war as an instructor with the Students’ Army Training Corps, Baker wrote. He was discharged Dec. 20, 1918, with a “50 percent disability,” according to Baker.

“I think he was sent home to help campaign for the Victory Bonds, or war bonds as they were called in World War I,” Baker said.

Images of the three soldiers killed during that first battle — Pvt. Merle Hay, Cpl. James Gresham and Pvt. Thomas Enright — were used on posters as “The First Three” for the Red Cross War Fund Week to help in the sale of war bonds, according to artofthegreatwar.info.

McLaughlin served two terms in the Arkansas General Assembly as a Lonoke County representative beginning in 1923, according to Baker’s article.

McLaughlin died May 28, 1931, at age 49, a death “considered to be caused by complications from the wound,” Baker said. McLaughlin is buried at historic Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock in a family mausoleum.

Baker recalled doing his research on McLaughlin while at the Arkansas State Archives, formerly the Arkansas History Commission, when French officials contacted him. They were “working on restoring or replacing a memorial to the first three soldiers to fall in the fields of France, and one of the officers there was Mr. McLaughlin,” he said.

He delved deep into McLaughlin’s story, he said, because “first of all, he was an Arkansan, and then his bravery,” Baker said.

“It is a good story,” Baker said of McLaughlin. “His story deserves to not be lost, but preserved.”