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Uniform Grouping of Waldo Peirce


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Croix de Guerre
Graham Carey (on left) and Waldo Peirce (on right) of S.S.U.3; Alsace winter of 1915.

 

Arthur Graham Carey served with Section 3 for 2 years and seven months from 1914 till 1917 when he then enlisted in the U.S. Army. Hailing from Cambridge, Massachusetts he attended Harvard recieving his A.B. degree in the Class of 1914. Promoted to the "sous-chef" he was the assistant commander of Section 3 when it served with the French Army of the Orient in Macedonia in 1917. He assumed this position after its original sous-chef Henry Suckley was killed in a German air raid. Carey enlisted in the U.S. Army, was commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the Field Artillery and served on the HQ staff of the 2nd Division. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery in 1915.

 

More info on Carey; more photos to follow;

 

Carey, Arthur Graham, Harvard A.B. '14; a '18-. Ambulance driver, American Field Service, Section 3, December 16, 1914 to August 13, 1917; with 66th and 129th Divisions, French Army, on Verdun and Alsace fronts and with French 57th Division, Armee d'Orient, on Macedonian front.

 

Commissioned 2d lieutenant Field Artillery August 27, 1917 in France; detailed to Artillery School, Valdahon, November 3; attached to Headquarters Company, 15th Field Artillery, 2d Division, January 1, 1918 as instructor; assigned to Headquarters 2d Field Artillery Brigade, 2d Division, February 16 and appointed assistant operations officer; returned to United States August 20, 1918; promoted 1st lieutenant September 9; assigned to Headquarters 12th Field Artillery Brigade; discharged January 27, 1919. Engagements: Champagne-Marne defensive, Marne-Aisne offensive.

 

Awarded Croix de Guerre with the following citations:

 

"A affirmi son courage et son devouement en allant spontanernent recueillir sous les obus les blessis d'un corps de troupe voisin de son poste d'attache et en assurani leur evacuation immediate " (general order of the Division).

-YolorUaire amiricain de la Section anitaire amirkaine No. S, dtja cM a Ivnbt de la 66' Division en aoili 1915, a wiswi en Unites occasions son exemple roaarauaifa de zele el de denouement aux Ik&is, en particulier dans les journeys danjmutts de V Hartmannsweilerkopf en dittwbre 1915 et jatwier 1916, A I'Armee {Orient, d Monastir de dicembre 1916 & mart 1917."

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Tom-

Absolutely FANTASTIC find! I am in awe of this collection. It is truly worthy of the finest museums. The level of detail you put in your description without a doubt shows your passion for this little known & lesser studied topic of WWI. Have there been many books done on the subject? If not, you have a solid foundation on which to launch another (?) book project.

 

-Chuck

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Tom-

Absolutely FANTASTIC find! I am in awe of this collection. It is truly worthy of the finest museums. The level of detail you put in your description without a doubt shows your passion for this little known & lesser studied topic of WWI. Have there been many books done on the subject? If not, you have a solid foundation on which to launch another (?) book project.

 

-Chuck

 

Thanks for much for the kind words Chuck, it means alot. It has been a privledge to be alble to share some of the many artifacts and photos of Waldo's group. As far as another book? I have to finish the one I'm working on first. ;) (Which I hope maybe sometime next year once the artwork and maps are completed. :thumbsup: )

 

Here are a few more images from the Peirce group.

 

A close-up of Arthur G. Carey; note he is wearing the silver insignia of a Sous-Chef (assistant cheif) in the American Field Service. My guess is this was taken in 1917 in Paris after Carey returned from serving in Macedonia with Section Three. Notice the look in his eyes. He had seen service with the AFS since December 1914. He had served in Alsace, Verdun and on the Solanika Fronts. At the time this photo was taken he was only 25 years old.

He joined the U.S. Army soon after and saw combat as an artillery officer.

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Dudley Hale, Waldo Peirce and Walter Rainsford - October/November 1915 on the Hartsmanns.

 

Hale later enlisted in the US Army Air Service and served as a pilot in the 88th Observation Squadron. Rainsford became a Captain in the U.S. Infantry.

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The funeral of Richard Hall, first American Field Service volunteer to be killed in World War One. December, 1915 Moosch, valley of Saint-Amarin in Alsace, France.

 

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ind...c=32738&hl=

 

"All this time, as in all the past months, Richard Nelville Hall drove his car up the winding, shell-swept artery of the mountain at war — past crazed mules, broken-down artillery carts, swearing drivers, stricken horses, wounded stragglers still able to hobble — past long convoys of Boche prisoners, silent, descending in twos, guarded by a handful of men — past all the personnel of war, great and small (for there is but one road, one road on which to travel, one road for the enemy to shell), past abris, bomb-proofs, subterranean huts, to arrive at the paste de secours, where silent men moved mysteriously in the mist under the great trees, where the cars were loaded with an ever-ready supply of still more quiet figures (though some made sounds), mere bundles in blankets. Hall saw to it that those quiet bundles were carefully and rapidly installed — right side up, for instance — for it is dark and the brancardiers are dulled, deadened by the dead they carry; then rolled down into the valley below, where little towns bear stolidly their daily burden of shells wantonly thrown from somewhere in Bocheland over the mountain to anywhere in France

 

— the bleeding bodies in the car a mere corpuscle in the full crimson stream, the ever-rolling tide from the trenches to the hospitals of the blood of life and the blood of death. Once there, his wounded unloaded, Dick Hall filled his gasoline tank and rolled again on his way. Two of his comrades had been wounded the day before, but Dick Hall never faltered. He slept where and when he could, in his car, at the poste, on the floor of our temporary kitchen at Moosch — dry blankets — wet blankets

— blankets of mud — blankets of blood; contagion was pedantry — microbes a myth.

 

At midnight Christmas Eve, 1915, he left the valley to get his load of wounded for the last time. Alone, ahead of him two hours of lonely driving up the mountain. Perhaps he was thinking of other Christmas Eves, perhaps of his distant home, and of those who were thinking of him. . . . The next American to pass, found him by the roadside halfway up the mountain. His face was calm and his hands still in position to grasp the wheel. A shell had struck his car and killed him instantly, painlessly. A chance shell in a thousand had struck him at his post, in the morning of his youth.

 

Up on the mountain fog was hanging over Hartmanns Christmas morning, as if Heaven wished certain things obscured. The trees were sodden with dripping rain. Weather, sight, sound, and smell did their all to sicken mankind, when news was brought to us that Dick Hall had fallen on the Field of Honor. No man said, "Merry Christmas," that day. No man could have mouthed it. With the fog forever closing in, with the mountain shaken by a double bombardment as never before, we sat all day in the little log hut by the stove, thinking first of Dick Hall, then of Louis Hall, his brother, down in the valley.

 

Dick Hall, we who knew you, worked with you, played with you, ate with you, slept with you, we who took pleasure in your company, in your modesty, in your gentle manners, in your devotion and in your youth — we still pass that spot, and we salute. Our breath comes quicker, our eyes grow dimmer, we grip the wheel a little tighter — we pass — better and stronger men."

 

Waldo Peirce

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Details of the "Old England" tailors label. Despite the name Old England was a tailor in Paris.

 

The cover of Waldo's war-time scrapbook and the cover of one of the photo albums (there are three)

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Outstanding group with some very fine research to back it up...an inspiration for what a collector can achieve! Thank you for sharing,

John

 

Thanks for the compliment John, I sincerely appreciate it.

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I think I've gone through these posts 3-4 times now, I see something new every time. Very, very impressive group about a group of volunteers you don't hear a lot about. Thanks so much for sharing it with us :thumbsup:

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I think I've gone through these posts 3-4 times now, I see something new every time. Very, very impressive group about a group of volunteers you don't hear a lot about. Thanks so much for sharing it with us :thumbsup:

 

 

Thanks for the kind words, it means a lot! :thumbsup:

 

Here is another photo from one of Waldo's albums; It shows Loverling Hill (the commander of SSU 3) and Waldo Peirce with a group of local french school children sometime in 1915.

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A closer look at the German souvenir belt buckles Waldo brought back. There are some uncommon examples of Bavarian, Prussian and Wurttemberg buckles. The grey cannister was the container for Waldo's French issue gas mask, complete with his name scratched onto the side. Not to get off topic but this canister is a little larger than others I've seen. I think it might have come with an early version of the M2 gas mask but I'm not sure.

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Arthur Graham Carey in 1916 with some cartoons doen by Waldo. I'm not sure who or what this is supposed to represent. Cool none-the-less I think.

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A period print of the portrait Waldo painted of the former director of the American Field Service, A.P. Andrew. The original now hangs at the American Field Service headquarters in New York City, NY.

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A closer look at the German souvenir belt buckles Waldo brought back. There are some uncommon examples of Bavarian, Prussian and Wurttemberg buckles. The grey cannister was the container for Waldo's French issue gas mask, complete with his name scratched onto the side. Not to get off topic but this canister is a little larger than others I've seen. I think it might have come with an early version of the M2 gas mask but I'm not sure.

post-3356-1288273100.jpg

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Croix de Guerre
A closer look at the German souvenir belt buckles Waldo brought back. There are some uncommon examples of Bavarian, Prussian and Wurttemberg buckles. The grey cannister was the container for Waldo's French issue gas mask, complete with his name scratched onto the side. Not to get off topic but this canister is a little larger than others I've seen. I think it might have come with an early version of the M2 gas mask but I'm not sure.

 

Not to get off topic but; Anybody recognize that yellow thing? It has a pin back.

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Waldo and his brother Hayford Peirce. Hayford enlisted in March of 1918 and was commissioned a 1st Lt. He served at G.H.Q. with the Second Division as an expert in aerial photography analysis. By October 1918 he was attached to the 2nd Army intelligence section promoted to Captain and in charge of captured German maps and enemy intell. In January 1919, Hayford was sent to Berlin as an expert on the German Army and by March he was attached to the Peace Conference in Paris.

post-3356-1288273256.jpg

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Waldo and his brother Hayford Peirce. Hayford enlisted in March of 1918 and was commisioned a 1st Lt. He served at G.H.Q. with the Second Division as an expert in airal photography analysis. By Ocotber 1918 he was attached to the 2nd Army intelligence section promoted to Captain and in charge of captured German maps and enemy intell. In January 1919, Hayford was sent to Berlin as an expert on the German Army and by March he was attached to the Peace Conference in Paris.

 

 

Waldo, his wife Alzira, Hayford's wife and Hayford Peirce sometime in the 1920's.

Photo courtesy; Hayford Peirce - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_Peirce

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The other signs; The top one says "zum Lowenpfad" which roughly translates as "To the Lion's Path",,possibly the name of a trench?

The second one looks to be a direction sign showing the way to an aid station, helpful I'm sure in the maze of trenches.

The third was a puzzle at first. It reads "Clorkalk" which after some research I discovered that clorkalk was a chloride of lime paste used in the early 20th century to sterilize bandages and medical instruments. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calciumhypochlorit http://www.wasser-wissen.de/abwasserlexikon/c/chlorkalk.htm

Pretty cool huh? ;)

post-3356-1288274129.jpg

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The other signs; The top one says "zum Lowenpfad" which roughly translates as "To the Lion's Path",,possibly the name of a trench?

The second one looks to be a direction sign showing the way to an aid station, helpful I'm sure in the maze of trenches.

The third was a puzzle at first. It reads "Clorkalk" which after some research I discovered that clorkalk was a chloride of lime paste used in the early 20th century to sterilize bandages and medical instruments. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calciumhypochlorit http://www.wasser-wissen.de/abwasserlexikon/c/chlorkalk.htm

Pretty cool huh? ;)

post-3356-1288274210.jpg

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Not to get off topic but; Anybody recognize that yellow thing? It has a pin back.

 

Looks like a trapezoid mount for a Kaiser Wilhelm I Centenary Medal.

 

Nice group, by the way! Congratulations.

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Looks like a trapezoid mount for a Kaiser Wilhelm I Centenary Medal.

 

Nice group, by the way! Congratulations.

 

Thanks for the info Jeff!

 

"Nice group, by the way! Congratulations." Thanks man! :thumbsup:

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