One Hundred Years Ago, A Soldier's Story

“We moved into the trenches on the famous hills about Verdun. The ground was plowed in a sickening churn. Not a blade of grass remained. We dug in, but not dirt alone—legs, arms, skulls, helmets, all the debris of the mighty struggle.” Lt. Bud Bradford Jnr.

At 11am French time, the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 100 years ago yesterday marked the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War 1. An armistice was signed in the forest of Compiégne marking the end to the fighting. The Western front seems an unlikely backdrop to place an Irish priest in a story but amongst the New Jersey National Guardsmen was a young emigrant to the United States from a backwater in rural Ireland.

Reflecting the public sentiment of Americans, Woodrow Wilson had done all that he could for almost to three years to avoid committing the US to battle in Europe. With the Great War in a stale mate, the Americans officially joined in April 1917. With a relatively small standing army of 127,000, Americans were still over a year away from making a significant contribution to the European conflict. On July 5th the American Expeditionary Forces were established under General John J. Pershing insisted that the raw US recruits be properly trained and so few US troops saw combat that year. That was all to change, from early 1918 when 10,000 American recruits arrived in France by boat daily. By the end of the summer, two million Americans had arrived in France, over one million of those soldiers were to see front line action in Northern France.

Although newly ordained, as a chaplain in the the 114th Infantry Regiment, Fr. Michael was called up to active duty and shipped out to France. In late September 1918, our Irish country boy turned newly minted American priest Fr Michael, was one face amongst 600,000 American troops massed in a valley in northeastern France as part of the final major campaign of World War I, the Meuse-Argonne offensive. The United States had begun sending large numbers of soldiers to Europe only months before. On board ship and in camp before combat, the chaplain would have been busy hearing confessions. Multiple masses were celebrated in camp each day before the men saw action. Many of those young men were raw recruits who had only read in the newspaper reports of the horrors of machine guns, poison gas, and other new industrialised killing machines like tanks and the 50 caliber railway guns.

 Not far beneath their feet in the earth below, many of the remains of the 143,000 Germans and 56,000 French that had died in the 300 day battle of Verdun that had ended over a year earlier still lay in the earth.

"…everyone who searches for cover in a shell crater stumbles across slippery decomposing bodies and has to proceed with smelly hands and smell clothes."

On October 12, The 114th infantry was to fight alongside another of regiment of New Jersey National Guardsmen the 113th. Both regiments took the Bois d’Ormont, at a cost of 118 killed and 812 wounded. By this late stage of the war all sides were using mustard gas. Over the next 34 hours, the Germans bombarded Bois d’Ormont with high-explosive and mustard gas shells. The 113th withdrew while the 114th held its ground–which resulted in 706 more gas casualties in an area, permeated with persistent mustard agent, that the Germans had no intention of entering.

On the battlefield in the Bois d'Ormont Fr. Michael was administering last rites in Latin to the fallen as dreams of life back home in New Jersey faded from the faces of young men where they lay in the wet earth. “Per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quid quid per..."

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive shared with the French Fourth Army on the left, also known as the Maas-Argonne Offensive and the Battle of the Argonne Forest; it was the biggest operation and victory of the American Expeditionary Forces that stretched along the entire Western Front. The conflict was fought from 26 September 1918 until the Armistice of the 11th of November 1918, a total of 47 days. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was the largest in US military history, involving 1.2 million American Soldiers. It was one of a series of Allied attacks known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which brought the war to an end. The battle cost 28,000 German lives and 26,277 American lives. It was the largest and bloodiest operation of World War I for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) which was commanded by General John J, Pershing and one of the deadliest battles in American history. American losses were exacerbated by the inexperience of many of the troops, and tactics used during the early phases of the operation.

Chaplain Corr distinguished himself by gallantry in action while serving with the 114th Infantry Regiment, American Expeditionary Forces, in action near Verdun, France, 12 October 1918, in assisting the wounded and burying the dead under heavy shell fire. "In his battlefield citation assisting the wounded and burying the dead by direction of the President, under the provisions of the act of Congress approved July 9, 1918 (Bul. No. 43, W.D., 1918), Chaplain Michael J. Corr, United States Army, is cited by the Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, for gallantry in action and a silver star may be placed upon the ribbon of the Victory Medals awarded him."

The French awarded this country boy turned New Jersey priest the Croix de Guerre for his caring of the Allied and German soldiers on that same battlefield. Like most who survived the mustard gas attacks, my granduncle, Fr Michael slowed by his exposure to mustard gas did return to his life in New Jersey, spending those last thirty three years as pastor in East Orange. His New York Times obituary read "Michael J. Corr, Hero-Chaplain,78; Pastor in East Orange Dies Cited in World War I".