ALABAMA AND WORLD WAR ONE: THE GOLD STAR COLLECTION

Alabama Heritage, Spring 2004 by Duvall, Sam

TO MEMORIALIZE ALABAMA SOLDIERS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN WORLD WAR ONE, FAMILIES SENT VOLUMES OF INFORMATION AND PHOTOS TO THE STATE ARCHIVES. THE COLLECTION BEARS THE NAME OF A READILY RECOGNIZABLE SYMBOL OF HEROIC SACRIFICE- THE GOLD STAR.

Well mother dear, I have been through a living hell and came out without a scratch. . . . I took my first bath yesterday in four weeks and I know I'll get a cold getting all that dirt off me. By the way, tomorrow I am 25 yrs. old and my next birthday I will spend at home and we will have one grand time too!

SERGEANT LEON Ragsdale McGavock penned these lines on October 6, 1918, in a letter to his mother in Birmingham as he served on the Western Front in France during the First World War. As part of the Machine Gun Battalion of Company B, 312th Infantry Regiment, 42nd ("Rainbow") Division, Leon had seen heavy fighting as the German army tried to overwhelm British and French forces before Americans could enter the war in substantial numbers.

As Leon's mother prepared to send his letter to the Alabama Department of Archives and History soon after the war, she penciled the words "His last letter" in the margin. Ironically, after facing the best the German army could throw at him, Leon died of pneumonia, possibly related to the flu pandemic that swept the world in the winter of 1918-19. He was one of the last Alabamians to die in a war that claimed millions of lives, including twentyfive hundred Alabamians, from a total of eighty-four thousand who served during the war.

AS THE GREAT WAR ground to a halt, the state began seeking information about Alabamians who had made the supreme sacrifice. Dr. Thomas Owen, director of Alabama's Department of Archives and History, started the tedious task of collecting information on Alabama soldiers lost in WWI. He intended to publish a book of photos and biographical sketches, as other states were doing. In the months and years after the war's end, Leon McGavock's letter and scores of others found their way to the state archives. Owen called the project "Gold Star," in tribute to the poignant wartime tradition of families displaying banners in the windows of their homes with a blue star for each family member serving in the war. If a loved one was killed, the family replaced the banner with one bearing a gold star. The gold star was, therefore, a readily recognizable symbol of heroic sacrifice.

In March 1920, soon after starting the Gold Star project, Dr. Owen died. His wife, Marie Bankhead Owen, was appointed to take his place, becoming the first woman in Alabama to serve as the head of a state department. As eager as she was to bring the book to fruition, competing priorities frustrated the plan. First, she had to finish a four-volume history of Alabama started by her husband. After completing this work, Mrs. Owen became involved in the development of the World War Memorial Building to house the expanding collections of the archives. Soon after the new building was completed, the United States entered the second World War, once again drawing attention away from the Gold Star project. Ultimately, the book was never completed, but the volumes of information and photos submitted by families of WWI soldiers remain in the archives as a stunning testament to the sacrifice of Alabamians in the Great War. This state treasure is now called the "Gold Star Collection."

As families across the state completed profiles and attached photos, they offered more than accounts of the military service of their loved ones. They told of occupations, hobbies, affiliations, contributions, religion, and heritage, providing an extraordinary glimpse into the lives of these soldiers.

Some attributes split characteristically along racial lines. Most young white soldiers chronicled in the collection had ancestors who fought in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Some also had ancestors who fought in the American Revolution and other wars. Juxtaposed with these accounts are stories of black soldiers whose parents or grandparents had been slaves during the Civil War. Almost all the white soldiers were listed as Democrats, while black families who noted political affiliation were almost exclusively Republican-a reflection of post-Reconstruction politics.

Despite lingering attitudes about race, tens of thousands of blacks volunteered to serve in the army, and hundreds of the young men of both races never saw their Alabama homes again. Segregation being the order of the day, most blacks were posted with supply or support units and many of the black men in the Gold Star Collection died in stateside camps from accidents or disease. However, several all-black infantry units did see combat. While most black units were led by white officers, the 366th Regiment, 92nd Division, from Alabama had the distinction of being the first all-black regiment led by black officers.

Whatever their ethnicity, the soldiers who fill the Gold Star Collection share the distinction of having died in the service of their country. A central thread runs through the otherwise diverse collection: the pride the families had for these men who sacrificed all in what was hoped to be "the war to end all wars." Wishing to memorialize these lost heroes, they sent letters, photographs, and stories. Now, eighty years later, the following vignettes seek to honor that dream, if only for a handful of those families. These stories-some simple, others dramatic, all heroicrepresent a small cross-section of Alabama's contribution to the Great War.