Category Archives: Governors Island

Colonel John C. Fremont Tillson’s March 1918

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

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John C. Fremont Tillson’s 1878 West Point cadet record.

As March 1918 was winding down the various armies were preparing for the spring fighting season. The Germans had begun Operation Michael on March 21, the first round in their Spring Offensive. The United States was still getting the American Expeditionary Forces up to speed. A significant aspect of that took place on Governors Island, where Colonel J.C.F. Tillson of the 22nd Regiment was in charge of rounding up shirkers from the Selective Service process. Some estimates in early 1918 put the number of shirkers from the draft as high as 250,000. Army officials crunched the numbers and were more sanguine, putting the number at around 50,000. This was still a sizable but not insurmountable number.

Colonel Tillson spent the winter and early spring of 1918 at Governors Island expediting the cases of Selective Service shirkers.

John C. Fremont Tillson graduated in the West Point Class of 1878 and spent the next forty years serving in all of the usual places one might expect an American military officer to serve in these decades: out West against the Indians, in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, the Philippines, China, and now the Department of the East. Governors Island seemed to be a holding station for slackers across the Greater Northeast. Presumably the men were held in the jail within Castle Williams while awaiting their fate. Colonel Tillson worked diligently to make sure that shirkers were given every opportunity they could to avoid true punishment. He did this by starting from the premise that most men were not draft dodgers, per se, but individuals who had not reported for training due to some misunderstanding. Often literally.

Colonel Tillson noted to reporters and to audiences at public events that many of the men whose cases he saw did not speak English. It’s not surprising. Tillson’s adult life coincided with the massive influx of immigrants to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Seeing Ellis Island across the harbor from Fort Jay every day would have only emphasized that. Tillson often had to use translators to interview the men. Very few of these saw hard time. Most had their cases straightened out and headed off to Camp Upton on Long Island for training. Tillson remained in the Army through the end of the Great War and retired in 1920. For a decade he ran the New York State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Bath, New York. He died eight days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His wife died five days later. They are buried at Arlington Cemetery.

(bottom image/New York Times)

 

Rededicating the Merle Hay monument

19 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Governors Island, Great War centennial, Monuments and Statuary, National Park Service

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Merle Hay monument rededication, Governors Island: 17 September 2017

One of the most poignant moments at Camp Doughboy this past weekend was the rededication of the Merle Hay monument on Sunday morning. The color guard you see here are active service personnel currently serving in the First Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment. They had come from Fort Riley in Kansas and are the same men who had been in Paris this past July for the ceremonies there. The men in uniform behind them are living historians who had set up camp on the island for the weekend. I snapped the image of the new tablet a few minutes after the unveiling. I thought I would re-up the video we produced a few summers ago about Private Merle B. Hay. It is so good to see that the Hay tablet is back where it belongs.

Private Merle Hay tablet, Governors Island National Monument

 

Antietam’s 155th

17 Sunday Sep 2017

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Over the course of the day today at Governors Island, amidst the rededication of the Merle Hay monument, the author talks, and the rest of the programs, many of us noted that today is the 155th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. It is hard to believe the sesquicentennial of that event was five years ago. While Americans were preparing for the Great War in summer 1917 they stopped to note the 55th Sharpsburg anniversary. Brooklyn held its own ceremony in Prospect Park on Saturday 15 September. As the headline notes above, there were still plenty of Grand Army Men around at this time. It is worth noting that what we now call Grand Army Plaza was still Prospect Park Plaza; the name change did not come until 1926. Some of the most prominent veterans at the 1917 turnout were Red Legged Devils from Brooklyn’s 14th Infantry Regiment. The juxtaposition of the two headlines, taken from the 16 September issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, reveal how the country was looking backward and forward at the same time.

(image/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

Sunday morning coffee

17 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Governors Island, Great War centennial, Heritage tourism

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Camp Doughboy, Governors Island: September 16, 2017

It was a great day on Governors Island yesterday at Camp Doughboy. I’m having my coffee and listening to Bill Evans before I prepare to head out for today’s events. If you are in the New York City area, come on out for day two. There is much to see, including author talks, monument rededications, and the campground with living historians manning their quarters and speaking about their subject expertize. I visited a good many of them yesterday before and after my lightning talk and found all of the historians to be well-informed and eager to engage. Whether they have restored a period ambulance, built a doughboy’s kit through painstaking research and perseverance, or recount the story of a nurse, to a person they have created a thread that allows us to connect to the people who lived through the Great War. Seeing it al in one place make it that much more extraordinary.

It is the last weekend of summer 2017. Go get some of that sunshine.

(image/World War I Centennial Commission)

Sunday morning coffee

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Governors Island, Great War centennial

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Good morning, all. I am sorry about the lack of posts this week. It has been a busy time at work with the new academic year underway. I wanted to remind everyone that Camp Doughboy is taking place next weekend, September 16-17, at Governors Island.  There is a lot to see and do. Author Kevin Fitzpatrick has been the great driving force behind the event and has done incredible work bringing it all together. You can check out the entire schedule here. Note that on Saturday at 1:30 a guy with my initials will be speaking about the Preparedness Movement. If you are in the Greater New York City area, try to come out for what should be an exciting two days with lots to see and do.

The Base Hospital No. 9 contingent sails

07 Monday Aug 2017

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The Finland took the doctors, nurses, and medical staff to France.

I’m sure many remember my posts of a few weeks back about about Dr. Robert D. Schrock and the physicians and staff of Base Hospital No. 9. The men drilled for several weeks time at Governors Island through a brutal heatwave in July-August 1917. As far as basic training goes, they got off easily; it could have been much longer. There was just no time to waste in getting this medical contingent to Europe however. They were that needed and time was of the essence. Plus military authorities figured that hospital staff could train aboard the transport ship, honing the skills they would need in the hospitals tending the wounded.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the doctors, nurses and corpsmen setting off. The doctors left Governors Island at about 4:00 am on 7 August 1917. Their ferry crossed the harbor and picked up the nurses at Ellis Island before cruising into the North (Hudson) River. There, the Finland was docked at Pier 11. The New York and New Jersey docks were filled with spies, and authorities did all they could to keep the departure as secret as possible. There is no mention of it in either the New York Times or the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It was an uneventful day but represented over a year’s worth of work on the part of New York Hospital, getting permission, raising the funds, and choosing who would go to Europe. The Finland sailed in the early afternoon, made quarantine, and was off in the Atlantic to face any potential u-boats on the way to France.

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

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.

“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)