YMCA Service in the Great War

Photo: "YMCA Secretary H. F. Butterfield with a volunteer detail of the 104th Infantry, 26th Division, loaded with cigarettes, chewing gum and tobacco for the boys of the 104th, who were chasing the retreating foe in France."

5,000 unpaid volunteers and 26,000 paid staff served in the YMCA during the First World War assisting the needs of the 4.8 million troops. They suffered 286 casualties and were awarded 319 citations and decorations including the French Legion d’Honneur, Order of the British Empire and the Distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished Service medal.

They operated 26 R&R leave centers, 1,500 canteens and 4,000 “huts” serving 2 million American servicemen. General Pershing asked for an additional 1,000 volunteers a month in October of 1918. They worked as secretaries, athletic directors, entertainers, truck drivers, librarians, hotel managers, preachers, often at their own expense.

The YMCA awarded 80,000 educational scholarships to veterans after the Great War, a forerunner of the GI Bill.

Working closely with the Danish Red Cross, they provided humanitarian services to more than 5 million prisoners of war on both sides.

YMCA Secretaries carried stretchers, provided food, chocolate, cigarettes, donuts and coffee to men in the trenches, a reminder that even at the front, of the love and care from the folks at home.

 

WW1 YWCA shoulder patch, Indiana War Memorial Collections

 

 

Harold Morton Kramer, , YMCA Secretary, Clinton County, Indiana

United War Work Campaign: Served two months in the YMCA work at Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville Kentucky, and then sailed for Bordeaux France, December 7, 1917 on the French liner Espagne. Arrived at Bordeaux , December 17, 1917. Preceded at once to Paris and served on duty there until January 2, 1918. Preceded to Colombey-les-Belles (Meurthe et Moselle), arriving January 4. Remain there until March 20 in charge and YMCA hut, frequently raided by German airmen. Transferred to Neufchateau hut work. In June, transferred to lecture department, and toured the fighting front in France and was sent to England and Scotland, where he served with the American sailors. Ordered home late in August, 1918, to serve in the United War Work campaign. Sailed from Liverpool, England, August 26, on American transport, Louisville. Arrived New York September 6, and shortly afterward took the platform for the United War Work campaign and served until the signing of the armistice. While serving along the fighting front was frequently under fire.

 

YMCA Secretaries unloading candles and tobacco for Regimental Warehouses supplying 3rd, 4th, 26th, 33rd, 79th, 88th and 91st Divisions, also 6th, 7th and 8th Hospital Units, 13th Engineers and several other units. Most of these men are gray haired and others could not pass the physical examination for military service, France.

 Arthur Forrest Curran, Sergeant Major, Grant County, Indiana

 “After the armistice was signed, I began rehearsing a glee club in Langres, France, which was trained by Mr. W. P. McCormick and later known as McCormick's Seventeen Bunkies. Shortly after January 1, 1919, we started on a tour for the YMCA which took us all over France, from Brest to Nice. This small company returned as a unit as a Casual Co. and did entertainment work on the ship coming home.”

Hazel Hulva, YMCA, Ambulance Driver, Marion County, Indiana

Enlisted in 1916 with Ambulance Drivers, YMCA, NY City but cleared through Indianapolis & Chicago Committee, September, 1918. Served at Dijon & Is-sur-Tille, France. “Just one big impression of sacrifice and giving at that time.”

James Garfield Murray, YMCA, Marion County, Indiana

I was one of the 57 American YMCA men who had a narrow escape from the ship “Oronso” on the morning of April 28, one mile off the Irish Coast. The ship sank ten minutes after being torpedoed by German submarine.

 

 

 

YMCA Workers bringing a moment of relaxation to the troops.

Photo Courtesy of Indiana War Memorial Archives

Carina Eaglesfield, YMCA, Marion County, Indiana

Served at Chaumont, Doulaincourt & Stenay, France and Luxembourg, Belgium. “Interesting, but war is futile and absolutely wasteful.”

Isabel Graf, YMCA Secretary, Miami County, Indiana

“My service was combined Business-Canteen. I was in the office “Y” headquarters, Base Section 1, St. Nazaire, during the day, and helped at various camps in the section evenings, Sunday, etc. Of course, the chief problem after the Armistice was keeping the boys occupied while they were waiting in the camps to get home – that and helping them to get home.”

 

 WW1 YMCA uniform

Indiana War Memorial Collection

 

 

 

Margaret Eaglesfield, Marion County, Indiana

"Signed up in April, 1918 in New York city with American Committee for Devastated France. I was a volunteer, paying my own way, but on arrival went to other organizations because the Germans had reconquered the territory. Served also with Farm Unit 1, Quartermaster corps, AEF, and American Red Cross, in Versailles, Ste. Menehould, Toul, Treves ( Army of Occupation). Discharged late April or May, 1919 in Paris. "A wonderful experience, but what a foolish, cruel, and wasteful performance any war is... Army red tape separated my sister and me, both called home because of Mother's illness, at the dock in Brest, and sent us back on separate boats, to arrive a day apart, because she was YMCA and I was Red Cross."

Maria Reynolds Ford, Marion County, Indiana

Served in Quartermaster Corps as a secretary at Tours, France. "A period of hard work, Sunday's too, until after the Armistice, then gradually more time to study France and the French people. We crossed before the armistice was signed, while the ships were being sunk. Our girls were constantly losing or leaving their life preservers, and were constantly being reprimanded for same."

Grace Leigh Scott, YMCA, Floyd County, Indiana

A graduate of DePauw University, a concert singer who made her debut as a soprano in Chicago:

“The year spent in France was filled with unforgettable experiences. Impressions were made which grew into convictions that ultimately took me out of the concert field and into the less familiar paths of ethical training and character education. War, close up, is a fearsome thing…. I sang in many hospitals, sometimes in amputation wards were every patient had lost an arm or leg, or both. No song in my heart - yet a poor maimed chap say ‘I guess it was worth it, if it puts an end to war.’

To see the agony of bodies swollen with mustard gas and finally see men being shipped back home mental and physical wrecks, was to realize the cruelty and barbaric methods of modern warfare. Who could ever forget Armistice Day in Paris, when the maimed were hauled through the streets on pieces of old artillery, waving flags of victory to the cheering multitudes? Victory? At what a price! A price that can never be paid. To ruthlessly destroy the finest and fittest stock of nations is a sin against posterity.

After a long tour of Army camps where we delighted in the many informal programs, singing with and for the men, all their favorites, my voice became tired, and I returned to Paris to rest it. Here I was invited to do some social work that brought me face-to-face with war problems of another sort, social evils which results that continue long after the war has become history. A soldier said, ‘We were better prepared to fight battles in the trenches then these battles behind the lines.’"

My war diary contains many warnings from those who recognize a widespread moral slump. In facing death, and dangers worse than death, men awakened to the need of building a stronger morale in our nation. It was at their suggestion, that I came back to put aside music and get a message from them, one born of the seriousness of war: ‘Save America by building into its youth the finest ideals of character and good citizenship. Teach by precept and example, the fine art of living.’”

Mary Sample, YMCA, Hancock County, Indiana

“Can a hundred conflicting feelings be compressed into a single line? Can the elation of THEN be reconciled to the disillusionment of AFTER and the half-satisfied, half-cynical acceptance of NOW? It was a tremendous experience! I had not tried anything very big before. For the first time in my life, I bumped against something entirely too big for me to lick. In my efforts to make at least a scratch on the surface, I often found myself doing more than I had ever thought possible, physically, and my Celtic capacity for enthusiasm and idealism knew no bounds. That it was always getting ‘nipped’ by carping criticism, cases of buck-passing, wire-pulling, little straws which prepared me for acceptance of the fact that this war had not ended war. But there was a gain: we had meant to end it; we had tried our utmost, according to the light we then saw.”

“Irene Castle was a passenger on our ship (September, 1918), great was the excitement among the 3000 doughboys. We were nearing the submarine zone, and the lookouts were constantly watching the horizon. Imagine our amusement when we glanced up one day to see their binoculars converging on the shapely ankles of the Irene as she reclined on a deck chair below, as the irresistible apex of an isosceles triangle, and to hell with the submarines!

“Several Japanese diplomats were passengers on our transport. We women excited their curiosity: they couldn't understand why we were being taken over. After patient explanations as to our mission, one shook his head comprehendingly. ‘Ah, American geisha girls….’”