#11: The Last Great War?

Recovery efforts for WWII remains were well underway when the Korean War broke out in 1950 and put a halt to them. When that war ended, in 1953, the US Army was working to recover fallen Americans from two wars. As a result, the Unknown Soldiers from WWII and Korea were interred simultaneously. Also, sometimes a real-life Rambo does survive his valorous action on the battlefield.

This week’s Ghost of Arlington are:

1. Army Staff Sergeant Alton Knappenberger (Section 59, Grave 3193)
2. Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski (Formerly in the USS Maine  Memorial)
3. Army General John J. Pershing (kind of)

Also, a very special thanks to Mountain Up Cap Company for its continued help to spread the word about the podcast on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MountainUpCapCompany Climb to Glory!

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Transcript

Episode 11: The Last Great War? 

Welcome and thank you for joining me for Ghosts of Arlington, Episode 11: Title <PLAY INTRO> Last week we talked about the birth of the Tomb Sentinels, the active-duty army soldiers who have stood guard over the Tomb of the Unknowns 24-hours a day, 7-days a week since 1937. We also heard the story of the Bonus Army and how the US government used active-duty army troops to attack World War One veterans in an incident not talked about much today, but if we are to truly learn from the past, an incident that should not be forgotten. This week we will talk about the second world war, and how that conflict changed Arlington National Cemetery forever, a change that included the largest office building in the world, built in record time.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II and by June 1940, as France fell to Germany and the British were routed at Dunkirk, President Franklin Roosevelt began preparing for the war he assumed the United States would ultimately be drawn in to. Part of this preparation was to transfer 400 acres of Arlington bottomlands previously called Arlington Farm, which had recently been vacated by the Department of Agriculture, to the Department of War. It was assumed that Ft. Myer would need this land to house an increased number of soldiers that would be needed to protect the capital when war broke out. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall both decided the best use for that land would be to build a series of inexpensive two-story wooden buildings that would be used as offices to plan and coordinate the upcoming war and could be easily torn down after the war. Many people liked that idea until a long-term thinking quartermaster officer who had just been put in charge of capital region construction projects stepped in with a grand vision that changed the look of Arlington forever… humph, now where have I heard that one before?

Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell took one look at Marshall’s plan for the former Arlington Farm and the $6.5 million Congress had already set aside for it, and asked, why not build a permanent structure that would allow the entire War Department to consolidate and serve the country for years to come instead of wasting money on buildings that would be torn down in a few years? Up to that time, the War Department was spread over so many offices and buildings around Washington, DC that coordinating anything was very difficult and time-consuming.  Somervell’s breathtaking proposal called for constructing the largest office building in the world that would sprawl over 4 million square feet of space and house 40,000 workers. To free up steel for the war effort, this utilitarian structure would use concrete, with few concessions to beauty. The initial plan was for a four-story building with no windows. The geography of the building site, bounded by roads, rail lines, and Ft. Myer training fields gave the new structure an odd and distinctive shape; it was five-sided. Yes, Somervell gave us the Pentagon, now arguably the best-known military building in the world. The estimated price for the building was $35 million and Somervell was confident that construction on the massive project could be completed in just one year. Speed was important because the Germans, having consolidated their gains in Western Europe, invaded the Soviet Union and opened a second front in June 1941.

The plans were shown to Secretary of War Stimson in July 1941 who endorsed them on the spot. Less than a week later, on July 28th the House approved a bill to fund the plan and President Roosevelt privately gave it his endorsement. All that remained was Senate approval. There was more of a debate in the Senate, with objections that such a large building so close to the cemetery would negatively alter the beautiful vistas and aesthetics of the area. Alternate locations were proposed, and the president suggested the size of the project be cut in half, but in the end, Somervell’s plan was approved in August 1941. The Senate’s approval brought the plan to the public’s attention and garnered a lot of negative press. Many in the public also expressed concern over what such a project would do for the aesthetics at Arlington and Roosevelt, upset that his suggestion of a compromise was not taken by Somervell who had continued to lobby for the full scope of his original design, withdrew his support for the project. Now Roosevelt decided that instead of the old Arlington Farm, in the bottomlands of the cemetery, right next to the Memorial Bridge, the Pentagon would be built on a flat parcel of land less than a mile from Arlington Farm, near a place called Hell’s Bottom, an area surrounded by pawnshops, railroads, shabby housing, and already owned by the army. FDR ensured that one corner of the new 87-acre site would overlap with a tiny section of Arlington – this to satisfy the letter, if not the spirit of the congressional appropriations bill which only said the structure should be built on Arlington Farm, but not where or how much of it. Somervell pointed out that the new location would take longer to build on and cost more money, but the president was insistent (he literally played a game of rank, paper, scissors and told Somervell <Quote> “My dear general, I am still the commander in chief of the Army”) <END QUOTE>, so the plans were altered to accommodate the new building site. Less than three weeks after the site selection, construction began and amazingly took only 17 months to complete. The Pentagon officially opened on February 15, 1943, a perfect example of the nation’s ability to mobilize for war. 

After the US was pulled into the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Arlington Farm quickly filled with row after row of white framed wooden barracks buildings to house the thousands of new soldiers arriving at Ft Myer. Almost overnight the bottomlands sprouted new housing, a post exchange, a gym, a theater, drill grounds, and new roads – all part of the new south post at Ft Myer. Each morning, hundreds of soldiers answered reveille, streamed across fields, disappeared into a tunnel under Columbia Pike, and emerged at the Pentagon to wage war in the cavernous new office building. Those who had opposed the construction of the Pentagon on Arlington property put up with the south post because of the understanding that it would be temporary and would be demolished after dealing with the Axis. By its end, World War II would surpass the Great War as the biggest, costliest, deadliest, and farthest-reaching conflict the world had known. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Army had less than 200,000 soldiers in uniform. By the war’s end in 1945, more than 16 million Americans were part of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

According to the National World War Two museum in New Orleans, 473 Medals of Honor were awarded in World War II, many of them presented posthumously in memory of lives cut short. Many recipients who did survive went to great lengths to put the worst day of their lives behind them. One of these was Army Private First Class Alton W. “Knappie” Knappeburger, a scrawny 20-year-old pig farmer from Spring Mount, Pennsylvania, the seventh child of a long-dead moonshiner. Fresh to combat, standing 5 foot 6, and weighing 118 pounds, Knappie had no ambition except to survive the war. He freely admitted his terror at the prospect of battle and wondered how he would react to enemy fire – he would not have to wait long. In January 1944, Knappie and his comrades in Company C, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division landed on a hotly contested beach in Anzio, Italy, and moved inland. The regiment encountered battle-hardened German troops near the market town of Cisterna di Littoria. When ordered to cross an open field, the regiment came under intense artillery and rifle fire. With bullets whizzing all around him, Knappie hugged the frozen earth and crawled slowly forward while those around him fell. When he reached the other side, Knappie was the only US soldier on the ragged firing line. With no one to issue him orders, this Pennsylvania farm boy, took the initiative, scrounged a Browning Automatic Rifle from a fallen comrade, and made his way to an exposed knoll. German machine guns immediately opened up on him but Knappie calmly kneeled, took aim, and eliminated the 3-man machine gun team, killing two and wounding the third. Two more Germans popped up to throw grenades at the knoll, he wheeled and killed them, causing the grenades to fall short. Across the field, about one hundred yards away, another machine gun crew opened up and he silenced them as well, which provoked a new barrage of anti-tank and anti-aircraft fire on his position. 

Knappie, calling on marksmanship skilled honed by years of hunting squirrels, rabbits, and pheasants for food growing up, coolly continued fighting, killing, or wounding every enemy soldier he saw while miraculously avoiding injury. Someone later said none of the Germans hit him because he made such a small target. He held his ground, exhausted his ammunition, and moved towards German lines to scrounge more. Once resupplied, he returned to his exposed knoll, caught an enemy platoon crawling its way up to him, and wiped it out. Sometime later, six members of Company C moved up from the rear to join him; Kanppie continued pouring on automatic rifle fire from his BAR while his buddies plunked away with their semi-automatic M-1 Garands. When the makeshift squad finally ran out of ammunition, they slid down the hill, backtracked to the field, and began searching for their unit. But there was no unit, these seven soldiers were the only survivors from the 200-man Company C. Bold as their action was, they failed to dislodge the Germans from Cisterna di Littoria. Nevertheless, Knappie had single-handedly disrupted the German attack, saved American lives, and provided the only glimmer of hope in an otherwise disastrous attack. The young Pennsylvanian had escaped the entire ordeal with a single injury – a blistered heel.

Private First Class Alton Knappeburger was awarded the medal of honor, promoted to staff sergeant, and sent home to help raise money for the war effort – no one was more surprised or embarrassed about his elevated status than Kappie himself. He continued to tell interviewers that he was scared the whole time he was over there and <QUOTE> “You just try to get them guys, before they get you.” <END QUOTE> Shunning the spotlight and avoiding speeches whenever he could, Knappie quietly left the army, disappeared into the Pennsylvania countryside, raised a family with his wife Hazel, went hunting, and spent the rest of his life as unapologetically ordinary as possible. He passed up well-paying supervisory positions for what he called honest, menial work – driving trucks, paving roads, and dabbling at farming. He enjoyed the pleasures of his hard-won peace, living with Hazel in a trailer, surrounded by woods, wild turkeys, and orchards, with a menagerie of dogs, cats, ponies, a rooster, a horse, a goose, a duck, and numerous grandchildren for company.

Staff Sergeant Knappenburger died of a heart attack in 2008 at the age of 84. After some debate within the family, Knappie was laid to rest at Arlington on January 31st of that year. It is a long way from Pennsylvania, but his family thought it was time to give this reluctant hero the recognition he evaded in life. So, with his family gathered around the grave, attended by Army officers, a marching platoon, a military band, and a clutch or media, this one-man army was buried in Section 59, Grave 3193.  The weather was perfect – a bitingly cold day that fell precisely 64 after the morning in Italy when scared young private crawled up from the frigid ground to face the Germans alone.

War is not a glamorous affair and I never want to give the impression that combat has romantic elements as some have insinuated in their accounts. War is brutal, war is devastating, and war is traumatic for all of those killed and many of those who survive. It is believed that 60 million people died in World War II. Most of those deaths, perhaps 39 million, were civilians, making it the first time in history that civilian deaths outpaced combat casualties. The Soviet Union, which often doesn’t get enough credit in the West for its efforts against the Nazis because of the post-war political climate, suffered the highest number killed, losing 13 million troops and 16 million civilians. Poland, which suffered 6.1 million wartime deaths, lost 20% of its total population and broke the heart of famed Polish pianist, composer, and statesman Ignace Jan Paderewski who was forced to watch the dismantling of his country from exile. At age 80, he died in New York City in June 1941, just as Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union. As the first Prime Minister of modern Poland and president of the wartime Polish parliament in exile, Paderewski was seen as a symbol of patriotism and independence – a perception not lost on President Franklin Roosevelt, who gave Paderewski temporary refuge at Arlington, placing his remains in the vault under the USS Maine monument, until they could be returned to Poland for burial. Nobody imagined that Paderewski would remain at Arlington for another 51 years, waiting for the war to end, then waiting for Eastern Europe to shake off the domination of the Soviet Union. Paderewski’s long exile finally ended in 1992 when he was placed in a spot of high honor at St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw.

His presence in Arlington, like that of other foreigners interred there during the war years, helped make the cemetery more international. This reflected the evolving outlook of the United States, now more involved in global affairs after its wartime experience. The conflict imposed new obligations on Americans, who, having been thrust onto the world stage by circumstances, remained prominently in that position. Compared to Asian and European nations, the US paid a relatively small price for its role in World War II, sacrificing some 359,000 in combat, accidents, and other causes, while reaping economic benefits and international standing. However, when seen through the narrow lens of American history, it was a national tragedy, second only to the US Civil War in the number of lives lost. This lesson is brought home at Arlington, where one walks among seemingly endless rows of those who died in Anzio, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other faraway battlefields, only to realize they do not approach the toll from Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Sharpsburg, and other scenes of America’s bloodiest conflict that continues to haunt the old plantation. This relatively low death toll and emergence as a global superpower have led some to call World War II the last great war, so great in the sense of good as opposed the World War I great in the sense of massive in scale. But as someone with experience in a much smaller war with far fewer casualties, I am here to tell you that no war is great. It is sometimes necessary, but it is not great.

As soon as World War II ended, thousands of Quartermaster graves registration specialists fanned out over Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, to find, identify, and concentrate the dead in 288 cemeteries, where they remained until they could be either returned home at the request of their family or permanently placed in one of fourteen new American cemeteries established worldwide. 97,000 war dead were eventually repatriated, many at Arlington. By 1955, the number of burials at the National Cemetery had grown from the pre-war count of 44,000 to 70,000. More space was needed to accommodate the new burials and Arlington expanded from 400 acres to 600 acres. The new land came from South Post Ft. Myer which was demolished as planned and made room for orderly rows of graves near the Potomac River, right where General Somervell wanted to put the Pentagon.

As with most wars, World War II took far longer to clean up than to fight. Five years after it ended, graves registration personnel were still locating bodies. By this time, quartermaster squads had identified all but 3% of recovered remains. Careful record keeping and the proliferation of dog tags made most identifications easy, but some cases did take a little detective work. One badly mauled soldier was found with no dog tags or identifying marks, except for a ring he wore. The ring was from a girls’ school which lead investigators to a roster of students, which lead to a woman who was able to provide the soldier’s name. Dental evidence provided identities for many casualties; laundry marks or personal letters helped with others. Of the 359,000 American World War II casualties, 271,000 were positively identified and an additional 78,000 were still missing. Of those missing, half were classified as unrecoverable – lost at sea or entombed in shipwrecks. To this day, specialty teams from the Defense Department’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency or DPAA, continue looking for those remaining 39,000 missing considered recoverable, with some success. Each year, approximately 50 war dead are located at remote mountain crash sites, overgrown jungles, on isolated Pacific Atolls, and sent home, beneficiaries of improved forensic methods, advancement in DNA technology, and the government’s commitment to account for all service members missing from all wars. Rest assured, we will talk about DPAA and its mission in a future episode. In the end, only 10,000 sets of remains remained unknown – a large number to be sure, but astronomically small when compared to previous recovery operations.

Another legacy of World War II was the end of a segregated military which eventually helped bring about an integrated United States. Legacies of gallant service from famous segregated units in previous wars, such as the Buffalo Soldiers of the Indian Wars and the Harlem Hellfighters of World War One were built upon by such segregated units the Nisei 100th and 442nd Infantry Battalions and the all-black 761st tank battalion AKA the Black Panthers in Patton’s 3rd Army, to name just a few. Patton, not known to be the most open-minded or progressive American of the mid-20th century (he personally had a member of the Bonus Army, who had saved his life in World War I arrested, knowing full well who he was), praised the 761st ‘s actions during the war, saying <QUOTE> “I have nothing but the best in my Army. I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut SOBs” <END QUOTE> Again, not the best dude but he was one of many senior white military commanders that helped undermined the insupportable practice of segregation in the services.  

Returning veterans challenged the US government to live up to the ideals in its founding documents at home. Raising to the occasion, President Harry S Truman officially desegregated the military on July 26, 1948, with Executive Order 9981, which called for equal treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. Sex and sexual orientation would come later – but this was still a huge deal. Truman’s actions, designed to help the living, also affected the dead at Arlington, where segregated burials would soon become a thing of the past.

That same month, rank consciousness began to crumble at the cemetery, too, thanks to a generous departing gesture by one famous old soldier, General John Pershing. The commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War I was suffering from poor health and overshadowed by world events when the Japanese surrender brought peace back to Washington. In better times, he was bombarded by hundreds of telegrams each Armistice day but seemingly forgotten in his room at Walter Reed Army Hospital, he only received 10 on his last one in 1947. Contemplating his own mortality, and being intimately familiar with Arlington, Pershing decided against erecting a lavish monument to himself as so many officers had done since the Civil War. Instead, he asked for the simple white marble tombstone available to any private. And, unlike officers who commanded much better real estate than those who fought under them, Pershing chose a burial site among the enlisted men from the Great War. He is reported to have said, “Let me rest among the World War veterans… When the last bugle call is sounded, I want to stand up with my soldiers.”

I have mentioned before that there will be a future episode focused on the life of Pershing so I will skip the details of his elaborate funeral for now – but spoiler alert, the man who may have been forgotten in life was remembered in death, and the site where he rests at Arlington, Section 34, Grave S-19-LH, is indeed surrounded by World War I veterans and it today known as Pershing’s Hill.

Sadly, not much peace was enjoyed between the end of World War II and the outbreak of the Korean war so next week, we will talk about the war on the Korean peninsula, as well as the additions of an unknown soldier from both World War II and Korea to the monument at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington. 

Thank you so much for downloading this week’s podcast. If you would like to see photographs or get more information about this week’s Ghosts of Arlington, visit the show’s website: www.ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com. Ghosts of Arlington is also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and links to those sites are in the show notes. As always, I encourage you to leave the show a five-star rating on iTunes or wherever you stream from, this helps other people find the show and if you don’t think I merit a five-star review, I would love your feedback. The show’s email address is ghostsofarlingtonpodcast@gmail.com. And remember, fear not death, for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal. <PLAY TAPS>