Arlington National Cemetery noted this week it is witnessing its first snowfall of the year with a series of photos that show quiet stillness and dignified respect.
(Photos by: Elizabeth Fraser, U.S. Army/ Arlington National Cemetery)
The above memorial is the mast of the lost USS Maine (Battleship No. 10), sunk in 1898, an event that sparked the Spanish-American War. It was dedicated at the cemetery in 1915 after the warship was raised.
Among the images were some of the Sentinels of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, who stand watch 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in any weather.
The mortal remains of that initial Soldier, whose identity was only “Known but to God,” was selected from unknown Americans who gave up their lives in France during the Great War. Over 38,000 Americans were buried in French soil at military cemeteries in the Meuse-Argonne, St. Mihiel, Somme, and Aisne-Marne regions. One set of unidentified remains were selected from each cemetery for review.
From those four sets of identical flag-draped caskets, a decorated GI who had served in the conflict and had been twice wounded, Sgt. Edward F. Younger, selected one to become the Unknown Soldier by resting a bouquet of white roses on its cover. The Unknown was then taken to the port of Le Harve under a ceremonial escort provided by French and American troops and attended by thousands of locals along the way.
André Maginot, the French Minister of Pensions, presented the French Legion of Honor– the country’s highest order of merit– to the Unknown Soldier.
French Minister of Pensions M. Maginot pinning the Cross of Legion of Honor upon the casket.in Le Havre, France, October 25, 1921. Maginot was a Great War veteran himself, who as a sergeant had both of his legs shattered in the conflict. (Bibliotheque nationale de France)
The casket was carried aboard Dewey’s old flagship, the armored cruiser USS Olympia (C-6; CA-15; CL-15; IX-40) on 25 October by Sailors and Marines while the warship’s band played both the American and French national anthems as well as Chopin’s “Funeral March.”
Unknown Soldier’s body going aboard USS Olympia, Le Havre, France, October 25, 1921. The original image is from the collections of the Marine Corps, #521763.
Installed on one of the cruiser’s topside hatches, the Unknown was guarded by Marines and Sailors for the voyage across the Atlantic to the Washington Navy Yard, where Olympia arrived on 9 November.
Casket of the Unknown Soldier in its transporting case on the after end of the superstructure of USS Olympia. (Original image is from the collections of the Marine Corps, #521778.)
USS Olympia (CL-15, originally Cruiser # 6) Arriving at the Washington Navy Yard, D.C., with the remains of the Unknown Soldier, 9 November 1921. She had transported the remains from France. Among the destroyers in the background, immediately beyond Olympia’s bow, are: USS Barney (DD-149) and USS Blakeley (DD-150). Courtesy of Edward Page, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89731
A detail of Marines and sailors lift the body of the unknown soldier as the funeral party disembarks USS Olympia (CL-15) at Washington, DC after its trip from Le Harve, France. (Original image is from the collections of the Marine Corps, #521811)
There, the remains were transferred to the escort of the Army.
After laying in state at the Capitol Rotunda for two days and being visited by 90,000 people, the casket was transported to Arlington on Armistice Day, celebrating the end of the Great War that had occurred three years prior on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.
The procession from the Capitol to Arlington included several military units to include those from nine allied nations as well as nurses who served in France, while Gen. John Persing, who commanded the American forces in Europe during the war, walked behind the horse-drawn funeral caisson.
Honors rendered that day included the presentation of the Medal of Honor by President Harding. Four military chaplains (to include a rabbi) participated in the funeral service. A national two-minute silence augmented the thousands in attendance. Flowers and wreaths were massed while salutes were fired. Pershing deposited some soil from France into the tomb. The chief of the Crow Nation rested his coup stick across the tomb as a tribute to the fallen and presented his war bonnet.
Today, Armistice Day is known as Veterans Day and the Tomb has had other Unknowns interred to include the World War II and Korean War Unknowns in 1958 and 1984, respectively. Guarded originally by details from nearby Fort Myer and, since 1948, by an elite group of Sentinels provided by the 3rd Infantry Regiment “The Old Guard,” the Tomb has been reverently secured 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, no matter the weather.
In honoring the 100th anniversary of the interment of the WWI Unknown Soldier, for the first time in a century, the public has been allowed entrance to the normally off-limits Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Plaza this week to place flowers near the memorial.
On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, the public is invited to observe a joint full honors procession, meant to replicate elements of the World War I Unknown Soldier’s 1921 funeral procession. Following this, there will be a combined services flyover of the cemetery and the National Mall in conjunction with the Armed Forces Full Honors Wreath Ceremony to honor the Unknowns and the centennial of the Tomb, set for 11 a.m.
For more information on the Tomb, here is a tour of the display room in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Exhibit at Arlington National Cemetery.
As for Olympia, she lingered on in Naval service, decommissioned in 1922 and preserved as a relic/floating office space at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard until 1957 when she was stricken and transferred to a local non-profit for use as a civilian-run museum ship, a task she continues to perform today.
A lead plaque was installed on the cruiser’s hatch in the 1920s where the Unknown had rested for the trip from France but, sadly, is not on the ship today, being removed when she was decommissioned. However, it is preserved at the NMUSN.
A commemorative plaque, part of the exhibit of the cruiser USS Olympia at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy (NMUSN), hangs on display during a symposium held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Unknown Soldier to U.S. soil after WWI. The plaque identifies where the casket containing the remains of the Unknown Soldier was placed aboard the cruiser USS Olympia during the voyage from Le Havre, France to Washington, D.C. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jalen D. Walton)
The Beretta M9 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier variant has been used to conduct over 100,000 wreath-laying ceremonies and has been carried by NCO Sentinels on 279,850 Guard changes. It has been replaced by the new Sig Sauer M17 Tomb variant.
In this video, Soldiers from the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) received brand new ceremonial M17 Pistols replacing the M9. The pistols were specially made to uphold standards of the Sentinels of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
While the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington is a hallowed place, established in 1921 with the Unknown Soldier of the Great War and guarded in all weather 24/7/365 since 1937, it has few tie-ins to the nation’s conflicts before the 20th Century. That is about to change in a small but interesting way.
On 18 October, four specially-made ceremonial Sig Sauer M17s will replace the current M9 Berettas carried by the Tomb Guard Platoon’s NCOs (Sentinels carry the M14, and that is not going to change).
These new sidearms are extremely interesting pieces with a non-railed aluminum grip module rather than the M17 (P320)’s standard polymer frame, a high-polish stainless steel slide, wood grip inserts, a 21-round 9mm magazine, and lots of other features.
(Photo: Sig)
Take a closer look at those grip inserts:
They contain the Distinctive Unit Insignia for the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), parent unit of the platoon.
The wood itself? It comes from the decking of the protected cruiser USS Olympia (C-6/CA-15/CL-15/IX-40), the former flagship of Commodore Dewey in the Spanish-American War that later brought home the Unknown Soldier of World War I in 1921.
A U.S. Army Machine Gun Team from Company A, Ninth Machine Gun Battalion, 6th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, AEF, man a machine gun set up in railroad shop in Chateau Thierry, France, on June 7, 1918, 100 years ago today.
This was during the Aisne Defensive, which in days saw the entire division take to the front line for the first time and three weeks later switched to holding the southern crossing of the Marne against the Germans even when surrounding units retreated.
Although the U.S. military had access to a number of machine guns going into WWI– including the 25-pound Model 1909 Benet Mercie, which was cranky but proved its worth in repelling Villa’s raid on Columbus, NM in 1916; as well as the 35-pound Colt-Browning M1895 “Potato Digger” which was mass-produced by Marlin during the war; and the excellent 28-pound Lewis light machine gun– the American Expeditionary Force to France was armed in large part with 7,000 French Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine gun of the example shown above.
A 53-pound weapon, it was far from “light” though it was designed by the same Mssrs. Benet and Mercie as the M1909, but it was simple (just 32 parts, assembled with no pins or screws) and reliable. Fed through a 30-round metal strip, a three-man crew could keep em coming enough to get a 120~ round-per-minute cyclic rate and keep it up until the ammo ran out which it made a good complement to the vaunted (but twice as heavy) Browning Model 1917A1 water-cooled machine gun.
Though the U.S. Army would replace the M1914 with the much better Browning M1919 in the 1920s, the “Mitrailleuse Hotchkiss modèle 1914” remained in use with other countries through WWII and even into the 1950s and later with the Chinese and in various Latin American countries.
The unit shown above, the 9th Machine Gun Battalion was formed just for the war in October 1917 and fought with the 3rd ID through Chateau Thierry, and the Meuse-Argonne, leaving a number of its brave gunners “Over There.”
General Pershing called the stand of the 3rd ID along the Marne “one of the most brilliant pages of our military annals,” and today the division is known, of course, as “The Rock of the Marne.”
The 58th Presidential Inauguration Joint Task Force National Capital Region (JTF-NCR) has stood up and has been practicing for the swearing-in event, scheduled for Jan. 20. The task force is under the command of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Bradley Becker.
As outlined in the below infographic, each of the five military branches– the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, U.S Air Force, and U.S. Coast Guard– will have a 180-strong marching company in the parade as well as a 355-member (103 for the Coast Guard) cordon stretched along the parade route.
Each of the four federal service academies will have 90 cadets marching as will the Army and Air National Guards.
Finally, there will be six military premier bands encompassing 550 members and a 2,340-strong combined honor guard primarily drawn from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment– the famous “Old Guard” who are tasked with ceremonial military duties in the Washington Military District such as mounting the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
Washington’s Life Guard, officially dubbed “His Excellency’s Guard,” was authorized 11 March 1776 and was a mixed infantry and cavalry unit of about 200~ men though this fluctuated during the war, swelling to almost 300 in 1780 and shrinking to just 60 or so men by the end of the conflict. Originally drawn from each colonial regiment encamped around Boston, with each unit sending four vol-untold men, it was possibly the first true polyglot formation with soldiers from each of the 13 original colonies.
Originally commanded by Captain Caleb Gibbs, an adjutant of the 14th Massachusetts Continental Regiment, they were drilled by Baron Frederick von Steuben, himself and were the tightest unit in the army– being used as shock troops on more than a few occasions when the chips were down.
After the war, the Guard remained dormant and while just 300 or so men’s names are known to have legitimately served, apparently several thousand aging Yanks in the late 18th and early 19th century made quick boasts in parlors and taverns of being a member of old George’s personal bodyguard– perhaps the original instance of U.S. Army stolen valor.
Fast forward…
In 1922, when stationed at Fort Snelling, Minn., the U.S. 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) –the oldest active duty regiment in the Army, having been first organized as the First American Regiment in 1784– established a Continental Color Guard consisting of two veteran soldiers in the livery of Washington’s old guard. They were popular and remained until the regiment went off to World War II and subsequent disestablishment in Germany in 1946.
Meanwhile in 1926, the Military District of Washington permanently detailed select dismounted horse soldiers from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment (Brave Rifles), then at Fort Meyer, to stand guard at the the tomb of an unidentified American serviceman from World War I interred in the plaza of the new Memorial Amphitheater, thought they did it in standard uniforms of the day.
Then, in 1948, the 3rd Infantry Regiment was reorganized and they assumed the role of the capital’s ceremonial troops from the 3rd Cav, working Arlington, the Tomb and greeting dignitaries (all with a military role in crowd control and protecting from enemy raids and sneak attacks in the event of an outbreak of hostilities).
By the 50s, the Old Guard again had a small contingent of ceremonial color guard who wore the uniforms of Washington’s men.
With the Bicentennial fever sweeping the country in the 1970s, Company A of the Old Guard’s 4th Battalion (recently returned from combat duty in Vietnam), was christened the Commander-in-Chief’s Guard in 1973 and has been pulling that role, wigs and muskets and all, ever since.
The Commander in Chief’s Guard, based at Fort McNair, is patterned after George Washington’s personal guard and has a variety of weapons and uniforms unique to their company. Officers carry an espontoon (half-pike) used as a signalling tool while NCOs carry a halberd. All ranks tote short swords for close combat.
Washington himself in 1777 directed all Continental field officers to arm themselves with espontoons, noting “firearms when made use of with drawing their attention too much from the men; and to be without either, has a very aukward and unofficer like appearance.”
The primary long arm of the unit are replica firing Brown Bess flintlocks with (always) mounted bayonet. All of which involves training.
The uniform for service is the 1784-pattern Army field pattern of the uniform for wear by all infantry consisting of a blue coat faced with a red collar, cuffs and lapels, white buttons and lining, long fitting overalls, and a black tricorn cocked hat with cockade.
The unit’s color guard carries the the U.S. Army Color with 172 campaign streamers, representing every campaign in which the Army has participated while the 3d Infantry Color bears 54 campaign streamers. The guard also carries a recreation of Washington’s own camp flag.
The guard is also the unit who gets roped into the other historical uniform duties, turning out Joes in Union Army blue, Confederate Gray, Doughboys and 101st Airborne paratroopers from 1944 and others for various events and public demonstrations.
Just 66 strong, the unit also has a war and homeland security mission, being trained as the Old Guard’s Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense (CBRN) unit and still completes regular weapon qualifications etc. on standard arms.
Sentinels, assigned to the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), stand guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., Jan. 22, 2016, as a record breaking snow storm hits the Washington, D.C. area. The Tomb Guards maintain a constant vigil at the Tomb no matter the weather conditions and has done so in an unbroken chain ever single second of the past 48 years.
The Mechanix of Auto, Aviation, Military...pert near anything I feel relates to mechanical things, places, events or whatever I happen to like. Even non-mechanical artsy-fartsy stuff.
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