Pay tribute to World War I, even if it is overlooked

And not many Americans care.

On Nov. 11, 1918, the bloody campaign came to sad close in a railway carriage in France when the Germans surrendered — sort of. The agreement became known as the Armistice, or Armistice Day. No one shook hands when it was done. The bitter Germans back home were not done yet, but no one knew that at the time. Ask about Adolf Hitler at a later date.

I was expecting a lot of hoopla surrounding the end of World War I, but I have not seen it. So far, the 50th-year anniversary of 1968 has eaten up the press space. Hippies always win out over dough boys, I guess.

In Europe, where the fighting was done, no one forgets. The United States lost a little over 116,000 in World War I. Compare that to France, which lost around 1 million, and you begin to understand. Germany and Austria lost 3 million but no one likes to talk about that, you know. We won’t even get to Russia but it’s near 2 million.

Future American President Harry Truman wrote to his fiancee: “I heard a Frenchman remark that Germany was fighting for territory, England for the sea, France for patriotism and Americans for souvenirs.”

So much for the war to end all wars on these shores.

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Courier-Post reporter Carol Comegno narrates an eyewitness Thomas S. Edwards’ account of celebrations at the end of World War I in 1918.
Chris LaChall and Carol Comegno, Cherry Hill Courier-Post

Family connection to the wars

My grandfather, Richard L. Hinson, was drafted into service to fight as an infantryman in World War I. He was a young man then, in his very early 20s, in Jackson County. According to family lore, he got to Europe just as the fighting stopped. Instead, he bummed around Paris, came home to North Florida and bought a rifle with his severance pay. I have the Frankenstein-style .30-.30 and it still shoots straight.

I knew a lot more about World War II thanks to all the Hollywood movies and my father, Richard L. Hinson Jr., who volunteered as a Navy frogman in the Pacific Ocean. He saw combat. Punched sharks. The whole lot.

My dad won a free trip to Japan in 1975 and handed it to his wife and third son. On the way back from dropping them off at the airport in Tallahassee, my father and I were taking the silent, scenic route through Bristol when I finally said: “So, I don’t get it. Why didn’t you take this totally free trip to Japan? Are you crazy?”

After a long pause, my father took a slow drag off his Kool Filter-King cigarette and calmly said in his deep Southern accent: “The last time I was in Japan, I swam up on the beach and some (bleep) with a sword tried to cut off my head. I don’t feel welcome in that country.”

Well, I asked. I did not want to know what happened to the Japanese guy on the beach. I was afraid of the answer.

My grandfather, the WWI vet, died five days after I was born. We were in the same hospital, coming and going. My grandmother reminded me of her husband’s death all the time I knew her during her 102 years.

On the big screen

Most of World War I was fought in the trenches of Europe. No wonder Americans want to forget about it. (Photo: AP)

The World War I era did not have talking Hollywood pictures or John Wayne on the big screen like World War II did when it came along. Most subsequent feature films about The Great War are downbeat. That’s because most the war was that way.

Director Stanley Kubrick’s excellent “Paths of Glory” (1957) shows the ludicrousness of trench warfare at its most absurd. Jean Renoir’s masterpiece “La Grande Illusion” (1937) is also anti-war and was hated by the Nazis, so it has that going for it. If you watch Peter Weir’s “Gallipoli” (1981), about a bloody and pointless Australian-Turkish battle starring a young Mel Gibson, you will never march off to war.

No one watches the rah-rah “Wings” (1927) in this century. Writer Ernest Hemingway, who more or less glorified war, has fallen out of favor in the new generation so the film version of “A Farewell to Arms” (1932) is basically sitting on a shelf for rediscovery. Only film nerds still watch King Vidor’s silent stunner “The Big Parade” (1925) but it is worth seeking out.

Which brings us to the granddaddy of all World War I movies, “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930). It was the “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) of its day when it came to show how messy, fast and hellish warfare was when it really went down. Director Lewis Milestone’s powerful film told World War I from a German perspective, which was pretty radical for its day. It is based on Erich Maria Remarque’s renowned classic 1929 novel of the same name so that probably explains its Oscar win for Best Picture.

It taught us this foolish line, “It (the war) will only last a few months.”

Sometimes patriotism goes off the rails but they don’t often make major motion pictures about it.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” was also the first film to show a soldier’s hands – and hands only – left clinging to a barbed wire fence after he had been blown to bits.

Retired Florida State history professor Jim Jones will discuss the film during a screening of “All Quiet on the Western Front” at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 11. It’s $7 to get in to the Tallahassee Film Society presentation. If you don’t know much about World War I, this is the perfect place to start.

Speak the lingo

There is no test about the many battles of World War I after this column, so I will spare you. What is the point? Most people wouldn’t listen anyway.

Yet, you are speaking World War I and probably don’t even know it. Ever eaten Red Baron pizza?

The Great War gave us such everyday terms as basket case (originally used to describe soldiers who lost most of their limbs), tanks (they were new in WWI), over the top (it referred to the trenches), having a chat (used to describe killing lice), cooties (also lice), Kiwis (troops from New Zealand wore the national bird as insignia) and shell shock (you know what that means). Other words that became common place include aerial photography, camouflage and gas mask (although it was called a gas helmet at first).

Speaking of suffocating your enemy, let’s talk about mustard gas, the most infamous gas used in World War I.

The hideous agent was introduced in July 1917. Hitler got a dose of it while fighting in Belgium one month before the war allegedly ended. John Singer Sargent, best known for his portraits, painted a canvas of soldiers called “Gassed” in 1918. Writer Wilfred Owen probably summed up mustard gas best in his 1917 poem “Dulce et Decorum est.” It goes:

“Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime …

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”

Owen, arguably the most famous poet of World War I, was killed in action on Nov. 4. 1918. His mom got the telegram saying he had been slain on Armistice Day. That sums up World War I perfectly.