Tag: breen

Echoes of Heroes by Chris Gibbons

“The whine of the steel and the roar of the guns,

And the tolling of the bell and the cries of the lame,

And the echoes of heroes roll down through the ages to remind us again.”

(From the song “Echoes of Heroes” by Gordon Lightfoot)

The letter addressed to Mrs. Ellen Breen in Philadelphia arrived in early December of 1918, but it was very different than most of the letters the postmen had been delivering that bore U.S. Army postmarks.  The Great War in Europe had just ended a few weeks prior, and letters from American soldiers who were still overseas had been arriving in the U.S. by the thousands.  The men were sending Christmas wishes to their families which brought great relief and comfort to their loved ones.  Although they wouldn’t be home for Christmas, these soldiers were alive and the great anxiety that their families had endured during the war had finally subsided.

Unfortunately, for many other families this was a time of great sorrow as they continued to mourn the recent loss of a loved one in that war, and Christmas for them would never be the same again.  So, when this letter arrived at the home of Mrs. Ellen Breen, she knew it couldn’t be from her son, Bernard.  He was a sergeant in Company A of the 28th Division’s 108th Machine Gun Battalion, and Mrs. Breen had already been notified that he was killed in France on September 27, 1918 at the start of the great Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

She opened the letter and saw that it was from Captain Ralph C. Crow, her son Bernard’s commanding officer, and was dated November 30, 1918.  It was written in response to a letter she had written to the Army asking for more information regarding her son’s death.  It read in part:

“Dear Madam:-

               Your letter of the 27th reached me today, in reply I will say that it is with a feeling of sorrow that I answer your letter.

               On September the 20th, my Company took over a position from the French in the Argonne Forest. Your son Sergeant Bernard F. Breen was in command of two guns in a very responsible position nearest the enemy.  Five days later the drive in the Argonne Forest started.  I was ordered to send two guns to report to a Battalion when the fight started.  I selected Sergeant Bernard F. Breen and his gun crews for the reason that I considered him the best man in my Company…On the morning of Sept. 28th, one of the men who had been with Sergeant Breen reported to me that the section had been all shot up, that Sergeant Breen and another man had been killed, and that most of the men had been wounded…I sent a runner to that section of the field to see if he could locate the bodies, he returned later with the information that the bodies had been buried…I later got a chance to talk to Father Wolf (sic) and he told me himself that he had visited the grave of Sergeant Breen, and had performed the burial service.

               Sergeant Bernard F. Breen was killed instantly by the bursting of a shell on a road leading from Monyblainville (sic) to Varennes, he was leading his section when it occurred, I was informed.

               In conclusion I will say that I consider Sergeant Breen the best man in my Company, I had recommended him for a commission a short time before his death, he frequently spoke to me about his mother, and a brother who is a Captain in France.  The men of my Company felt that they had lost a true comrade when he was killed.  As I said in the beginning of this letter, it is with sorrow that I write this, as I had learned to love Sergeant Breen for the many brave deeds he had done on the field of battle.”

My subsequent search of World War I records has revealed that the “Father Wolf” referenced in Crow’s letter was the highly decorated 28th Division Reverend Lieutenant Joseph L. N. Wolfe.  In a remarkable yet solemn coincidence, on September 27th, 1918, during the great Battle of the Meuse-Argonne, Joseph Wolfe from Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School Class of 1899 performed the burial service at the battlefield grave of Bernard Breen from Roman’s Class of 1902.

As I read Captain Crow’s letter, I wondered if it had brought any comfort to Ellen Breen to learn that her son was not only loved and respected by the men of his battalion, but that a fellow alumnus from Roman Catholic High School, a school whose alumni motto is ‘brothers for life’, had visited his grave.  Was the anguish of her sorrow assuaged in knowing that, although Bernard died so far from home, one of his brothers was there and he wasn’t alone?

____________________________________

On May 24th, I received an e-mail from Bob Wagner, the former football coach of Roman Catholic High School and a graduate from the Class of 1963.  He has been an enthusiastic supporter of my ongoing search for the alumni of Roman Catholic High School who gave their lives in World War I, and his e-mail informed me that he had just arrived home from a trip to France where he had visited the gravesites of six Roman alumni who had given their lives in World War I.  One of those gravesites was that of Bernard Breen in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery.  Bob also found the exact spot along the road where Breen and his gunnery mate were killed, and he wrote: “It was, for sure, a very moving and surreal experience being at the graves of our brothers from RCHS who gave the ultimate gift for their country.”

I sent the photo that Bob took at Bernard Breen’s gravesite to Carol Breen, the great niece of Bernard.  She said in response: “It’s a blessing to know that someone cares to go visit the grave of a fallen soldier like this.  Even though I never met him, we have shared DNA.  Please express my gratitude to those who went.  I’m very happy Bernard wasn’t forgotten.”

It is my sincere hope that on this Memorial Day weekend Carol and the Breen family took some small measure of comfort in knowing that a fellow alumnus from Roman Catholic High School had visited the spot where Bernard had fallen and then prayed at his grave.  Although nearly 105 years had passed since Bernard Breen had been laid to rest, a brother was with him once again, and he wasn’t alone.

(Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer.  His book, “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”, a compilation of 78 of his essays, is available at Amazon)

Battle Exacts Heavy Toll Upon the Alumni of Famed Philadelphia High School by Chris Gibbons

Philadelphia Public Ledger: 9-28-18

On September 26, 1918, the soldiers of the 28th Division, many of them from Philadelphia, nervously glanced at their watches as dawn approached.  The massive artillery fire from their gunners which had begun hours before had finally ceased.  H Hour was nearly upon them, and as the men in the trenches awaited the signal to “go over the top”, the macabre paradoxes of war found many shaken with fear, yet strengthened by courage while stalked by Death. 

For 28th Division Lieutenant Daniel Lafferty of the 109th Infantry Regiment, and Sergeant Bernard Breen of the 108th Machine Gun Battalion, both alumni of Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School, the moment was all too familiar as they had already experienced heavy fighting during the summer.  Indeed, Lafferty was slightly wounded just a few weeks before, but had returned to his regiment.  It’s likely that their thoughts were for the men that they would soon lead into battle, as Lafferty and Breen were well-respected Army veterans, admired for their leadership qualities.  Both had served on the Mexican border in 1915, and Lafferty had received his commission a few months prior to the battle, while Breen had just been recommended for his commission.  They knew that the success of the attack, and the lives of their men, depended upon how well they would lead them into battle. 

A rolling fog crept through the Argonne forest as the officers told their men to get ready.  Helmet straps were tightened.  Field packs, gas masks, rifles, and ammunition were checked.  Fighting was expected to be at close quarters, and a final order was barked to the infantry: “Fix bayonets!”

                                                    _    _    _

On the morning of September 26, 1918, at 5:30am, following a 6 hour Allied artillery barrage from over 2,700 guns, the largest and deadliest battle ever fought by American soldiers began: The great Meuse-Argonne Offensive.  Its primary objective was to capture the Sedan-Mezieres railroad hub, Germany’s main supply and communication link, which was located between the River Meuse and the Argonne Forest.  The Allies believed that capturing this crucial railway hub would result in a German withdrawal from France and force them to capitulate.  It would not be an easy task.  Opposing the attacking Allied soldiers along this front just north of Verdun were 40 German Army divisions.

The bitterly-fought battle lasted 47 days, and ultimately resulted in the end of the Great War.  It involved 1.2 million American soldiers, and by the time that it concluded, 26,277 U.S. troops lost their lives, with another 95,786 wounded – the highest number of casualties for any battle ever fought by American soldiers.  Newspaper accounts of the great battle captivated an American public anxious for news from the front lines.  Worried families of the soldiers agonized as they read these dispatches which not only provided horrific descriptions of the battle, but listed the mounting casualties as well.

Perhaps the most sobering revelation of my now 9-year search for the alumni of Roman Catholic High School who gave their lives in World War 1 has been the terrible suffering that was endured by Philadelphians, both the soldiers and their families, during the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne.  Newspapers from that era, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and the Catholic Standard and Times, have been my most valuable resource in this search, and it was while poring over these newspapers from 1918 that I noticed a gradual, yet significant, change beginning with the early days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.  The number of names on the daily published casualty lists, as well as the number of ominous stories from the front lines, slowly began to increase.  In the Public Ledger, pictures of the dead and wounded soldiers, with their accompanying short biographies, sometimes covered a full page.  The grim casualty lists which had previously been a half-column in length, gradually expanded to 3 columns.

There were also numerous heartbreaking stories of parents receiving news that two of their sons had been killed, or that a previous notification of a son’s death was incorrect.  And due to the archaic communication flow of that era, there were also stories of parents receiving a letter from their son after already being notified that he had been killed in battle.  My two sons are the same age as the soldiers I was reading about, and many times I had to stop reading the articles to gather myself. 

My search for the names of the 32 Roman alumni who died in World War 1 has determined that many lost their lives during the Meuse–Argonne offensive.  On November 1, 1918 the Philadelphia Public Ledger reported that Bernard Breen had been “killed in action during the fighting along the Meuse.”  The article noted that his brother, Joseph, was an Army Captain, also serving in France.

The December 9, 1918 Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that Daniel Lafferty was “killed in action in the Argonne Forest.”  Five days later, the Catholic Standard & Times reported that Lafferty was killed while “bravely leading his men in the early dawn in the advance before Petit Boureuilles, near the Argonne Forest, and edifying his men by his courage…”  It also stated that a letter from a fellow soldier was sent to his widow, Mrs. Esther Lafferty, that “pays a glowing tribute to the deceased as an officer and a man.” 

Information traveled slowly back then, and my subsequent research found that, although their families received official notifications of their deaths in late October and early December, both men had actually died on September 27 – just one day after the start of the great Offensive. 

Sergeant Bernard Breen and Lieutenant Daniel Lafferty, alumni of Roman Catholic High School, who both served in the 28th Division and lost their lives on the same day, are buried in France at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery.  Their graves are located in the same Plot, just 2 rows apart.

More stories of Great War veterans, as well as an entire chapter chronicling the author’s search for the Roman Catholic High School alumni who died in World War I, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below: