Heres an interesting challenge ...... wonder what happened here ?? Near the Romagne Cemetery in the Argonne Forest area behind the village church of Cunel, there is an interesting memorial honoring three Americans who died for liberty. It has no explanation as to why these three men are grouped together at the site -- only one was killed in the area. We would like to discover why these three individuals are grouped together and honored at this particular site. The three are: Ensign Robert Fitzgerald Clark, USN, who was killed in a naval air crash at Brest in August, 1918. 2nd Lt. Charles Henry Fiske, 111th Inf., 28th Division who was also killed in August near Fismes during the Second Battle of the Marne. 1st Lt. Aaron Davis Weld, 7th Inf., 3rd Division, whose unit was fighting near Cunel when he was killed in October, 1918. Here are the clues we have gathered thus far: All three were students of Harvard College and are listed at Harvard's war memorial along with 370 others who died in service during WWI. They were in different classes at Harvard and, as noted, served in different military units during the war. The monument indicates Boston as their common hometown, but this does not seem to be accurate. Fiske was from Weston, Massachusetts. Fiske's family dedicated scholarships to their son at both Harvard and Trinity Colleges. Only Weld has a connection to Cunel, or the Argonne region for that matter. Two of them are buried in France: Weld is buried at the nearby Romagne Cemetery; Fiske is buried at the U.S. Cemetery outside of Paris. Clark was apparently repatriated home. http://www.worldwar1.com/tripwire/smtw0808.htm
CHARLES HENRY FISKE, 3D Born December 3, 1896, in Boston, Massachusetts. Son of Charles Henry Fiske, Jr., and Mary Thorndike Fiske. Educated Noble and Greenough and Country Day School. Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and Harvard University, Class of 1919. Plattsburg Camp, 1916. Joined American Field Service, August 13, 1916; attached Section Three in France and Balkans to June 30, 1917. Volunteer chauffeur with Major Palmer to September, 1917. Returned to America, enlisted U. S. Infantry, Camp Upton, January, 1918, 77th Division. Sailed April, as Sergeant. Commissioned Second Lieutenant; attached 111th Infantry, 28th Division, July, 1918. Died at Red Cross Hospital No. 3, Paris, August 24, 1918, of wounds received in action near Fismes, Marne, August 12th. Buried American Cemetery, Suresnes, Seine. CHARLES HENRY FISKE, 3D, left Harvard at the end of his Freshman year to join the Field Service. He was immediately sent out to Section Three, then stationed near Pont-à-Mousson, on the Lorraine front. A month or so later, when this Section was offered the chance to go with the French troops to the Balkans, "Charley" volunteered to go with it, and for the next eight months he drove his ambulance along the front in Albania and northern Greece. " Fiske was one of the youngest members of the Section," wrote an older man who was thrown much with him at the time, "but he made many friends among his fellow drivers. He was modest and unassuming and always showed the keenest and most dependable sense of duty." When he returned to France from the Balkans in June, the United States had joined the Allies, and Fiske sought a chance to enter his country's army. At that time, however, enlistment was impossible in France, so for several months Fiske served as a volunteer driver for Major Frederick Palmer then in charge of the war correspondents attached to the American army. "Fiske had the gift," wrote Major Palmer, "of making a good first impression and improving it upon acquaintance. He was as dear to me as if he were my own son." In September, 1917, he returned to America and, finding himself too young to be accepted at any officers' training camp, re-entered Harvard where he became a member of the Harvard Regiment. But his eager heart was overseas and, as soon as he became of age, he enlisted at Camp Upton, graduating early in April as an officer candidate. From Camp Upton, Fiske was ordered to France with the 77th Division. He served with this division as a sergeant until July when he was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant and assigned to the 111th Infantry of the 28th Division. Six days after joining the 28th Division, while on duty near the village of Fismettes, he was struck in the shoulder by the fragment of a shell. After an emergency operation had been performed in a field hospital he was sent back by a canal boat to Paris where he died, August 24th, in Red Cross Hospital No. 3, while undergoing a second operation. The funeral was held in the hospital on August 27th and his body was interred in the American Military Cemetery at Suresnes. A friend, who knew and loved Fiske and who returned to America with him in 1917, wrote at the time of his death: "I think his first quality was his modesty. He never realized that everyone on shipboard watched him with admiration. Everyone I talked to asked me who that glorious boy was and what he had been doing. He, on the other hand, said to me more than once, 'It is foolish to think that anything you do or are is your own self. It is all the result of what some one else has done for you."' Harvard University awarded him posthumously the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Two scholarships in his honor have also been established by his parents. One is to be given to a French student desirous of studying at Harvard and the other will be tenable at Trinity College, Cambridge, by an American nominated by the President and Fellows of Harvard University.
Charles H. Fiske Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army 111th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division Entered the Service from: Massachusetts Died: August 24, 1918 Buried at: Plot B Row 10 Grave 1 Suresnes American Cemetery Suresnes, France http://www.abmc.gov/search/detailw.php
Robert is listed in this book ... but I don't have a copy of it I'm afraid !! *CLARK, ROBERT FITZGERALD, Ensign New England Aviators 1914-1915 $59.95 Penn: Shiffer, 1997 Each aviator has a wartime biography and most have a picture. Table of Contents: List of Aviators Introduction: By A. Lawrence Lowell The Faces Of The Aviators. By Joseph Edgar Chamberlin First Pursuit Group. By Lieutenant James Knowles, Jr. First Day Bombardment Group Twentieth Aero Squadron, First Day Bombardment Group. By Lieu tenant Karl C. Payne A Bit Of Unintentional "Acrobatics." By Lieutenant Samuel P. Mandell The Last Raid. By Lieutenant Gardiner H. Fiske Ninety-Sixth Aero Squadron, First Day Bombardment Group. By Lieutenant Arthur Hadden Alexander Eleventh Aero Squadron. By Lieutenant Paul S. Greene Aviators. 472 pages, 6x9 hardbound, new. NE/MIL
Charles Henry Fiske 3d Short biographies the true spirit of those who volunteered to serve with the Field Service in France and died for our Cause. The intent has not been to eulogize their heroisms nor dilate upon their great achievement, but to sketch these men's lives, to touch on their ideals and beliefs, to express a little of their dreams. "AUX MORTS" Painted by Waldo Peirce S. S. U. 3, in commemoration of the men whose stories are here told http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/AFShist/MemTC.htm He came from a prominent New England family of Lawyers .... is father was a Lawyer - and it looks like he had 2 sisters also - Cornelia Robbins Fiske, born November 20, 1898 - Rosanna Duncan Fiske born 4th July 1900 http://books.google.com/books?id=w8...0#v=onepage&q=CHARLES HENRY FISKE, 3D&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=J8...2#v=onepage&q=CHARLES HENRY FISKE, 3D&f=false Fiske, Charles Henry, 3d (S.S.U. 3), U.S. Infantry. Died of wounds, Red Cross Hospital No. 3, August 24, 1918. Age, 21. Scholarship in his name http://books.google.com/books?id=vZ...yu.edu/estu/wwi/memoir/AFShist/AFS3i.htm#appa
