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Honoring a soldier

An Albany woman chronicles how she learned about and honored her father's World War I service.

Cathy Higgins

Special photo

From left, Beryl Putnam, Sue Neil Casteel, Wayne Putnum Jr., Ray Putnam and Mae Crowder place a carnation on Cpl. Wayne Putnum's granite tile. Cpl. Putnam's children purchased the tile at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City to honor their father's World War I efforts.

ALBANY — Although World War I took place almost a century ago, Albany resident Mae Crowder still feels its effects.

Crowder's father, the late Wayne Putnam of Missouri, served during World War I. But it wasn't until his daughter became an adult that she fully appreciated what he went through.

Crowder, who retired from Goodyear in 1992 after 20 years, recently made a special trip to her home state with her three brothers and sister to honor her father's wartime service and documented her thoughts and experience. She also provided The Herald with a letter Putnam wrote to his would-be bride, Erma Price, detailing his experience.

Cpl. Wayne Putnam returned home to Southwest City, Mo., by ship, train, bus and wagon after World War I on the hot, summer day of June 26, 1919.

Prior to the call of war heard across the United States, Cpl. Putnam was a wheat farmer in the fields of Oklahoma.

Many men dropped their harvest tools and left for a land of which most only knew of through history books.

In a matter of weeks, the United States compiled the armed forces to travel across the ocean and fight in the war. Cpl. Putnam was 26, unmarried and small in stature. He marched with pride and honor to fight in a place he knew nothing of. This man was my daddy.

I am blessed to have the privilege to honor my father's wartime efforts. Growing up, Daddy did not tell us much about his experience in France. We children never realized what he went through. Our father, the farmer, played his part in world-changing events. He fought many battles across France and Germany. He was in the trenches, dug-in and ready for battle on the day armistice was declared.

I'm the youngest child of my mother and father.

I recently had the opportunity to explore their keepsake letters many years after my father and mother passed. I read a letter my father wrote to my mother the day after arriving home from war. He so beautifully described his experience over the last two years in World War I. He described every step taken and town traveled through. He made a statement in the letter that "he had seen all the glory he wanted to see."

Men march off to war thinking of the glory, but come home knowing that there is no glory, just honor. His letter started me on a journey to discover the records and history of my father's military endeavors. I made phone calls and found information I never knew existed. I decided to gather all of my father's Army history in one place. Having five siblings, his memorabilia was scattered among us. After more than 85 years have passed, the keepsakes had been put away and not thought of for a long while.

In May 2002, I read The Albany Herald story about a restored World War I memorial. To my surprise, the memorial was in my home state of Missouri. I returned to Missouri in September 2005 and enlisted the help of my niece. We traveled to Kansas City and visited the Liberty Memorial Museum. While there, I began to understand much more about what my daddy endured.

I realized how lucky I am that he made it back and became my father.

We honored my father by purchasing a granite tile, which was placed in the Walk of Honor at the memorial. I knew immediately my family would find the tile very special in honor of my father. The Memorial Tower stands on a hill looking down at Union Train Station. This is the very station that the men traveled out of going east for war.

I was so proud to walk the same walk my father traveled as he left for the journey of a lifetime.

The Liberty Memorial staff was very helpful in giving us information to continue our search for my father's records. Within the last year, we applied for my father's medals to be reissued. We discovered his records were burned in a St. Louis fire that destroyed most Army records for that time. We were lucky that we had most of his information from original documents my brother and sister had saved. We were able to help put his records back together for future generations. We still search for more records and history.

The search has become a family project.

On Memorial Day, family members including my three brothers, my sister and I rented a van and drove from Joplin, Mo., to Kansas City, Mo., to attend the dedication of our father's granite tile at the Walk of Honor. The beautiful ceremony and pageantry honored all veterans.

The most surprising event of the emotional day was when my brothers, sister and I suddenly became children again as we remembered our daddy and how very proud we are of him.

MY WAR EXPERIENCES

Gentry, Ark.
June 27, 1919
Dear Friend,

Will drop you a few lines to say I am at home once more and it sure seems fine, too, I'll tell you. Don't seem natural tho to wear a pair of overalls and be able to go anywhere I want to and come back when I get ready.

Well, in your last letter you wanted to know what I was (and I) will try to give you some idea of what I did over there. We landed in France the 7th of July, (1918) after spending 17 days on the water and land sure looked good to us, too. We were billeted in a little town for training for four weeks and then moved out for the front. We were two days hiking and then three days on the train and unloaded just at daybreak.

Just back of the lines we went about 15 miles that afternoon and stayed until the next night in a little town called St. Germain. Got our first taste of war there as we were bombed by airplanes that night. None of us were hurt, but two or three civilians were killed.

Left there and hiked all night and stayed the next day in sound of the guns. We went out that night in trucks and into the trenches about 3 o'clock the next morning relieving the 1st Division.

We were in what was known as the Purenelle sector. Which was a quiet sector then, tho it seemed mighty noisy to us. That was the morning of the 11th of Aug. 1918.

We were relieved by the 345th Mch G. Co. of our own division on the 1st of Sept. and went back a few kilos to rest and stayed until the night of Sept. 10th when we went back up and began to get ready for the St. Mihiel drive, which was made two days later on the morning of the 12th.

On the night of the 17th having reached our objective, we established the lines and did not move anymore until the 10th of October, except to swing over to the right once to help one of our companies fire a mch gun barrage, which was highly successful. The infantry brought in quite a few prisoners. Went back to our old positions the next morning and stayed until the 10th of October when we were relieved by the 7th Division.

Hiked back two nights thinking we were going to get a rest, but the morning of the 13th we loaded on French trucks and were moved over to the Verdun Sector expecting to go over the top the next morning.

Owing to an accident to part of the trucks, we did not get to Blear Court until late that night and orders came to stay there until further orders. We were then under the fire of the enemies long range guns, but were not shelled much.

We stayed there four days and moved out for the front hiking all day and nearly all night and most of the next night when we relieved the 5th Division just in front of Romange.

The next day, our infantry captured Barntheville and we went into the Bois de Rappes to hold them. That hill and the one just over from it, had been captured twice before and both times been retaken by the Germans — the 90th held it.

We lost nearly 1/3 of our company that night (but) stayed there tho until a line could be established in front of it and went back 2 kilos and rested and got something to eat as it had been four days and nights since we had had a meal.

Stayed there two days and it was then the 1st of November, the other brigade of our division went over on that morning and that night we followed them and on the morning of the 3rd went thru their lines and over the top.

We drove all day and night and the next day and night and established our lines just in front of a little town called Villars le France in sight of the Muse River. Stayed there until the night of the 9th when we crossed the river our infantry had crossed and captured Moozay that afternoon.

Stayed all night in Moozay and the next day about 3 o'clock p.m., we again moved up until we were just in front of the Stenay where we were to be relieved by the 180th Brigade, they came up and dug in with us and did not go over the top.

We did not know why until just before 10 a.m. when the news came up that an Armistice had been signed and would go into effect on that day at 11. That was the best news I had heard for a long time.

We got something to eat that evening, which was the first we had had for six days except for raw cabbage and potatoes, which we picked up whenever we could find them.

We rested until the 15th of November when we started our long hike up into Germany finishing it Christmas Day in Strohm, where we stayed doing guard duty until the 19th of May when we left to begin our long hoped for journey home.

We sailed from St. Nazaire, France, on the 28th of May, landing in Boston Harbor on June the 8th. Had a pretty hard storm on the way back.

We went from Boston out to Camp Devans, a distance of about 30 miles, stayed five days there when our company was busted up.

We came to Camp Pike, Ark., where I was discharged 25th of this month.

Arrived home yesterday and was sure glad to get back again as I have had enough war to last me the rest of my life.

Well, guess I had better close or this will be a novel instead of a letter.

As ever your friend,
Wayne