REMEMBERING MIDDLEBOROUGH’S FIRST WWI SERVICEMEN
Middleboro Gazette
May 27 2011
MA
Following the outbreak of war in Europe in the summer of 1914, in an
effort to maintain the strictest neutrality, President Woodrow Wilson
issued a proclamation August 4, 1914, barring American citizens from
enlisting in the armed forces of the belligerent nations. The order was
largely ignored. Men from across the country flocked to join foreign
armed forces, including men from Middleborough. Demonstrating, indeed,
that it truly was a world war, Middleborough men (many of foreign birth
or with foreign-born parents) would early on enlist in the armies of
Britain, Canada, France and Italy, flouting America’s declared policy
of neutrality and becoming the first local participants in the Great
War some two and a half years before America’s formal declaration of
war against Germany and her allies.
Regardless of which uniform they might don, these men shared one thing
in common – an abiding belief in the honor and rightness of their
cause. The numerous letters written by Middleborough men in foreign
service nearly all indicate the common cause which they shared with
their Middleborough friends and neighbors.
James E. Jones, John McNeil and Earl F. Dempsey were among those
Middleborough residents who enlisted with the British. Dempsey’s
story is reflective of that of the others. Enlisting in the British
Army in July, 1915, he was transported to England aboard a horse ship.
Originally a cavalryman in the 2d King Edward’s Horse, he served in
the trenches as a bombsman, machine gunner and signal man during the
1915-16 campaigns after the command was dismounted when the futility
of employing cavalry on the Western Front was realized. During
the summer of 1916, the low point of the British experience in
France, Dempsey served on special duties as a dispatch carrier,
before rejoining his regiment. He was wounded at the Somme in 1917,
following which he was trained as a gunner in the tank service. On
September 28, 1918, he was again wounded, in the back and neck, by
an exploding shell. The tank in which he was serving caught fire,
and Dempsey badly burned. Nonetheless, he survived the war.
Still other Middleborough men joined the Canadian forces. In 1915,
fifteen-year-old Roger Keedwell left his home on Frank Street to
enlist with the Canadian Army and served some ten months in the
Canadian Grenadier Guards before his father was successful in having
him discharged due to his age. He would later perish as a member of
the American forces in the Argonne.
Kenneth Cosseboom, whose father was a native of New Brunswick, also
served with the Canadian Army. He enlisted in the fall of 1914 and
shipped to France in March, 1915, with the rank of corporal. He served
at the front the majority of the time. In 1916, he was awarded a medal
for bravery in action and received an honorable mention several times.
In March, 1918, he graduated from officers’ training school in France,
and was made a lieutenant and transferred to the 26th Battalion
Canadian Infantry. He was engaged in training Canadian recruits up
until October, 1918. He was wounded in the arm once, and was in the
hospital for six months recuperating.
Herbert M. Jones, like Cosseboom, saw action with the Canadian Army
in France, as a member of a railway engineer company responsible for
constructing and supplying supply rail lines.
John A. P. Lacombe similarly saw service in France as a member of the
Canadian Army and was wounded a number of times. He too recognized
the common cause shared by Americans and Canadians alike. “I am not
in the American army, but in the Canadian, but it is all the same
these days and we are all fighting for the same cause.”
Still other Middleborough men enlisted with the French forces.
Haroutune Haroutunian, an Armenian native, enlisted with a number of
other local Armenians including Sarkis K. Afarian, Madirus Gochgarian,
Dicran Baghdelian and Mihran Piranian, on August 3, 1917, in the French
Army Legion d’Orient, anxious to serve in the front lines against
Germany’s Turkish ally to avenge the Armenian genocide which had been
perpetrated by Ottoman Turkey. The Legion, created in November 1916,
included some 2,000 Armenian Americans. In 1918, Haroutunian wrote his
brother John, “We are ready to attack the Turkish army by orders from
Gen. Allenby. We are very happy at the present time because we are
seeing the surrender of our enemy from our motherland.” Haroutunian
gave voice to the local Armenian community’s willingness to sacrifice
when he wrote Lorenzo Wood on March 16, 1918, that “for humanity and
justice, we will be ready for all happenings”¦”
Six Middleborough residents not recognized on the town’s honor roll,
but two of whom would ultimately make the supreme sacrifice were the
Merluccio brothers who departed Middleborough for their former homes
in Italy where they enlisted in the Italian Army.
Despite the fact that Middleborough men would join the forces of
foreign nations, and might not always consider themselves firstly
as Americans, they clearly recognized the mutual goals which they
shared with native born Middleborough soldiers. The color of the
uniform ultimately was irrelevant. Herbert M. Jones, then serving
with the Canadians in England, succinctly wrote the President of the
Middleborough Red Cross Association, emphasizing the common ideals
shared by all.
“¦We are all fighting for one common ideal freedom from militarism –
an ideal that America has stood for and I hope will continue to stand
for in the years to come”¦. As I go to France, I go as a comrade and
brother in arms to my American brothers. I have worked with them and
played with them and eaten with them. I’m glad to know that I am to
fight in a just cause shoulder to shoulder with your best and bravest.
Many of us will not come back. I only hope that we shall all die to
some purpose”¦. Here’s to the cause – God bless America and Americans
and may they be worthy of their ancestors.
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110526/PUB04/105260367