Berger shares his father’s World War I service stories

Note: With the recent Nov. 11 Veterans Day ceremonies having their roots in Armistice Day marking the end of World War I, amateur historian John Berger of Sacramento, Calif. shared the story of how his family in Medford was impacted by the war.

“The problem with research, of course, is knowing when to stop. One must stop before one has finished ... otherwise one will never stop and never finish ... research is endlessly seductive but writing is hard work.” (Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, Pg. xii ) My dad, Henry Joseph Berger, “Heine,” was born on May 30, 1897. He was the 7th of the 10 children (1) born to Barbara (Koenig) Berger and August Joseph Berger who married in Medford in 1886.

Henry’s older brother, August Joseph Jr. (the first son) born January 2,1891 was six years older than Heine. They, “big brother/little brother,” stayed close all their lives.

Their mother Barbara was born in/near Zweissel, Germany on October 15, 1862. She died on May 15, 1951. She married August Joseph Berger Sr., who was born on October 11, 1862 near Herford, Germany which was then in Prussia. (He died in 1938.)

WW I began on July 28, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918; 9 million killed and millions wounded.

On April 6, 1917 the U.S. formally entered the war after years of President Wilson trying to keep the country out of it. He wanted the U.S. to remain neutral and be a broker for peace agreements. Six weeks later on May 18, 1917 Congress passed the Selective Service Act. Two months later, Uncle August (Gus), 3750725, was drafted into the Army on July 24, 1918, from Medford and sent to Camp Grant Illinois, near Rockford. (The Spanish flu took over 1,000 lives in the week of September 23 to October 1, 1918 at Camp Grant.) He was processed as Machine Gunner (M.G. (Machine Gun) Co. 312th INF) in the Black Hawk Division. He left the U.S. on September 9, 1918, arrived overseas on September 21, 1918 and was in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive from October 15 to November 5, 1918. The Armistice was signed November 11, 1918.

He was on the front lines and remembered celebrating the Christmas holidays with German soldiers, “We were German, spoke their language, sang their Christmas carols, had the same customs; they were guys just like us! We didn’t like the Frogs (French)!”

He returned from overseas on May 25, 1919 and was discharged from Camp Grant Illinois on June 3, 1919 and was paid in cash $236. 65 which “included a bonus of $60 under the Act of 1919.” (In some pay records he is listed as Albert J. Berger.)

He married Matilda Zimmerman, Aunt Tillie, less than a month later on July 2, 1919. He said he was on the front lines in France by the end of September, 1918, less than two months after being drafted. I asked him why he was drafted and couldn’t stay to work the farm. He said “All the counties had quotas. The Lutherans controlled the Taylor County Board and drafted the Catholics. Next county over, the Catholics drafted the Lutherans.”

“We got our training on the boat over. Most of us were farm boys, we knew how to shoot a gun!” he said.

In France, he was a runner for a captain who was a forward spotter.

In one instance, they were in a farm house, Gus was asleep, when the Germans began shelling their location.

The captain panicked and started screaming “Gus, Gus wake up! They’re bombing us!”

“What the hell do you want me to do about it?” Berger replied. Back to sleep he went.

He remembered marching through a French village and his unit found a case of brandy they carried 13 miles to their night camp.

“We didn’t want to drink it while marching,” he said. They started to enjoy it when they stopped for the night and their commander found out about it and had them march back the 13 miles and return it because of the strictly enforced “No Looting” regulations. All in less than 1 year. Drafted, shipped overseas, on the front lines in France, shipped back to U.S., discharged, and home again after 10 months or so of active duty.

Younger brother 23 year old Henry’s, SN 4518046, experiences were different. Drafted three weeks later than his older brother on August 14, 1918, he was sent to Camp Grant and then to Fort Wingate, New Mexico, 15 miles east of Gallup. Ft. Wingate was established in 1868, after the Civil War, in Navajo and Zuni Indian territory as part of a line of forts to control the native Navaho and Apache Indians. In WW I Wingate became the largest storage area of high explosives in the world and remained an ammunition depot through WW II. Explosives were shipped to England from Ft. Wingate in 193941 prior to the U.S entering the war.

The U.S. became acutely more concerned about the security of its southern border with the revelation of the Zimmerman Telegram in January 1917 when British cryptographers decoded a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the German Minister to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt offering United States territory, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas to Mexico in return for Mexico attacking the U.S. Germany would finance the attack. (See Zimmerman Telegram, Notes 3 and 4) In 1916 President Wilson was largely reelected for a second term on the slogan “He kept us out of the war.” American anti-war sentiment changed with the Zimmerman Telegram decoded in 1917 by the British, from the German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmerman to his ambassador in Mexico directing him to ask Mexico to enter the war against the U.S. If Germany won, Mexico would be given Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. So the U.S. wanted to reinforce the Southern Border and my dad, Hemy, gets sent to Fort Wingate probably in September, 1918 and is discharged in April, 1919. He must have done something right because he was discharged as a Corporal promoted from PFC. Henry was a skilled auto mechanic. He may well have learned or honed those skills at Fort Wingate because military transportation was in the transition from horse and mule to mechanized.

But he didn’t want to return to Wisconsin’s cold winters and milking cows twice a day. His army buddy, Bill Wilder, said “Hank, come with me to Western Nebraska. My dad’s got a ranch at Big Springs and he’ll give you a job!”

He did. Met my mom, Catherine Gingrich, who had her first teaching job (2) at Big Springs and they were married two years later on his 24th birthday, May 30, 1921. (Mom was born on February 21, 1897 so she was February to May older than he was.)

NOTES (1) Their ten children: Barbara, born December 11, 1886; Wilhelmina (Minnie) born January 19, 1888; August Joseph Jr. born January 2, 1891 (Uncle Gus); Louise born September 11, 1892; Anna born September 2, 1894; Mary & Frank, stillborn twins, on June 20, 1896; Henry Joseph born May 30, 1897; Frederick George (Fritz) born on June 11, 1899; Herman born on September 29, 1903.

(2) Catherine received her teaching certificate at Nazareth College in Concordia, Kan. operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph for farm girls of low income. Students could receive their certificates and pay for their schooling after they started their first teaching jobs.

(3) Zimmerman Telegram in German code, January 19, 1917. Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram, p. 180, Macmillan 1958.

( 4) Zimmerman Telegram in English translated by British cryptographers, Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram, p. 146, Macmillan 1958.