1917 U.S. Entry Into WWI Commemorated
BY THOMAS COGAN

Councilmember Eric Gioia, at right, joined Woodside veterans, the Woodside Civic Association, residents, and local leaders to honor the fallen heroes of World War I from Woodside, Queens that fell in battle during The Great War. Here, Gioia stands with Barbara Coleman, vice president of the Woodside Civic Association; and Ed Bergendahl, a Korean War veteran and president of the Woodside Civic Association to honor the fallen

The 90th anniversary of the United States' entry into World War I was observed Saturday morning, April 14, when members of the Woodside Civic Association and military veterans' groups, along with political figures and local citizens, gathered in Doughboy Park on Woodside Avenue in Woodside to dedicate the installation of a new plaque beneath the doughboy statue. The plaque commemorates 13 Woodside men who died during the conflict.

In April 1917, the United States entered the Great European War on the side of Britain and France and against Germany. American troops arrived in Europe the following year, and before the war ended in November, 116,000 of them had been killed in action or died of other causes related to the war. In the immediate years afterward, many World War monuments were erected across the U.S.; nine of them in New York City were statues of soldiers in uniform that became known as doughboy statues. The one in Woodside, made by a short-lived sculptor named Burt W. Johnson, is a sadly pensive soldier who seems to be regarding military graves. It was installed in 1923 at a place where the old Public School 11 reportedly stood, and where a war memorial ceremony had been held in June 1919. (The origin of the term doughboy, applied to American soldiers in 1917-18, has several explanations, none of them at all persuasive.)

Gioia kneels at the foot of the Doughboy Statue to read the names of the 13 fallen Woodside soldiers.

Barbara Coleman of the Woodside Civic Association and Community Board 2 began Saturday's ceremony by citing the 90th anniversary of American entry into the war. Mary Frances Grace of St. Sebastian's Church on Roosevelt Avenue, sang The Star Spangled Banner and Monsignor Michael J. Hardiman, also of St. Sebastian's, read an invocation. Edward Bergendahl, president of Woodside Civic, read President Woodrow Wilson's address to a joint session of Congress on April 6, 1917, in which he asked for a declaration of war.

R e p r e s e n t i n g Congressmember Joseph Crowley was Michael McSweeney of LaGuardia Community College and Community Board 2, who connected the distant event with one considerably closer to those in attendance. He observed that many from Woodside later joined the doughboys in sacrifice when they died in Vietnam. It is said that there were more killed in Vietnam from Woodside's ZIP code (11377) than from any other such zone in the U.S. (The Vietnam memorial at 57th Street and Woodside Avenue contains 28 names.) Assemblymember Margaret Markey sounded the "Lest We Forget" theme that would later be invoked repeatedly. City Councilmember Eric Gioia paid tribute to Coleman and Bergendahl, saying they had to persuade a famously stubborn Department of Parks and Recreation to permit them to install a new stone, containing 13 names, near the previously inlaid stone that contains only 10. State Senator Serphin Maltese, wearing a cap of the Catholic War Veterans that indicated he had served in Korea, said that we may be down to our last three or four World War I veterans, and at the same time veterans of World War II are dying at a rapid rate. He was happy to say, "God is smiling on us with this weather"- meaning that the day was merely overcast, while the forecast for next day's weather was heavy rainfall (and brutally accurate it was). After the politicians came a Woodside resident, John Patrick Coughlin, who graced their remarks with a banjo rendition of "The Irish Minstrel Boy".

Katherine Gregory, a Woodside resident, provided a fund of local history, including something that runs counter to a long-standing assumption. She began by saying that nearly all those Woodside residents who died in World War I were born at a time when Woodside was not part of New York City. By the time Woodside was drawn into the war in 1917, it was fully part of the city, and the new Flushing elevated line was in place on the thoroughfare that would be renamed Roosevelt Avenue after the war. Gregory read a personal history of all 13 who died in the war, beginning with their names, military identifications and dates of birth and ending with the dates when they were either killed in action or died of such illnesses as influenza or nephritis while in uniform. Included was Carl R. Sohnke, the first man on the roster to enlist in 1917 and the first to die in 1918. He was posthumously honored when the spot situated where Woodside Avenue, 58th Street and Roosevelt Avenue come together was named Carl R. Sohnke Square. Another name appeared not just on the memorial stone but also on the flag borne by and headgear worn by the local post of Veterans of Foreign Wars, which was participating in the ceremony, and is prominent in a park a few blocks away. Gregory's history of that fallen soldier, John Vincent Daniels, differs from another local version, inscribed on the sign and plaque installed in John V. Daniels Square, the park situated below the 52nd Street/Lincoln Avenue train station on the No. 7 Flushing line.

The signs refer to Daniels as a Woodside resident and "a son of Queens County who made the supreme sacrifice in the World War", but Gregory had a different story. According to her investigation, Daniels, the youngest of the 13 on the list, was born in England and never lived in Woodside, though he had moved to America with his parents some time before the war broke out in 1914. He enlisted in Manhattan, where he and his parents lived, and was a private first class in the 102nd Field Signal Company when he was killed in France at the age of 18. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. The reasons the VFW post in Woodside is the John V. Daniels Post 2813 and the park below the Lincoln Avenue station is also named after him seem to grow out of the fact that his surviving parents moved to Sunnyside Gardens several years after the war and lobbied successfully to dedicate a memorial or two to their son. Both park and VFW post were named after Daniels in 1933.

The climax of the ceremony came when the politicians and others recited the names on the stone. After each of the 13 was named, a bell was rung and everyone intoned, "Lest We Forget". Wreaths were placed beneath the statue and the commemoration came to an end.