Calvert County Honors Their WWI Fallen

The Calvert County WWI Memorial Marker is located at the Calvert County Courthouse in Prince Frederick.  It was sculpted by Edward Berge (1876-1924), is 6.25’ feet high and is mounted on an 8’ base.  The inscription on front reads: The soldiers and sailors from Calvert County who lost their lives in the World War.  “1920” is engraved in the stone base (marking the date the memorial was put in place).  Inscription on back reads:  This memorial is erected by the citizens of Calvert County to perpetuate the memory of their sons and daughters who made the supreme sacrifice and to those who served their country in the great World War: 1917-1918.

Three hundred and fifteen men from Calvert County enlisted; 18 died during the war and are named on the Memorial.  These soldiers are listed below:

George Armiger

USN, declared “officially lost” June 14, 1918. I was a member of the crew of the USS Cyclops, a collier or coal ship, which departed Norfolk Naval Station on a snowy day in January 1918 headed to the South Atlantic to refuel US and allied naval vessels. We arrived safely in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and then departed February 16 northbound with a load of manganese ore. Our skipper decided to make an unscheduled stop in Barbados concerned that we may have been overloaded. We left Barbados on March 4 enroute to Baltimore but we never made it. On June 1, 1918, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the Cyclops and her crew were officially lost after an extensive search failed to locate the vessel. To this day, the vessel has never been found, presumed to have sunk in the Bermuda Triangle. The German Navy declared that it had not sunk the Cyclops.

 

Solomon Barnes

USA, Private First Class. While listed on the memorial as killed during the war, papers in the Calvert County Historical Society appear to indicate that I survived the war, received an honorable discharge and later died of drowning in August 1919.

William T. Dorsey

USA. I was from Poplars, Calvert County, and served with Company C of the 313th Infantry, a unit comprised of draftees from Maryland and organized in August 1917 at Camp Meade, MD. I served in France from July 18, 1918 until my death from wounds on October 2, 1918, in the Avocourt Sector of the Meuse-Argonne, France.

Arick L. Lore

USA. I was born in 1891 in Solomons, Maryland, and served as a sergeant with Company I of the 60th Infantry, a unit formed two months after the US entered the war. My unit arrived overseas on April 16, 1918 and fought in France at St. Mihiel, Alsace and Lorraine, and the Meuse-Argonne where I was killed in action by a sniper on October 14, 1918. American Legion “Arick L. Lore” Post 274 in Lusby is named in my honor.

William N. Marquess

USA. I was from Sunderland, MD, and also served with Company C of the 313th Infantry. We arrived in France on July 18, 1918 and I served until my death on September 14, 1918 of “grippe” while in the hospital just prior to the beginning of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, the final offensive of WWI that involved the entire Western Front.

Thomas Osborne

USA. I was from Lower Marlboro and served as a Private First Class with the 115th Infantry of the 29th Division also known as the “Blue and Gray Division” made up partly of Maryland National Guard soldiers. The 115th was the “only complete unit of the Great War entirely composed of Maryland volunteers” according to one of the men in the outfit. I died on October 15, 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne Campaign and am buried in the St. Mihiel Cemetery in France.

Reuben Pitcher

USA. I was from Broomes Island and served as a Private First Class with Company G of the 115th Infantry. We arrived in France on June 15, 1918 as part of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and I served until my death on October 11, 1918 from wounds received during the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. The war would end just one month later when the Germans signed the Armistice with the Allied Powers.

Murray A. Sherbert

USA. I was from Huntingtown and I served with the 313th Infantry Regiment. We were known as “Baltimore’s Own” due to the large number of men in the unit from that city. We were part of the 79th Division and arrived in France in July 1918 where we joined the active front near Verdun. In the period of intense combat between September 12 and November 11 the 313th suffered 1200 soldiers wounded (78 mortally) and 223 killed outright in combat. We earned the nickname “Cross of Lorraine” for our defense of France. Private Henry Gunther, the last American soldier to be killed in the war, was a member of the 313th Infantry. My body was shipped home from France in 1921.

Irving Raymond Stallings

USA. I was from Owings and served with Company C of the 313th Infantry as a private. I was not married. The Calvert County Historical Society has a paper on file dated June 18, 1921 indicating that my remains were requested to be returned from France to the United States for the purpose of being buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The names of my mother, father, two brothers and a sister appear on the document. Clara Mae has indicated that the soldier was unrelated.

Harry Able Sunderland

USA. I was a private with Company C of the 313th Infantry. We arrived in France in July 1918 and I served until my death near Montfaucon in the Meuse-Argonne between September 29 and October 2, 1918. I was initially listed as missing in action but a subsequent eyewitness statement from a fellow soldier stated “I saw him when he was killed, hit by a trench mortar shell and both legs were blown off. He was cut almost in two. He died at once… We had to leave him where he fell” as we continued the advance on the enemy.

Charles W. Tongue

USA. I was from Costers, Calvert County. I was a private in the Army Training Corps at the time of my death at Walter Reed Army Hospital. I died of influenza and pneumonia.

Alonza Brown

USA. I was from Olivet, Calvert County and I served with the 371st Infantry, an African-American regiment that served under French command. The 371st consisted of draftees mostly from South Carolina. After training at Camp Jackson, SC, we arrived on the Western Front in April 1918. After four years of warfare the French Army was desperate for new troops and were grateful for the 371st’s willingness to fight. The fear that racial tension might erupt between black and white American soldiers also led to the decision to place them under French command. I was killed in action on September 30, 1918 in the Meuse-Argonne. My unit received the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre from the French Government and the Distinguished Service Medal from the US Army.

James Butler

USA. I was from Island Creek, Calvert County and served with Company A of the 808th Pioneer Infantry, an African-Amercan engineering outfit performing construction and demolition duties. I died of lobar pneumonia on September 17, 1918 and was buried in Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, France.

Wallis Curtis

USA. I was born in Poplar Hill, MD, in Prince George’s County, but later moved to Calvert County. I was an African-American and served with Company C of the 333rd Labor Battalion of the 20th Engineers. We were a forestry unit that provided the lumber mills and products needed for critical construction projects including trenches, wood for fuel, and caskets. A history of the 20th Engineers states “Preparations for the St. Miheil and Argonne Drives kept the regiment at it with even greater intensity, ties and planks and stakes being needed in immense quantities and in a tremendous hurry. Leaves were hardly considered during the tense months of 1918. More pressure and still more was the order of the days. Men got out after supper and hewed ties on their own time; they worked all nightrepairing railroads and mills; they loaded cars Sundays; and they hit the ball ten hours a day in the driving rain and in the scorching sun, with very often the additional handicap of hunger.” I died of typhoid fever and pneumonia on December 10, 1918.

John Gross

USA. I was a farm laborer from Chaneyville and I served with Company D of the 811th Pioneer Infantry, an African-American unit. I died of lobar pneumonia on October 4, 1918 at Camp Dix, New Jersey.

Thornton Gorman

USA. I was from Plum Point – Wilson, Calvert County. I was assigned to Company 4 of the Training Battalion, 154 Depot Brigade at Camp Meade, MD, when I died of influenza on October 11, 1918. The 154th received, classified, trained, and assigned about 103,000 incoming trainees during World War I. I was an African-American.

Joseph S. Jones

USA. I was from Parran, Calvert County and I served with Company I of the 372nd Infantry, an African-American unit that was assigned upon its arrival in France in April 1918 to the French Army’s 157th “Red Hand” Infantry. My unit took part in the Meuse-Argonne, Lorraine and Alsace campaigns. The 372nd was “credited with taking nearly 600 prisoners and securing large quantities of engineering supplies and artillery ammunition” during the Meuse-Argonne battle according to an article published by the National Guard Bureau. For its actions in the Meuse-Argonne the unit was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm. I was killed in action on September 27, 1918 in the Aire Sector.

Benjamin Kent

USA. I was a farmer from Huntingtown. I served as a private and died of an unspecified disease.

Compiled by Fred Bumgarner, Post 206

Sources: Calvert County Historical Society, Wikipedia, Maryland Military Historical Society