In the Trenches With Daddy Con

Daddy Con served in the US Army in WWI.  I’m not sure exactly what motivated him to join, but he was able to gain US citizenship by doing so.  He was in Company C of the 321st Regiment of the 81st Division.  To get a good idea of what his experience was like, I recommend reading Fix Bayonets by John William Thomason, Jr., which he wrote just after the War.  Thomason’s book is about the Marines, but the Marines and the Army had very similar experiences and assignments in the “Great War.”

Some of the soldiers in Company C were from Massachusetts and some called it the Massachusetts Company.  Although there were men from all over the US in these all of its units, the bulk of both the 321st Regiment and the 81st Division were made up of men from North Carolina.

When the Division was put together in the Spring of 1918 they trained at Camp Jackson, S.C.  There is a stream nearby called Wildcat Creek. During their training they created “Wildcat” shoulder patches so they could identify each other quickly in combat. When they went to France in August 1918 they called themselves the “Wildcat” Division.  With a few short breaks they were in combat from that time until the war ended on November 11, 1918.



81st Division Shoulder Patch

The Division participated in the Meuse-Argonne & Alsace-Lorraine campaigns.  A short book about Daddy Con’s Regiment – The History of the 321st Infantry: with a Brief Historical Sketch of the 81st Division, was written by Clarence Walton Johnson just after the War.  Daddy Con’s name is on page 167.  This book is still in print and available for purchase.

Company C's most intense day of combat was November 11, 1918.  The Armistice wasn't assured and the Army's attacks went forward as planned.  Just before dawn, the infantry of Company C prepared to go "over the top." Knowing nothing about the armistice, they climbed out of the trenches and attacked the Germans at 6:00 A.M. The advance had scarcely begun when the Americans were met with heavy machine gun and artillery fire.

“We were lucky that morning. . . . ” many soldiers of the 81st Division recalled. “They would have killed us all if it had not been foggy.” Under intense fire, they attempted to run forward a few times. But every time they started, the Germans “cut weeds down around us” with machine gun fire.

The men of Company C were having a difficult time, “We were taking machine gun fire and we were crawling on the ground. The shells were bursting overhead and the machine gun bullets were hitting all around.”

The soldiers of the 81st Division endured five long hours of combat. Then, all at once, everything stopped. It was exactly 11:00 A.M. no one knew what to do. Some remained on the ground until they saw officers walk out in front of them. One officer hollered, "It’s all over, the war is over, it’s all over and you can go home now!" They started getting up pretty fast after it got quiet, and some of the boys were hugging each other.

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Map of 81st Division travels
after landing at Liverpool

Daddy Con told several stories about his time in the trenches.

There was a Sergeant who made it obvious that he had a great dislike for Daddy Con and a few other soldiers in their squad (Daddy Con suspected that this dislike might have been triggered by their penchant for filling their canteens with wine instead of water.).  One day the Sergeant selected a group of men to go on a "night raid" -- a patrol to reconnoiter enemy positions and to capture a prisoner (for interrogation) if possible.  Everyone knew that these were dangerous and that it was possible to run into a great deal of trouble. 

Here is how one WWI combat veteran described these raids: "[A] raiding party with blackened faces and armed with wire-cutters, grenades and bayonets would crawl across no-man's-land to its assigned target...  once the raiders reached the target they would charge [the enemy] and immediately bring back as many prisoners as survived."

While they were on the patrol Daddy Con realized that all the soldiers sent on this assignment were men that the Sergeant had expressed his contempt for.

As it turned out, the patrol was uneventful and no prisoners were taken.  Daddy Con and another soldier reported in to the Company HQ afterwards to give their report.  While they were reporting to the Company Commander, the Sergeant who had sent them walked it.  Daddy Con said his face showed obvious surprise to see them. Daddy Con believed that the Sergeant had expected/hoped that some of them would not come back.

81st Division Infantryman

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During an artillery shelling Daddy Con and another soldier were huddling together in one of the trenches.  The shelling was noisy and frightening, but they’d been under fire before and felt pretty safe as, unless there was a direct hit, the trenches offered pretty good protection.  Some of the shells the German fired were “airbursts.”  They exploded while they were still in a the air, a set distance above the ground, sending warhead fragments (shrapnel) down on the target, spreading out much like shotgun pellets (only much bigger and traveling faster).

Moments after one of these “airburst” explosions, the rifle (an Enfield M1917) Daddy Con’s companion was holding across his lap broke into a thousand pieces.  A piece of shrapnel had hit the rifle, destroying it.  Neither of them were injured, but they both knew that if the fragment had followed a slightly different path, they could have been seriously wounded or killed.

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One day during WWII Daddy Con showed Mom a picture in the local paper of a French town recently liberated by Allied troops.  Daddy Con told Mom, “I was on that street during WWI.”  He pointed out a restaurant in the picture.

During a time when his Company had been pulled out of the line, some had been given leave in this town.  Daddy Con wasn’t given leave – he was put on Guard Duty.

John with M1917 .30'06 Rifle like
the one Daddy Con carried.

“My job,” he told Mom, “was to parade (march back and forth) in front of that restaurant and not let any soldier get in there to get a drink.  I didn’t feel too good about that as I thought, after what we’d been through, that if a man wanted to wet his whistle, he ought to be allowed to.  But I didn’t want to get sent to the stockade for disobeying orders either.

“But I knew that they couldn’t punish me if someone snuck in when I wasn’t looking.  So I’d march down the street.  When I got to the end of it, I’d stand there, with my back to the restaurant, for about 30 seconds. Then I’d turn and march back to the other end of the street, and again, I’d stand with my back to the restaurant for a time before turning around.  I never saw a single soldier go through that door, but every man who wanted a drink managed to get one.”

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This website has some good information about the 81st Division.

SS Manchuria - the ship that brought Daddy Con back home from France.  Also the ship that brought Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) back to England from Shangri-La in the movie Lost Horizon.

After the war Daddy Con returned to the Boston area.  He mostly worked as a “fireman” tending the steam engines that powered the equipment in the textile mills in the area.  He was working for Maverick Mills when the company decided to relocate to South Carolina (this was probably in the 1950’s) to be closer to the cotton growing areas and to take advantage of cheaper labor.  The company was happy with his work and wanted to employ him in a similar position in the new location.   Daddy Con decided not to go.

His decision was at least partly based on his experience in South Carolina when he was training there during WWI.  He didn’t like the way the people there treated Blacks and Catholics.

Dad, Shooting, the Drill Instructor & the Broken Glasses!

My Dad joined the US Navy in early 1948 and got out in 1950 a few months after I was born in March.

Basic Training Graduation

Most people probably never think about it, but, as the Navy is part of the Armed Forces, during Basic Training (Boot Camp) Navy recruits are required to spend time on the small arms (rifles & pistols) firing range and met a specific level of competence.  I suspect that it's not as rigorous as in the Army or Marines, but there is still some requirement.

Now I spent a lot of time shooting with Dad, but it was mostly shotguns, with which he was very good.  In fact, I don’t remember him ever missing when shooting at a rabbit, pheasant or squirrel.

He didn’t spend as much time shooting rifles, but the few times I was with him he was more than adequate at hitting tin cans and other plinking objects.

Hard to aim through a broken lens.

Dad did his Navy Basic Training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago.  During the course of this training he broke one of his eyeglass lenses.  It was the right lens, the one he needed to look through to aim the rifle.  Because of this he was having some difficulty shooting with adequate accuracy - he couldn't “Qualify.”  He was worried, because he didn’t expect to get his new lens before the training ended.

James with the very rifle Grandpa
bought Dad in 1945.

He did have one advantage though.  The rifle the Navy used for this training/qualifying was a Mossberg US44 - a bolt-action, magazine-fed .22 target rifle.  The reason this was an advantage for Dad was because a few years earlier, while Dad was in High School, his Father had gotten him a Mossberg M44 bolt-action, magazine-fed .22 target rifle – the civilian model of the rifle.  They are duplicates except for some identifying stampings.

Dad was determined to qualify, even though he couldn’t see the targets very well.  He spent extra time at the range.  During one of these sessions he had the bright idea of flipping his glasses upside down, so that he could view the target though an unbroken lens.

While he was experimenting with this idea, the Petty Officer who was his Drill Instructor came along and noticed what he was doing.

Probably one of these two

“Locker,” he bellowed, “what in the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Trying to complete my rifle qualification, Sir!”

John wearing upside-down
glasses like Dad did.

The DI shook his head in exasperation.  “Carry on,” he said as he stalked away.

A few minutes later Dad got the hang of the upside-down glasses and met the qualifying requirements.

Signatures of fellow Graduates

My Collection

Here’s my modest collection of military hardware

Remington 700 - 355,xxx, similar to an M24 sniper rifle. My sons and I call it “Ranger Chuck” after Chuck Mawhinney who used a similar rifle during 16 months as a Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam (‘68 and ‘69) to kill 103 Vietcong soldiers. An additional 216 kills were listed only as “probables” because it was too risky to take time to search the bodies. After the war, he returned home to Oregon and became a Ranger with the US Forest Service.

M1 Garand - H&R 4,736,xxx. My sons and I call it “Uncle Johnny” after my uncle who carried one while serving as an infantryman in the 45th Division in Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany from ‘42 to ‘45.

M1917 - Eddystone 457,xxx. My sons and I call it “Daddy Con” after my grandfather who carried one while serving as an 81st Division infantryman in the trenches in ‘17 and ‘18.

M1 Carbine - Inland 4,967,xxx. My sons and I call it “Uncle Bob” after my uncle who carried one like it while serving as an Army combat engineer in Korea in ‘52 and ‘53.

M1911A1 - My sons and I call it “Cousin Jack” after our cousin Roland “Jack” Hale who carried one like it. He was fatally wounded fighting the Nazis in February of ‘45 while serving with the 30th Infantry.

M44 Mossberg - Civilian model of an armed forces .22 training rifle. My sons and I call it “Grandad” since it was given to my Father by his Father in ‘44. My Father used a similar rifle while taking basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Base in ’47.  It is the first firearm I ever shot.

M1903 - Springfield 969,xxx. My sons and I call it “Cousin Bud” after our cousin, Vernon “Bud” Hale. While serving with the 24th Division, he fired one like it at Japanese aircraft attacking Schofield Barracks on December 7th, 1941.

Taiwan Can Stay Free and Independent Without America’s Help

                There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth some years ago when the Bush administration refused to sell Taiwan some modern, high-tech weapons the Taiwanese wanted.  But there is a course of action Taiwan can follow which doesn’t require anyone’s help, could be quickly implemented, would cost only a fraction of the price of an Aegis cruiser and would assure their continued existence and freedom.

                All Taiwan needs to do is announce that, since they are a free, self-governing country which trusts its citizens, the government will support its citizens in their right to self-defense.

                Taiwan has a population of about 22 million, which means that there are about 7 million adult males.  Taiwan has the industrial capacity to quickly equip each and every one of these men with modern infantry equipment, uniforms, handguns, rifles, hand grenades and other anti-personnel weapons.  Groups of willing and interested men could be issued light machineguns, mortars, and shoulder-fired missiles for use against aircraft, tanks and ships.  (A quick cost estimate for this program is about $4.6 billion dollars.  Taiwan’s GDP was estimated at $290.5 billion in 1995, its 2000 defense budget was about $12.8 billion.)

                The Taiwanese are an industrious, competitive and committed people.  Most of its male citizens could very quickly be trained in weapons use, basic marksmanship and simple military tactics.  It would be a simple matter for the government of Taiwan to make shooting a national pastime by sponsoring shooting matches, providing generous prizes and official recognition of the winners.

                The Taiwanese would come in for a lot of political criticism if they adopted this program, but what’s the worse that could happen?  The UN will be mad?  The UN already pretends that Taiwan doesn’t exist.  “Highly civilized” countries, like most of Europe, will look down on them?  The Europeans won’t even fight to protect Europe, so why would anyone care what they think about another country’s national defense plans.

                Critics will argue that this “militia” method has never worked, but there are many successful examples.  The first, and best known to Americans, are the Revolutionary War battles of Concord and the “Road” back to Boston.  Militiamen, then called Minutemen, harassed and, if not for the opportune arrival of reinforcements, would have destroyed, an armed column of the British Army, the most powerful nation on earth at the time.

                It was arguably the “militia” model which won Israel its independence in 1948.  And remember that when some Japanese war planners discussed invading the United States, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (the chief planner of the Pearl Harbor attack) spoke warningly of “a rifle behind every blade of grass.”  A Soviet defector informed the CIA that the U.S.S.R. never had any plans for occupying the Continental U.S. because the idea of occupying an armed country was too daunting for the commissars..

                And also bear in mind the experiences of the French in North Vietnam, the Americans in South Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan.

                But the very best example of how this method could work for Taiwan is outlined by Stephen P. Halbrook in his book Switzerland And Its Armed Citizenry.  Halbrook explains:

                “Since the origins of the Swiss Confederation in 1291, it has been the duty of every male Swiss citizen to be armed and to serve in the militia.  Today, that arm is an ‘assault rifle,’ which is issued to every Swiss male and which must be kept in the home.”

                In the early 1940's, the Swiss were in a situation with many parallels to the one Taiwan faces today.  The Nazis controlled most of the European continent with the exception of this tiny country which Hitler had once called “a pimple boil on the face of Europe.”

                But before the war, Swiss President Philipp Etter spoke at the Swiss federal shooting festival (still the world’s largest shooting event), stressing that the purpose of their activity was something far more serious than sports.  His comments that day demonstrated the connection between national defense and the armed citizen.

                Within a days of Hitler’s attack on Poland, Switzerland had about half a million militiamen mobilized (out of a population of just over four million).  General Henri Cuisan, commander-in-chief of the Swiss militia, let the Nazis and his fellow countrymen know that the Swiss would fight by issuing Operations Order No. 2:

                “At the border, and between the border and army position, the border troops and advance guard are to persistently delay the advance of the enemy.  The garrisons at the border, and between the border and the works and positions making up the defensive front, are to continue resistance up to the last cartridge, even if they find themselves completely alone.”

                This astonishing order was the opposite of the policies of the other European countries, which either surrendered without a fight or surrendered after brief resistance.  Two examples: In April, 1940, Denmark’s king, after a meeting with the Nazis, surrendered, instructing his subjects and armed forces not to resist.  Norway resisted, but its armed forces were ineffective and unlike Switzerland, its populace was mostly unarmed.

                After these invasions, the Swiss issued “Directions concerning the conduct of the soldiers not under arms in event of attack.”  A warning to Germany and an encouragement to Swiss citizens, it was plastered on walls all over the country:

                “All soldiers and those with them are to attack with ruthlessness parachutists, airborne infantry and saboteurs.  Where no officers and noncommissioned officers are present, each soldier is to act under exertion of all powers of his own initiative.

                “Under no condition will any surrender be forthcoming, and any pretense of a surrender must be ignored:  If by radio, leaflets or other media any information is transmitted doubting the will of the Federal Council or of the Army High Command to resist an attacker, this information must be regarded as lies of enemy propaganda.  Our country will resist aggression with all means in its power and to the death.”

                What confidence the political and military leadership had in the ordinary Swiss, commanding the individual to act on his own initiative!  Possible, of course, only in a society where every man had his rifle at home.

                Switzerland, in other words, had the most democratic system of national defense in Europe.  The Nazis were made well aware that invasion meant fighting for every inch of ground (ground made as if God had designed it for defense).  It meant meeting resistance in every city, town and village, in every meadow, pasture, forest and mountainside, every one defended by men who grew up there and knew it like the backs of their hands.  There would be no hope of an easy, relatively bloodless victory.

                And assume that the invasion was ultimately successful.  Imagine the difficulty of militarily occupying a country with millions of military weapons in the hands of the populace.  Not the sort of situation conducive to a tyrant’s restful sleep.

                Within days of attacking France in 1940, Hitler’s Wehrmacht had vanquished the French army.  Shortly after the French rout, General Cuisan issued yet another remarkable command to the militia:

                “The latest war news demonstrates that the French soldiers could have stopped hostile advances.  Instead, defections allowed the enemy to penetrate through gaps, which quickly widened.  [If Switzerland is attacked] Everywhere, where the order is to hold, it is the duty of conscience of each fighter, even if he depends on himself alone, to fight at his assigned position.  The riflemen, if overtaken or surrounded, are to fight in their position until no more ammunition exists.  Then cold steel is next....  The machine gunners, the cannoneers of heavy weapons, the artillerymen, if in the bunker or on the field, are not to abandon or destroy their weapons, or allow the enemy to seize them.  The crews are to fight further like riflemen.  As long as a man has another cartridge or hand weapons to use, he is not to yield.”

                Cold steel.  Never surrender if any weapon is available.  An assault rifle in every home.  This was (and is) the Swiss tradition.  Would Europe’s history in the 1940's have been different if all the countries Hitler threatened had such a tradition?

                The Nazis never invaded Switzerland.

                Now imagine the ChiCom leaders looking across the Formosa Straits and contemplating facing 7 million angry Taiwanese, armed with 5 million assault rifles, 2 million handguns, 7 billion rounds of ammunition, 35 million hand grenades, a half million or so machineguns, mortars and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, another half million anti-tank rockets, a couple of hundred thousand anti-ship missiles.  That Strait is going to look mighty wide to them.

                (These comments about Taiwan could be equally applied to South Korea.)