The United States entered the war in 1917. Stanford lost 77 students, faculty and alumni, and later built Memorial Auditorium to honor them. The following are excerpts from diaries and letters written by a pilot, a balloonist observer and an engineer—a sample of the Stanford men who served in the "war to end all wars."
With just 56 dissenting votes, the Congress of the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. The Great War had then been raging for almost three years, yet the U.S. Army still numbered scarcely 100,000 men. By the time of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, 4 million men had joined or been drafted into the Army. Half of them went to France with General John J. Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force; more than 100,000 never returned. Fifty-three thousand died in battle, and 63,000 succumbed to accidents and disease—making World War I the last American war in which the toll of noncombat deaths exceeded the number of those killed in action.
The vast American conscript Army of 1917-1918 mirrored the predominantly rural, surprisingly backward and astonishingly polyglot society from which it was drawn. As a failed farmer from Grandview, Mo., Captain Harry S. Truman exemplified the background of a majority of World War I servicemen—though at 5 feet 8 inches in height, Truman stood a full inch taller than the average doughboy. As a high school graduate, Truman also had twice as many years of education as the typical white recruit, and three times more than most black soldiers, who were mustered into segregated units and assigned almost exclusively to noncombat duty. Nearly one draftee in five was foreign-born, reflecting the historic flood of immigrants over the preceding three decades. Censors had to scan letters penned in 49 different languages. A wartime joke had it that when one officer called his unit’s roll, not a single man recognized the pronunciation of his name; but when the officer sneezed, 10 men stepped forward.
To a degree that would baffle later generations, young Americans in 1917 went off to war filled with enthusiasm and uncritical patriotic fervor. William Langer, later a distinguished historian at Harvard, recalled with some wonderment his generation’s "eagerness to get to France and above all to see the front."
One would think that, after almost four years of war, after the most detailed and realistic accounts of murderous fighting on the Somme and around Verdun, to say nothing of the day-to-day agony of trench warfare, it would have been all but impossible to get anyone to serve without duress. . . . [But] we men, most of us young, were simply fascinated by the prospect of adventure and heroism. Most of us, I think, had the feeling that life, if we survived, would run in the familiar, routine channel. Here was our one great chance for excitement and risk. We could not afford to pass it up.
John Dos Passos, who later wrote a sensitive novel about his war experience, Three Soldiers, recollected that "we had spent our boyhood in the afterglow of the peaceful 19th century. . . . What was war like? We wanted to see with our own eyes. We flocked into the volunteer services. I respected the conscientious objectors, and occasionally felt I should take that course myself, but hell, I wanted to see the show."
Pershing held the bulk of his forces in reserve until enough doughboys had arrived to be constituted as a separate American Army and assigned their own sector of the front near the old fortress town of Verdun. There, the Americans fought two large-scale actions in the waning days of the war: a four-day push to eliminate the St. Mihiel salient southeast of Verdun, and the 47-day agony of the Meuse-Argonne battle, a bloody, largely inconsequential campaign that engaged some 1.2 million U.S. troops and inflicted 120,000 American casualties. It was still grinding on when the Armistice was declared on November 11.
Bogart Rogers, whose letters from the front to his sweetheart back home at Stanford are excerpted here, was not alone in his offering of thanks that the war had made it possible for him to have "seen a small bit of the world and taken a chance." That sentiment was faithful to the feelings of countless World War I veterans. But neither was he alone in his conclusion that war was not worth the sacrifice, that "it’s all wrong." Americans in their millions, veterans and civilians alike, came to the same conclusion in the war’s aftermath. They repudiated the Treaty of Versailles that their own president, Woodrow Wilson, had done so much to shape, said no to membership in the League of Nations, Wilson’s brainchild, and retreated ever more deeply into their historic isolationism even as former Lance-Corporal Adolf Hitler brewed a vastly more destructive war to avenge Germany’s defeat.
These letters speak to us in the voices of a vanished era. It had its peculiar follies as well as its distinctive glories, and it spawned its own particular kind of war—unfortunately not the last one in which lonely young men would be required to swallow their fear and face battle as best they could.
David M. Kennedy, ’63, is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford and the author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, due out in April 1999.
Over There
Bogart Rogers was a 19-year-old Stanford sophomore when he decided to join the Royal Flying Corps. After training in Texas and Canada, Bogart sailed to England on the USS Tunisian in January 1918. He was assigned to the 32nd Squadron, one of six fighter squadrons in the newly formed Royal Air Force’s 9th (HQ) Brigade on the western front in France. He wrote home almost daily to his sweetheart, Isabelle Young, who was living in the Kappa Alpha Theta House at Stanford.
April 28, 1918
Dearest Isabelle,
So this is Paris!!! Oo la la!! But it doesn’t happen to be Paris at all but only a godforsaken depot some little distance from the front——and a more forlorn looking spot can’t be imagined. We finally arrived here about 2 a.m. after a ride on a French train that would make some much vaunted Peninsula trains—the 10:35 or the 4:40 for instance—look like lightning expresses.
As we were leaving, a Red Cross train pulled in direct from the front and filled with nice fresh cases. More rude awakenings.
I’m going to try to send you my ring, dear, and possibly it can be done from here. In England they would neither register it nor insure it for America.
Things are looking up, and there ought to be plenty to write about from now, henceforth and forevermore. Amen.
Considerable love from
Bo
May 21, 1918
My Dear,
To put it candidly it’s as hot as hell, providing that well-known summer resort is all it’s supposed to be. I was up just before lunch fooling around, no coat, no helmet, no collar, sleeves rolled up, and it was hotter in the air than on the ground. Of course it gets a bit chilly up along the ceiling, but around 2,000 or 3,000 it’s unbearable.
Concerning the strange story of the missing man, there isn’t much that can be said within the censor’s limits. He was on a patrol the other morning and suddenly went down. The poor devil fell short in no-man’s-land by a matter of a few feet, the Huns firing everything they could get their hands on him. When his machine crashed in a shell hole, he jumped out and dived into an old trench. Apparently it had been a communication trench. One end of it led to the German line, the other to ours. Of course this chap turned the wrong way and ran smack into the Hun outposts. Just a few more yards in his glide or a turn to the left in the trench and he wouldn’t be a German prisoner now.
As a consequence I’ve a new roommate, a rather nice sort of a boy who unfortunately looks as if he’d lost the last friend. Honestly, Izzy, when I wake up in the morning and look over at him I can hardly keep from weeping. A more melancholy looking person can’t exist.
That’s all for now, lover. I think of you lots and lots and wish we might be together.
Considerable love, Izzy dear.
Bo
June 13, 1918
Dear Lover,
We were coaxed out at 3 a.m., dressed in the dark, stumbled over to the mess for an egg and some coffee, somnambulated up to the aerodrome, waited for a ground mist to clear and left the ground on an offensive patrol at 5. When you start out on a show that early, you’re generally about half awake, but two hours of fresh air and a lively scrap knock all the slumber out of you. And when you get back you’re unable to get to sleep again. Ain’t it awful?
We had a lovely affair this morning and got one Hun in flames—not me, but another chap, Captain Claydon. I managed to shoot one off of this fellow’s tail and chased another down to 2,000 feet, which I later regretted as climbing back toward the line the Huns on the ground put up a barrage of nice incendiary and explosive bullets. It wouldn’t be so bad if you couldn’t see them, but they look like streams of fire and put the wind up your old friend Rogers.
Probably all this war talk gets tiresome, but in these busy days it’s our chief supply of news.
Considerable love,
Bo
June 27, 1918
Dearest Isabelle,
Last night’s patrol was a great affair. We were to bring back some bombers and by the time we had escorted them across the line it was 9 o’clock and getting dark. We headed for home in a hurry, and it was pretty hard to see where we were going. Then we started firing lights, both to keep the flight together and to attract attention on the aerodrome. They sent up a lot of lights in return and everyone got back safely. One chap crashed as it was quite dark, and I came too close to scuttling my kit for comfort, hit with an awful bump and bounced all over the place.
Yesterday for the first time I carried a nice red and yellow streamer on my tail as deputy leader of our flight.
At present I’ve completed the daily exercise, a couple of sets of tennis, helped give a little white puppy his first bath, and am sprawled out on my tummy in the sun writing this. It’s a glorious day, dear, and I can’t help but think how nice it would be roaming the hills somewhere with you, or driving, or sitting in a hammock, or just being with you anywhere.
We really lead a very prosaic life out here. About the only things worth writing about are unimportant. But there’s one thing that is important—at least to me. I love you.
’Bye, dear,
Bo
July 1, 1918
Dearest Izzy,
For the last four days, we’ve done the same show in the same place at the same time with the same bunch of bombers. This morning we had a climbing contest with six Huns, but they were above at the start and also at the finish. They went down on our bombers over the objective, but lost one machine for their pains.
Yesterday, we ran into four Huns, two triplanes and two Fokker biplanes, and had a little tiff but nothing important happened.
In about half an hour, we are going up on our own—a roving commission with nobody to worry about. Our instructions are to get Huns. I’m going with six fellows on top as deputy leader, and we’ll probably spend most of our time about 20,000 where it’s a bit cool and the old kite very sloppy on the controls. This morning we were around 18,000 and the old bus wobbled and slipped all over the place.
Must put on the sweater and the flying boots and away for a crash into the atmosphere.
Much, much love to Isabelle,
Bo
November 4, 1918
Dearest,
I’ve never felt less like writing than I have the last few days.
Our present quarters are in an old French château that has been used as a Hun hospital since 1914. The place was quite clean when we came in and pretty well intact, only a couple of stray shell holes in one wing.
Upstairs there is plenty of room for everyone. Three of us have a corner room, intact except for one window and a cluster of bullet holes in the wall. The window has been covered with oiled silk and a picture hung over the holes, so you’d never be able to tell there was a war.
Out by the stables we found a greenhouse full of strawberry vines and a neat little garden full of lettuce, beets and carrots thoughtfully planted by the Boche. I tell yuh! Fine spot.We’ve been having a rotten time of it, another awful scrap a couple of days ago. We were lucky to get back at all. A couple didn’t. I managed to get another Hun. I’m pretty sure he was done for, but then five more chased me all over the shop. Too many! Today we did two shows, both of them very dull and cold.
In about two more days, if things go right, you may drop the Lieutenant and try Captain for a change. Poor old Callender got into a bad hole a few days ago and died of wounds in a Canadian field hospital. I’ve been put in for his flight and should know definitely in a day or so.
This isn’t much of a letter, but the next ones will be better. I’ve had too much enthusiasm knocked out of me the last few days to be entertaining.
Lots and lots of love from
Bo
November 10, 1918
Dearest,
Tonight is a night of much excitement—arguments, predictions, prognostications, auguries, prophecies, and bets, all as to whether the Hun will say yes or no tomorrow. If he doesn’t say "yes" I’ll be disappointed, and so will a few million others.
The official captaincy seems to have become lost in the shuffle, but ought to be through in a few days. I’m posted as temporarily in command of the flight.
There aren’t a bad lot of pilots in it. Tancock, whom I’ve spoken of before, is my deputy leader. There’s one wild Canadian boy who is full out for trouble all the time, one wise old reliable Canadian who is always on the job and absolutely dependable, two South Africans who have just joined the squadron, lean, ugly looking men who are both regular persons, good pilots, and very keen about the work, and a Scotchman who is the least good of the lot. Only two have had much experience, but they’ll all learn quickly enough.
Much, much love,
Bo
November 11, 1918
Well Dear!
It’s all over. I surely thank God it is and that I’m here to see the finish. There have been more times than one that I’ve thought it would be otherwise.
Last night there were vague rumors that the Hun had quit, but operation orders came through as usual. This morning we were standing by for a show, everyone sitting around the breakfast table sort of waiting for news. It finally came through from the wing: "Hostilities are to cease at 11 o’clock. No war flying is to be done after the receipt of this message."
Izzy dear, I guess there have been a lot of things that I’ve never told you about. It’s all been pretty awful. When I think of all the fellows who aren’t going home, I wonder what right I’ve had to live. I know that surely there has been divine protection. And the way some of them had to go. Poor old Callender, as square and decent a man as ever lived, going only a week or so ago and Bill Leaf, who was killed only last week. Even yesterday one of the bombers we were escorting went down through a direct hit by Archie, almost a million to one chance.
People can prate until the judgment day about war being the salvation of nations, the one thing that can keep them from decay, but I know that it will never be worth the sacrifice. It’s all wrong.
Thank goodness I’ve seen a small bit of the world and taken a chance. At least I’ll have a clear conscience. And, of course, in the days to come it will be nice when someone asks, "Papa, what did you do in the Great War?" But that’s taking a great deal for granted isn’t it, lover.
Remember, dear child, that from now on nothing counts but getting back to you. Thank heaven the chance that I might not is gone.
Yours completely,
Bo
Rogers arrived in San Francisco on May 22, 1919, borrowed a car, and drove to Palo Alto, where he was reunited with Isabelle on the steps of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority house. They married and had two children. After a career as a producer and scriptwriter in Hollywood, Rogers died in 1966.
Birge Clark, ’14, had just graduated with a master’s degree in architecture from Columbia when he was recruited into the Army Signal Corps. He was posted to France and stationed behind the front lines, where he went up in tethered balloons to observe enemy movements. He collected his letters into manuscript form in the late 1920s.
August 29, 1918
Our balloon had its first determined attack today. I had taken up Lieutenant Dold and spent the first half hour in the air showing him the sector, explaining the use of the photographs, and how to allow for perspectives in comparing what he saw with the maps.
The balloon jerked and started down, and simultaneously a phone call came up that there were five hostile aircraft in the west; so we were being pulled down. We could see the German planes way off and coming our way.
We were down to 500 meters when I noticed that one plane had drawn considerably ahead of the others and apparently had burst into flames. I was very astonished at this as there were no anti-aircraft bursts near, and told Dold, "Why, that plane has caught on fire." Then I realized that the plane was shooting at us through the propeller with its two machine guns and was driving straight at us.
I told Dold to jump. He was somewhat excited and upset by this and began to expostulate, and I started to climb back into the basket to push him off when he dropped off over the side. Almost immediately I saw his parachute open and slid off myself.
I dropped into the woods, falling down through a tree, which caught the parachute so that my feet just touched the ground and then the limbs bent back and left me suspended about three or four feet in the air. I at once cut the rope with the knife tied to the harness and dropped.
Later, we hauled the balloon down and found there were eight holes through it and came to the conclusion that the aviator was very green and had not wanted to attack us very badly.
October 20, 1918
I have never felt so much a sense of complete fatalism. I know that, if I was killed today, Carroll would take over the company. If he was killed or even the whole company was killed, there would be new men and new officers to take on the 3rd Balloon Company. We just all seem to be part of a big machine and, if we are killed ourselves, it doesn’t seem to matter much. In fact, except for the folks feeling bad at home, I seem to have no particular fear or dread of it at all. In the past, I never have been particularly certain or clear about immortality, but right now, for some reason, I seem to be absolutely certain of it and rather look forward to knowing the answer to lots of things such as what is beyond space and time, which I feel I will know when I am dead.
Of course, I don’t really expect to get killed. No one does. In talking it over, we can hardly believe, though, that we will ever be back living the sort of life that we expected to lead after college. But all of us are mighty glad that we lived now at this time, that we were able to be here taking part in this drive, and that we are not back home. All this whether we come out of it or not.
Clark survived the war and returned to practice architecture in Palo Alto, "the City that Birge built." He died in 1989.
Otis Emmons Briggs, ’17, MA ’20, joined the Army in 1917 and was sent to France in 1918, where he did reconnaissance with the 23rd Engineering Company. He compiled his letters after the war.
August 25, 1918
We have received orders to move forward to the front. Our train is ready, medical supplies, survey instruments, clothing, tools, field kitchens, barracks, bags. Truckload after truckload is piled into the little cars.
We are all in one train. The officers are in first class coaches; the sergeants ride in second class, while we travel third class. The Negro ride in box cars.
Our meals consist of corned beef, tomatoes, white bread and a little jam. In addition we have brought with us cheese and half a dozen cans of jam. So we fare right well.
September 1, 1918
I find myself selected with 22 others to visit regions adjacent to the front lines for reconnaissance work. We have no instruments but paper and pencil.
From the hilltops one commands a perfect view of the German positions for miles. Thick forests dot the plain and shell-ruined villages beautify the interstices between the woods. The fields remain uncultivated. The conventional trees line the straight roads. Observation balloons swing at their leases. Airplanes hum overhead. The Boche planes pursued by clusters of feathery puffs of shrapnel. The allied planes fly thus unattended.
There are four of us sitting at ease on a naked brow of the hill just in front of a line of old trenches but near the forest limits to the rear.
An observation balloon descends. The roar of the anti-aircraft guns back of us proclaim the presence of an enemy plane.
We sit quiet and watch the peaceful scene below. If we are in a dangerous position we are not aware of it.
Boom! A sullen gun speaks from the forest edges below. An instant of silence, then slowly growing in intensity—swish—swish— swish— swish— . (About four to the second.)
A shell passes over our heads and plunges into the forest with a crash some 400 yards to the rear.
What are they shooting at? I stand up to see.
Boom! Swish— swish— swish— swish— swish— swish— Whang! The crash is deafening. Dirt, smoke and leaves fill the air scarcely 100 feet behind. The shell passes so low that I’ll swear I ducked my head.
Boom!
But we do not wait. "I’m going to get out of here!" I cry and grabbing my pack, rifle, canteen and raincoat, I dive for the dugout.
I get there before the dust from the shot had subsided. All is quiet. Peace reigns. We sneak forth and follow the deserted trenches toward the rear, content no longer to stand about in view. I don't like that swish! It sounds mean.
October 3, 1918
Yesterday, five German planes came flying over at a great height. After passing our line of observation balloons, the squadron turned and headed as if for home. Then the leader directed his machine in a beautiful dive straight for the nearest balloon. The observers of that and all adjacent balloons immediately jumped and came sailing down in their parachutes but hardly quick enough as the Hun finished his dive with a sputter of bullets and then turned gracefully upward and homeward. That balloon dropped earthward in a streak of flame.
Last evening, two German machines ventured too far over and were surprised by a squadron of Allied planes, which seemed to drop out of the clouds.
The sputter of machine guns was terrific. Whirling and spinning, ducking and diving they continued the fight directly overhead and very low. We could see the red tongues of flames from the machine guns directed at each other until the German machines were forced down to the south of us. Today, we saw two German machines shot out of the air by the anti-aircraft guns.
November 3, 1918
German airplanes came over dropping propaganda in the shape of circulars stating, in English, Chancellor Max’s request for peace and also President Wilson’s answer. It has at the bottom in bold type the words, "why are we still fighting?"
Well! A flock of our planes dropped in among the German "peace doves"—and such a fight. They were almost out of sight straight above us and we could only now and then distinguish a plane as the reflected sunlight glinted from its wing.
Last night, I lay on my bed thinking of several things when very faintly I heard a great chorus singing. I sat up and listened. The night was pitch dark and a light rain fell softly on the roof. Had I imagined singing? There was no group near us who could sing like that. There was no building where such a chorus could congregate. Surely they would not stand in the rain to sing. I slipped out of bed and went outside. All was quiet. The light rain had dwindled to a noiseless drizzle. I stood still and waited. Suddenly music of prodigious volume broke the silence.
I stood spellbound while the tune continued through all its variations. Each part was carried to perfection. I tried to catch the words but failed—because I could not understand German.
You cannot conceive of the effect of such a chorus. All men, hundreds in number, trudging along the wet and slimy road in the dead of night, singing. Prisoners of war in the enemy’s hand and singing. A few short hours before, they were fighting to defend the Fatherland. Now they were captives marching to the rear, guarded by a single American in front and one behind. Can they be called guards? Rather guides, I should say.
November 11, 1918
We have been destroying some more or less picturesque shell-torn French buildings, removing the debris in trucks and applying said debris to more or less impassable portions of the road.
Early this morning, an M.P. said that his captain told him that a major passing in the night had said that his battalion headquarters had received a wireless intimating that an armistice had been signed with Germany.
A French car comes tearing down the road profusely decorated with French and American flags.
An American major roars past in his car and cries "Fini la guerre," which is to be interpreted "the war is over." We smile and repeat, "Fini la guerre," to all passers.
But the guns boom refutingly.
The zero hour, 11 o’clock of the 11th day of the 11th month approaches. "Fini la guerre."
A truck driver going forward over an exposed section with ammunition looks at his watch. It is 10:30. Shells are breaking before and behind him. It would be ill luck indeed to be picked off at the 11th hour. But he dare not stop.
The American barrage increases to a frenzy. The Boche replies in kind.
10:45 and still those shells fall promiscuously about. This is too much, so our truck driver stops, jumps, watch in hand, until 10:59 when firing ceases as if it were cut off by a knife.
The silence is so terrible that he hastens to start his engine to relieve his ears. Airplanes leave the air. Gas masks are dropped. For the first time in four years, the whole great battle line is at rest.
Briggs survived the war and returned to the Bay Area. The March 1921 issue of the Stanford Illustrated Review reported, "Otis Emmons Briggs passed away suddenly in San Jose. He had only been married a little over a month and was about to return to his position as Geological Engineer for the Northwest Magnesite Company."
Bogart Rogers letters excerpted from A Yankee Ace in the RAF: The World War I Letters of Captain Bogart Rogers, edited by John H. Morow Jr. and Earl Rogers, University Press of Kansas, 1996. Used by permission of the publisher. Birge Clark and Otis Emmons Briggs letters published with the permission of the Hoover Institution.
