Monthly Archives: July 2017

Passchendaele 1917-2017

31 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by in Governors Island, Great War centennial, Media and Web 2.0, Memory

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I mentioned in a post the other day that American surgeon Dr. Robert D. Schrock worked for several weeks in the hospitals during the Battle of Passchendaele, or Third Ypres. Schrock and his colleagues were still at Governors Island at this point 100 years ago, but the Battle of Passchendaele began on 31 July 1917. It lasted well into November. It may be difficult for Americans to grasp the significance that the battles in Flanders have for the people of Great Britain, along with the Canadians, Aussies, and others who fought alongside them. It is analogous to Antietam and Gettysburg for Americans. I was watching some of the footage over the weekend and saw that Prince William and his wife attended the ceremonies in Flanders; today his father Prince Charles will be present. My brother took me to Belgian about ten years ago. We went to Cloth Hall and stayed not far from the Menin Gate. Britain’s Ministry of Defence made this short video to mark the 100th anniversary of the battle.

Great War film update

30 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Great War centennial

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Yonkers, NY war memorial: the main subject of our film came from this town just north of New York City

If it seems like I went silent on the Great War film that I am making in cooperation with colleagues, that is because I did. We hit a snag in the production process in late spring and summer, and have gotten back on track over this past week. This past Thursday I had lunch here in Brooklyn with a friend of a friend. He was already on board with joining the project and we were meeting face-to-face for the first time to discuss it in detail, share audio and video files, and work out timelines. I had never meet him before but we hit it off immediately. He is a real professional, a musician and budding novelist who brings not just strong technical capabilities but an instinctive narrative sense to the film. I told him and others this morning as we were emailing some film-related news that it was destiny that he join the production. We will probably finish the film by Labor Day.

With that timeline in hand I have been planning and reaching out to various individuals about showing it this fall. The film will be 15-25 minutes. When I know more about where and when we will be showing the film, I will let everyone know here. I will also share more about the content itself. In keeping with the guidelines of the grant, all showing will be free and open to the public.

“a strenuous day on Governors Island”

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Base Hospital No. 9, Governors Island

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This past Sunday I shared a letter written by Dr. Robert D. Schrock on the morning he and other physicians from Base Hospital No. 9 were to report to basic training on Governors Island. The officers and enlisted men drilled at Governors, while the nurses undertook instruction at Ellis Island. This training was actually quite brief; the personnel of Base Hospital No. 9 shipped out for France the first week in August. Dr. Schrock, now Lieutenant Schrock, wrote only letter from Governors Island. The one of 17 July he had penned early in the morning before he and the doctors reported for duty at 8:30 am. Note that this one, written from the Department of the East itself, says “checked” at the bottom. Schrock wrote the one below to the wife of his friend Chet Waters, to whom he had written the quick missive of 17 July. Here, a week into basic, Schrock mentions what a tenuous day it was. One can imagine him and the others marching in their heavy woolen uniforms under the late-July sun. There must have been a strong culture shock as well. Overall however, he seems to be holding up well under the difficult and uncertain circumstances.

Officers of Base Hospital No. 9

The Society of New York Hospital
16 West 16th St
New York, New York
JULY 26, 1917
Dear Boss, (Dr. Chet Waters’ wife Marie)

The last five days have been quite a nightmare. But we’re here and by no means exhausted . Off duty until 8:45 AM. Then, a strenuous day on Governors Island. Imagine me teaching military tactics drill etc. to a squad of enlisted men – but that is what we are doing.

Shall send you a list of our crew this week. Due for dinner with the Ward’s and Goldie Monday night. Come on and join us.

Boss – your friends are thick here – large in numbers and stability from the number of interested inquiries of you

Cannot thank you enough for your goodness of Tuesday – but it wasn’t any different than what you have done for me in so many ways since the beginning of our East Side existence. Omaha to me means the Waters family. Tell the young man I couldn’t say goodbye to him at the station. There is too close an anatomic relation between my cerebral centers and lachrymal apparatus. Am a poor boob in that way–but couldn’t do it. Tomorrow am starting a little package to the boy– Of little value except in their significance. Put them on his shirt collar and shoulders for me. And praying that the world may never demand that he wear similar ones in later years and also that’s there may be no need of his father. Chet is anxious to go, I know and you know. The greater duty is with you all and it would require an heroic effort in this instance for Chet – And we know he will stay with you until the actual need is indicated. When that comes, if it does, I want to know. There maybe room with us.

Am sorry Bess could be so little with you. It’s the torture of the game. More later.

Ask ever Bob

checked

(image/Base Hospital No. 9, A.E.F.)

Sunday morning coffee

23 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by in Base Hospital No. 9, Baseball, Governors Island, Memory

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Dr. Schrock went back to France in 1928 and returned to the United States aboard the Ile de France.

I listened to the Mets come-from-behind, walk-off-with-a-homer win last night. They were down 4-0 in the first inning and won 6-5. Baseball is so conducive to listening on the radio. The Mets’ announcers got into a long discussion about the 1973 Mets-Athletics World Series, in which the As defeated the Mets in seven games. They had a good talk about Ray Fosse, the As All-Star catcher from the 1970s who currently does As radio broadcasts. Among other points, they noted that Fosse, Johnny Bench, Bob Boone, Carlton Fisk, and Thurman Munson were all born within nine months of each other in 1947.

Robert D Schrock as a young undergrad at Wabash College, circa 1905. He won an award for oratory at Wabash and later graduated with honors from Cornell Medical School before working as a doctor in the A.E.F.

While listening I was also doing a bit more digging on Dr. Robert D, Schrock and his World War I experience. He did his basic training at Governors Island in the middle of a heat wave in July-August 1917. Dr. Schrock was one of more than two dozen physicians at New York Hospital who in 1916 volunteered to go to Europe. By this time they fully understood what they would be getting into; it was the year of Verdun and the Somme. And it was not just the doctors; a full contingent of nurses, administrators, and orderlies all agreed to put on a uniform and go. It would have been more, but someone had to stay back and run New York Hospital itself. That is why the board of directors devised a plan deciding who would stay and who would go. Remember, the United States was not in the war yet. Nor was it a given that America would join the fight at all. Had they gone right away it would have been all about saving and repairing the lives of the various nations in the war at the time. Dr. Schrock and the rest of Base Hospital No. 9 arrived in St. Nazaire in late August 1917 and after a bit more training went to various facilities to attended the maimed. Schrock himself spent nearly three weeks in the front lines at the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Ypres), which was already in full swing when the New York Hospital Contingent arrived in France and lasted in November. He and two other doctors were thrown into saving the British, Indians, Canadians, and ANZACS.

Schrock arrived in France as a first lieutenant and returned to the United States as a major aboard the Wilhelmina in April 1919. One gets the impression that his Great War experience was a big influence in his life. An Ancestry search reveals that he traveled at least twice to Europe in the ensuing decades. At least twice. I found conclusively that he returned to France in 1928, presumably for the tenth anniversary of the Great War. He came home from that trip aboard the Ile de France, one of the great and less heralded luxury liners. In summer 1937 he and wife Elizabeth traveled to Germany, returning on the New York in early August. One can imagine the sobering realization that a second world war was imminent hanging over that trip. It’s an incredible story. I know a few people who have been preserving and organizing their relatives’ Great War letters. If someone in your family fought in the war and you have their photographs and letters, I encourage you to document it in some way. The Great War centennial is an opportune time to do it. Each story is another tile in the mosaic.

(image/top, New York Public Library; bottom, The Wabash)

Dr. Robert D. Schrock’s Great War

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Base Hospital No. 9, Governors Island, WW1

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I have something special to share today. Earlier this month long time reader Robert D. Schrock emailed and shared a letter that his father had written from New York City in 1917, with the idea that I might post it here on the blog. Dr. Schrock is a retired orthopedic surgeon and for some time has been editing the Great War papers of his father, namesake, and fellow surgeon, Dr. Robert D. Schrock, Sr. He sent the two photographs you see here as well, which he found as print negatives in his father’s papers and had developed.

Robert D. Schrock was born in Delaware, Ohio in 1884, and when he was a young boy his family moved to Decatur, Indiana. Schrock graduated from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, after which he went on to study at Cornell University Medical School. There he met and befriended a fellow Midwesterner, Iowan Chester Hill Waters. The two graduated with honors from Cornell Medical School in 1912. Doctors Schrock and Waters next worked at Manhattan’s New York Hospital as young physicians. Soon they both returned to the Midwest, practicing medicine in Omaha, Nebraska. Waters married and had a child.

Shipping out: Dr. Robert D. Schrock took this picture as a first lieutenant and surgeon in the American Expeditionary Forces in 1917. He and the medical staff of Base Hospital No. 9 did their basic training at Governors Island.

Though the United States did not join the Great War until April 1917, many American people and organizations had contributed to the Allied cause in the time since the war began in summer 1914. As early as June 1916 the Red Cross organized base hospital units of 500 beds at various institutions, including at New York Hospital. It was called Base Hospital No. 9. Dr. Robert D. Schrock was involved in that project during his time at the facility, and when the United States entered the war Schrock put on a uniform and became a medical officer in the A.E.F. Competition among the medical staff to go to France was intense, and the board selected a mix of senior and younger physicians to go overseas. Before shipping out to France there was that small matter of basic training. That’s where the email I received from Bob Schrock a few weeks back comes in. It was on 21 July 1917—one hundred years ago today—that Robert D. Schrock reported for his basic training at Governors Island in New York Harbor. Below is an extraordinary letter that he wrote that morning to his friend Chester (Chet) Waters back in Nebraska on that very day.

At sea – U boats ahead: Another image taken by Dr. Robert D. Schrock, this one aboard the U.S.C.T. Finland sometime between August 7 – 20, 1917 en route to St. Nazaire, France.

The Society of the New York Hospital
6 to 16 W. 16th and 7 223 W. 18th Street, New York, New York
July 21, 1917

Dear Chet,

We go to Governors Island into camp at 8:30 AM. Just time for a note and breakfast. The gang looks good. You know practically everyone. Will send you details as I can. It is good, I tell you, to be around here again. Only, would exchange these trappings for white clothes for comfort. Walked up Third Avenue yesterday, saluting all the Lord and Taylor delivery boys. Probably shall pass up many Majors, etc without proper recognition. Our ignorance is amusing.

It looks very much like we are to get away the coming week. Somewhere in France.

Everyone asks of you and the family. Tell your young man it was not carelessness that kept me from seeing him at the station. He may not like it. Shall send him a later message.

Chet, don’t get panicky and jump into service. You have a greater duty right there. Thanks for the big help of Tuesday

Ever Bob.

R. D. Schrock
MC.USR.
Base Hospital #9
New York City

(images courtesy Robert D. Schrock)

Artists of the Sanitary Fair

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Museums, New York City

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I have been off this week and am trying to write 5000 word on my book project. I came across this photograph taken at the 1864 Metropolitan Sanitary Fair and thought I would share it before I sit down for my first wave of writing. I popped a jazz cd into the record player. I find I usually can’t write when music with vocals is playing. Today is Wednesday and thus getaway day for Major League Baseball; so there will be baseball on the radio here in a few hours.

The photograph above comes from a small work, what amounts to a scrapbook, that Matthew Brady published in small quantity in 1864 called Recollections of the Art Exhibition, Metropolitan Fair, New York. Many of the leading artists of the day may various various contributions to the April 1864 Metropolitan Fair, either putting works up for sale or on display where patrons who paid the fundraising entrance fee could see them. It was at the 1864 New York sanitary fair that New Yorkers saw Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” What I am trying to do in my book make New York City a more central aspect of the American Civil War.

Unfortunately the artists listed here are not annotated. The one we do know for certain is Brady seated in the center. It was his studio’s photographs after the battle of Antietam, which were shown in his New York studio shortly after the engagement, that brought the war “home” to most New Yorkers, who lined up to see them in fall 1862.

(image/Library of Congress)

 

 

 

Sunday morning coffee

16 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by in Governors Island, New York City

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The New York City draft riots raged from July 13-17, 1863.

Good morning, all. I am having my coffee before setting out for Governors Island in a little bit. We are interviewing a lady who served in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps and after that a gentleman who was a high-level officer here during the Coast Guard years. It is always special to speak to people who lived and worked on the island. The lives people have led can be nothing short of extraordinary, even if they are unaware of it in the moment.

I was listening to the radio the other day on what turned out to be the 40th anniversary (July 13) of the 1977 New York City blackout. There was intense rioting and looting then and over the next several days. When I moved here and began working for the public library in the late 1990s, patrons in my branch told me that in the week after the riots, which at this time were only twenty years past, people were gathering in a sort of ersatz bazaar/flea market in the local park around the corner from the branch to exchange their ill-gotten gains. It would be three pairs of sneakers for a color television set, a gold chain for a transistor radio, or what have you. In my book about Civil War New York I am trying to put the July 1863 draft riots into perspective, explaining that such unrest has a long history in the city. There were several riots in the decades before the Civil War. There were major riots here and elsewhere in summer 1919 just after the First World War, and in New York City again in 1943 during the Second.

I was in Green-Wood Cemetery recently when I came across this new headstone for Edward Jardine, a Union officer from Brooklyn who was wounded in the Draft Riots. Jardine died 124 ago today, on 16 July 1893.

The 6th New York Division to move South

13 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in 27th (New York) Division

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Spartanburg, South Carolina, circa 1909: On 13 July 1917 the War Department announced that the 6th New York State Militia Division would train in this mill town in the Carolina Piedmont region.

Secretary of War Newton Baker announced the fate of several state militias one hundred years ago today, releasing details of where certain state troops would be sent for training before being mustered into the National Army. One of the organizations Secretary Baker mentioned was the 6th New York Militia. The 6th, Baker said, would soon leave for Spartanburg, South Carolina. I have heard it argued that the Wilson Administration intentionally placed Great War training camps in Southern states as a way to appeal to his base and to co-opt any hesitant, isolationist Democrats within his party. That same day Baker also announced that state divisions would train in Texas (3 divisions), California (2 divisions), Alabama (2 divisions), Georgia (2 divisions), North Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Mississippi, and one additional division in the Palmetto State.

The theory about intentionality is entirely conjecture on my part, but based on these states this educated guess seems credible. Remember that this is just two generations removed from the American Civil War; any Southerners who fought in France would be the grandsons of Confederate veterans  Yes, some of them had fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, but this was to be something on another scale entirely. I am going to do a dive on this in the coming weeks. If anyone knows any authors/titles about the planning and placement of these training facilities, please let me know.

(image/Library of Congress)

 

Oh, sleep, that hast fled away

13 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in New York City, Union League Club

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They fight, but we must weep
For our boys that are gone and dead,
God send the sleep we cannot sleep
To every soldier s bed!

I was at the New York Public Library yesterday reading through issues of The Spirit of the Fair, the newspaper published during the Metropolitan Fair of April 1864. The fair was held by the Union League Club and U.S. Sanitary Commission, effectively the same thing, in April 1864 as a fundraiser for The Sanitary. The lines above are an excerpt from a poem published in the newspaper. Here are a few photos I took along the way.

They are available electronically but there is nothing like holding the real thing in your hands. The issues have held up quite well and show no signs of yellowing. I’m sure they used rag paper and not newspaper pulp.

The provenance of how these types of materials reach libraries and archives is a fascinating story in and of itself. The Reverend Henry Bellows donated the Sanitary Commission papers to NYPL around 1890. As we can see here, this item arrived independent of Bellows’s gift.

I love the stamp. That said, there were no “best practices” in the late nineteenth century to tell conservators not to mark up historical items. The ad for the Complete Works of Washington Irving is a nice touch. These books and other items were on sale at the fair, with the proceeds going to soldiers’ relief.

 

 

 

A third Roosevelt heads off to war

09 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by in Kermit Roosevelt

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Kermit Roosevelt accepted an offer from the British Army one hundred years ago today to fight in the British Army in Mesopotamia. He was in Plattsburg, New York when he received the news and left immediately for Oyster Bay to make arrangements to sail for London later that very week. Kermit was the third Roosevelt son to head off for the Great War, Ted and Archie having left for France the previous month. Roosevelt would serve in Iraq under the command of British lieutenant general Sir Frederick Stanley Maude. It is interesting that most of the Roosevelt spouses ended up going to Europe during the war a well. Ted’s wife Anna spent a good portion of the war working for the Red Cross in London and Paris, for instance. Kermit’s better half Belle, with their son, sailed with him to London, where they would stay with her father Joseph Edward Willard, who happened to be Woodrow Wilson’s ambassador to Spain. Ambassador Willard had fought in the Spanish-American War under Fitzhugh Lee. He was a Willard of the “Willard Hotel” family. Joseph E. Willard was a wealthy Virginian and it is interesting that Kermit married into a Southern Democratic family.

The family arrived in London on July 26. There was a curious minor imbroglio involving the Associated Press. On the morning of June 28 the Committee on Public Information asked the AP not to run a longer story about the ship carrying Kermit and a large contingent of American troops. The article July 28 article had left out which troops specifically were on the transport and where it had docked, mentioning only the it was “A European Port.” A series of articles over the previous few weeks however did mention that Kermit was sailing for London. The article had already passed with the CPI censors in Europe and been approved for publication, and so the AP went with it. The CPI presumably became concerned because the story mentioned Kermit Roosevelt and careful followers could piece together where the ship had landed had they followed the newspaper trail over the course of July. That is my guess. Kermit Roosevelt was appointed an honorary captain in the BEF that September.

(image/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)