Attention Jim Tarleton, an OT question

[Bruce Koligian]

Jim, did we conclude that Daniel Hunter died of old age during the mid 1930s and is buried in NY? BK

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[Jim Tarleton]

No.

1st Sgt. Daniel Amos "Pop" Hunter died at around 9:00 am 6 Jun 1918 from a GSW to the head and his current burial site is unknown to me. He is not buried in the Aisne-Marne (Belleau Wood) Cemetary (north side of Belleau Wood), as you know.

Pop was originally buried on the west edge of the first clearing north of Lucy St. George just at the woodline (Lucy-Torcy road to the east). He was buried with 75 other Marines laid side by side in a trench and wrapped in a blanket by Sgt. Tugboat Wilson (who was later KIA at Soissons). Pop's grave number was 29 if I remember correctly (subject to correction).

A great number of the Marines were disinterred and reburied in various cemetaries throughout France after the war. Starting in 1922, some bodies were disinterred and repatriaited to the USA at the cost of the family. Pop's grave does not show up in any database to which I have access.

I would like to know his grave site.

Jim

[Rick the Librarian]

Did Lt. Jonas Platt have a son? I read of another Lt. Jonas Platt who served as c.o. of the USMC contingent aboard the battleship USS Washington during the first half of WWII. He later rose to major general. A son, I'm guessing?

[Jim Tarleton]

Maj. Gen. Jonas Mansfield Platt of WWII, Korea and Vietnam fame was the son of Lt. Jonas Henry Platt of WWI fame. I believe they are decendants of the politician Jonas Platt, all of New York.

The two are buried very near each other in AC.

Jim

[Jim Tarleton]

That is Lucy-Le Bocage. Please pardon the mind slip. Landres St. George is near the Cote de Chatillon, a furious battle the 42 Div fought (and I think they were relieved by the 2nd Division) and where my Grandfather was wounded.

Age is detrimental to your health.

Jim

[Bruce Koligian]

...about whom I was thinking. Daly was twice awarded the CMoH, and died of old age at home in NY. B

[Jim Tarleton]

No problem. There were so many brave men who fought there it is difficult to keep them all straight as far as names go.

I just found an amusing reference to Sgt. Maj. John Quick (Signalman), who won the Navy Cross/DSC for an ammo dash to Bouresches on 7 July 1918. According to the officer in charge of the ammo run (in a letter written by Lt. William Moore after the war), Sgt. Maj. Quick was so drunk he was passed out, and took no active part in the action other than being bodily present, but unconscious in the truck. This fact was evidently known to the men who awarded him the medals (Navy Cross/Distinguished Service Cross) he so justly undeserved.

Sgt. Maj. Quick was a very good personal friend of Col. Wendall Neville's, the most likely candidate for the officer who shot the USMC runner in Mackin's book.

Amusing, but sickening.

Jim

[Rick the Librarian]

Jonas Platt (the younger) played a prominent role during the battleship Washington's duel with the Japanese battleship Kirishima (which she sunk) in November, 1942. He has a lot of mention in Iven Musicant's superb book on the Washington, "Battleship at War".

[Jim Tarleton]

The elder Jonas Platt survivied some of the most ferocious fighting of the war with only a leg wound. It amazes me how a Platoon Commander can survive while his Platoons are practically whipped out in succession. If I remember corectly, one of his Platoons was down to less than 10 men, and this guy is up front leading them.

I am not insinuating Lt. Platt was a coward, because he was anything but. He was just one lucky devil, as was Capt. Hamilton (killed in aviation accident after the war) and Major Sibley. Particularly Major Sibley, who fought on the front lines with his Marines throughout the war and never got a scratch and once killed four men in one day in hand to hand combat. We are speaking of tough a$$ed Marines. Just think how physically tiring that has to be.

If you want to read about hand to hand combat, I found a first hand description of a battle that was supposed to be an ambush by elements of the 169th and the 167th which turned into a hand to hand fight with bayonets that lasted several hours. I had to read it twice to fully grasp what occurred. The Marines did not have a monopoly on the vicious fighting of WWI. Check out the 167th at La Crouix Rouge Farm. One Company of 350 men was reduced to 7-men. When Cates attacked Boureches, he had only 5 or 6 men left from his Platoon (he was actually in front of Robertson) and 20 men from another. It was one heck of a war.

Jim

[stryker]

Jim,

Would the New York politician the two officers were descended from be U.S. Senator Thomas C. Platt of New York, (Theodore Roosevelt's old nemesis and the author of the Platt Amendment, which gave the U.S. virtual control of Cuba, including Guantanamo Bay, following the Spanish American War) rather than another Jonas Platt? If so, they were from a very powerful and influential family indeed!

Shawn