The Congressional Naming Commission has released their recommendation for retitling nine Army installations presently named for Confederate historical figures. One of the recommendations is to change the name of Ft. Gordon, near Augusta, Georgia to Ft. Eisenhower, after five star General and the 34th POTUS Dwight D. Eisenhower, who grew up in Abilene, Kansas. This post is the Headquarters of both the Army Signal Corps and the Army Cyber Command. Click here to read the full press release.
Category: Research & Histories (Page 1 of 68)
Winston Churchill’s Soldiers Part 3
Winston Churchill took responsibility for the Gallipoli fiasco (click here to read more). After his resignation from the Admiralty, the Royal Naval Division (RND) was quickly shifted over to army command. Since at the time it had only one ‘naval’ brigade and the marine brigade, it was augmented by the addition of 190th Brigade, which included the 7th Royal Fusiliers, 4th Bedfords, 1/1st Honourable Artillery Co. (an infantry unit) and the 10th Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Three of these battalions were Territorials and one was New Army. The RND was re-titled as the 63rd Division, and although this was the highest-numbered division in the British Expeditionary Force, it was the senior division in the order of precedence, as the navy is senior to the army. Thereafter, as the numbers of the ‘Naval’ brigades declined, they were replaced by soldiers.
Click here to read about these forgotten heroines.
Previously we have featured articles about all of the WW1 Medal of Honor recipients with a Kansas connection. However, we missed one.
Pfc. Charles Barger, 354th Infantry, 89th Division, was born in Galena, Kansas but grew up in Scott City, Missouri. Post-war he lived in and around Kansas City, except for a six-month re-enlistment in the army in 1921. He was then a Kansas City police officer for over 12 years, and was shot five times in the line of duty.
We’ve previously written about the first American officer to be killed in action, First Lieut. William Fitzsimons, MC from Burlington, Kansas (you can read about him by clicking here). Another first was claimed by Pvt. Clyde Grimsley of the 16th Infantry, from Stockton, Kansas, who was one of the first six American Doughboys to be captured by the Germans. You can read more about Grimsley and his comrades by clicking here.
On December 26th, 1917 President Woodrow Wilson declared an emergency and took over the nations railroads for the duration of the war. Subsequently it took several acts of Congress to reverse and redress this action. Read the whole story by clicking here.
Teaching WW1 to students in Frontenac Kansas
Brady Hill is a history teacher at the high school in Frontenac, a small city just north of Pittsburg in the old Kansas coal country. You can read about this by clicking here.
Cleanup of WW1 Chemical Dump finished
Previously we have reported about these sites in the northwestern part of the District of Columbia (read by clicking here). The Army Corps of Engineers says that the cleanup and remediation work is now complete. Click here for the complete story.
William and Elizabeth Smith Friedman were among the premier cryptoanalysts in the First World War. You can read more about them by clicking here.
Much of the barbed wire used by both sides on the Western Front was manufactured in Allentown, PA. Read the whole story by clicking here.
