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END OF WAR - the final minutes of WWI
November 11, 1918 - An armistice signaling the end of the First World War was signed shortly after 5am. The ceasefire would come into effect at 11am.
Thank you, my friend LTC Stephen C. for honoring Sergeant Henry Nicholas John Gunther who was one of the three last soldiers to be killed on the side of the Entente Powers [England, France, USA, etc.] He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and posthumously promoted back to Sergeant after being demoted to private.
1. One member of the American Expeditionary Force killed at 1059 Private Henry Nicholas John Gunther [ posthumously promoted back to Sergeant],
2. one Canadian Solder killed at 1058 [Private George Lawrence Price] George Lawrence Price was born in Falmouth, Nova Scotia, on December 15, 1892, and raised on Church Street, in what is now Port Williams, Nova Scotia. He lived in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, when he was conscripted on October 15, 1917. He served with “A” Company of the 28th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Private George Lawrence Price is believed to be the last Canadian soldier to die in battle during the First World War. He died at Mons, Belgium, about 2 minutes before the signing of the Armistice. and ;
3. one French Soldier killed at 1045 [Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trébuchon]. Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trébuchon was the last French soldier killed during World War I. He was shot 15 minutes before the Armistice came into effect, at 10.45am on 11 November 1918.
Rest in peace Henry Gunther Henry Nicholas John Gunther, George Lawrence Price, and Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trébuchon.
END OF WAR - the final minutes of WWI
"November 11, 1918 - An armistice signaling the end of the First World War was signed shortly after 5am. The ceasefire would come into effect at 11am."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U10ON2aau3g
Thank you, my friend SP5 Mark Kuzinski for mentioning me.
Background on Henry Gunther from everything.explained.today/Henry_Gunther/
"Henry Gunther Explained
Henry Nicholas Gunther
Birth Name: Henry Nicholas John Gunther
Birth Date: 6 June 1895
Place of burial: Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Baltimore
Birth Place: Baltimore, United States
Death Place: Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, Meuse, France
Allegiance: United States
Branch: U.S. Army
Service years: 1917–1918
Rank: Sergeant (up to July 1918 or later)
Demoted to private; Posthumously restored to Sergeant
Unit: 313th Infantry Regiment, 79th Division
Awards: Distinguished Service Cross
Battles: Meuse-Argonne Offensive
Henry Nicholas John Gunther (June 6, 1895 – November 11, 1918) was an American soldier and likely the last soldier of any of the belligerents to be killed during World War I. He was killed at 10:59 a.m., about one minute before the Armistice was to take effect at 11 a.m.
Gunther had recently been demoted, and was seeking to regain his rank just before the war ended.
Early life
Henry Gunther was born into a German-American family in east Baltimore, Maryland, on June 6, 1895. His parents, George Gunther (1869-1919) and Lina Roth (1866-1938), were both children of German immigrants. He grew up in Highlandtown, an East Baltimore neighborhood heavily influenced by German immigrants, where his family belonged to Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic parish. Henry Gunther worked as a bookkeeper and clerk at the National Bank of Baltimore. He had joined the Roman Catholic service order for laymen, the Knights of Columbus in 1915.
Military service
Being of recent German-American heritage, Gunther did not automatically enlist in the armed forces as many others did soon after the War was declared in April 1917. In September 1917, he was drafted and quickly assigned to the 313th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed "Baltimore's Own"; it was part of the larger 157th Brigade of the 79th Infantry Division. Promoted as a supply sergeant, he was responsible for clothing in his military unit, and arrived in France in July 1918 as part of the incoming American Expeditionary Forces. A critical letter home, in which he reported on the "miserable conditions" at the front and advised a friend to try anything to avoid being drafted, was intercepted by the Army postal censor. As a result, he was demoted from sergeant back down to a private.
Gunther's unit, Company 'A', arrived at the Western Front on September 12, 1918. Like all Allied units on the front of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, it was still embroiled in fighting on the morning of November 11. The Armistice with Germany was signed by 5:00 a.m., local time, but it would not come into force until 11:00 a.m. Gunther's squad approached a roadblock of two German machine guns in the village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers near Meuse, in Lorraine. Gunther got up, against the orders of his close friend and now sergeant, Ernest Powell, and charged with his bayonet. The German soldiers, already aware of the Armistice that would take effect in one minute, tried to wave Gunther away. He kept going and fired "a shot or two". When he got too close to the machine guns, he was shot in a short burst of automatic fire and killed instantly. The writer James M. Cain, then a reporter for the local daily newspaper, The Sun, interviewed Gunther's comrades afterward and wrote that "Gunther brooded a great deal over his recent reduction in rank, and became obsessed with a determination to make good before his officers and fellow soldiers".
American Expeditionary Forces commanding General John J. Pershing's "Order of The Day" on the following day specifically mentioned Gunther as the last American killed in the war.[10] The Army posthumously restored his rank of sergeant and awarded him a Divisional Citation for Gallantry in Action and the Distinguished Service Cross. Several years later, a post, number 1858 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in east Baltimore was named after him. The VFW Post honoring the name of Sergeant Gunther has since ceased to exist.
Gunther's remains were returned to the United States in 1923 after being exhumed from a military cemetery in France, and buried at the Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Baltimore. Subsequent investigations revealed that on the last day of World War I, between the beginning of the armistice negotiations in the railroad cars encampment at the Compiegne Forest, French commander-in-chief Marshal Foch refused to accede to the German negotiators' immediate request to declare a ceasefire or truce so that there would be no more useless waste of lives among the common soldiers. By not declaring a truce even between the signing of the documents for the Armistice and its entry into force, "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month", about 11,000 additional men were wounded or killed – far more than usual, according to the military statistics.[
Memorials
On "Veterans Day" (in France, "Armistice Day"), November 11, 2008, a memorial was constructed near the place in Chaumont-devant-Damvillers in Lorraine where Gunther died. Two years later on the same remembrance holiday observance, November 11, 2010, a memorial plaque was also unveiled at his grave site in America at 10:59 a.m. by the German Society of Maryland."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown LTC Greg Henning LTC Jeff Shearer Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan CPT Scott Sharon CWO3 Dennis M. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG William Jones SGT (Join to see) SGT John " Mac " McConnell PO1 H Gene Lawrence PO2 Kevin Parker PO3 Bob McCord SSG Donald H "Don" Bates
1. One member of the American Expeditionary Force killed at 1059 Private Henry Nicholas John Gunther [ posthumously promoted back to Sergeant],
2. one Canadian Solder killed at 1058 [Private George Lawrence Price] George Lawrence Price was born in Falmouth, Nova Scotia, on December 15, 1892, and raised on Church Street, in what is now Port Williams, Nova Scotia. He lived in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, when he was conscripted on October 15, 1917. He served with “A” Company of the 28th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Private George Lawrence Price is believed to be the last Canadian soldier to die in battle during the First World War. He died at Mons, Belgium, about 2 minutes before the signing of the Armistice. and ;
3. one French Soldier killed at 1045 [Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trébuchon]. Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trébuchon was the last French soldier killed during World War I. He was shot 15 minutes before the Armistice came into effect, at 10.45am on 11 November 1918.
Rest in peace Henry Gunther Henry Nicholas John Gunther, George Lawrence Price, and Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trébuchon.
END OF WAR - the final minutes of WWI
"November 11, 1918 - An armistice signaling the end of the First World War was signed shortly after 5am. The ceasefire would come into effect at 11am."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U10ON2aau3g
Thank you, my friend SP5 Mark Kuzinski for mentioning me.
Background on Henry Gunther from everything.explained.today/Henry_Gunther/
"Henry Gunther Explained
Henry Nicholas Gunther
Birth Name: Henry Nicholas John Gunther
Birth Date: 6 June 1895
Place of burial: Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Baltimore
Birth Place: Baltimore, United States
Death Place: Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, Meuse, France
Allegiance: United States
Branch: U.S. Army
Service years: 1917–1918
Rank: Sergeant (up to July 1918 or later)
Demoted to private; Posthumously restored to Sergeant
Unit: 313th Infantry Regiment, 79th Division
Awards: Distinguished Service Cross
Battles: Meuse-Argonne Offensive
Henry Nicholas John Gunther (June 6, 1895 – November 11, 1918) was an American soldier and likely the last soldier of any of the belligerents to be killed during World War I. He was killed at 10:59 a.m., about one minute before the Armistice was to take effect at 11 a.m.
Gunther had recently been demoted, and was seeking to regain his rank just before the war ended.
Early life
Henry Gunther was born into a German-American family in east Baltimore, Maryland, on June 6, 1895. His parents, George Gunther (1869-1919) and Lina Roth (1866-1938), were both children of German immigrants. He grew up in Highlandtown, an East Baltimore neighborhood heavily influenced by German immigrants, where his family belonged to Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic parish. Henry Gunther worked as a bookkeeper and clerk at the National Bank of Baltimore. He had joined the Roman Catholic service order for laymen, the Knights of Columbus in 1915.
Military service
Being of recent German-American heritage, Gunther did not automatically enlist in the armed forces as many others did soon after the War was declared in April 1917. In September 1917, he was drafted and quickly assigned to the 313th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed "Baltimore's Own"; it was part of the larger 157th Brigade of the 79th Infantry Division. Promoted as a supply sergeant, he was responsible for clothing in his military unit, and arrived in France in July 1918 as part of the incoming American Expeditionary Forces. A critical letter home, in which he reported on the "miserable conditions" at the front and advised a friend to try anything to avoid being drafted, was intercepted by the Army postal censor. As a result, he was demoted from sergeant back down to a private.
Gunther's unit, Company 'A', arrived at the Western Front on September 12, 1918. Like all Allied units on the front of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, it was still embroiled in fighting on the morning of November 11. The Armistice with Germany was signed by 5:00 a.m., local time, but it would not come into force until 11:00 a.m. Gunther's squad approached a roadblock of two German machine guns in the village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers near Meuse, in Lorraine. Gunther got up, against the orders of his close friend and now sergeant, Ernest Powell, and charged with his bayonet. The German soldiers, already aware of the Armistice that would take effect in one minute, tried to wave Gunther away. He kept going and fired "a shot or two". When he got too close to the machine guns, he was shot in a short burst of automatic fire and killed instantly. The writer James M. Cain, then a reporter for the local daily newspaper, The Sun, interviewed Gunther's comrades afterward and wrote that "Gunther brooded a great deal over his recent reduction in rank, and became obsessed with a determination to make good before his officers and fellow soldiers".
American Expeditionary Forces commanding General John J. Pershing's "Order of The Day" on the following day specifically mentioned Gunther as the last American killed in the war.[10] The Army posthumously restored his rank of sergeant and awarded him a Divisional Citation for Gallantry in Action and the Distinguished Service Cross. Several years later, a post, number 1858 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in east Baltimore was named after him. The VFW Post honoring the name of Sergeant Gunther has since ceased to exist.
Gunther's remains were returned to the United States in 1923 after being exhumed from a military cemetery in France, and buried at the Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Baltimore. Subsequent investigations revealed that on the last day of World War I, between the beginning of the armistice negotiations in the railroad cars encampment at the Compiegne Forest, French commander-in-chief Marshal Foch refused to accede to the German negotiators' immediate request to declare a ceasefire or truce so that there would be no more useless waste of lives among the common soldiers. By not declaring a truce even between the signing of the documents for the Armistice and its entry into force, "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month", about 11,000 additional men were wounded or killed – far more than usual, according to the military statistics.[
Memorials
On "Veterans Day" (in France, "Armistice Day"), November 11, 2008, a memorial was constructed near the place in Chaumont-devant-Damvillers in Lorraine where Gunther died. Two years later on the same remembrance holiday observance, November 11, 2010, a memorial plaque was also unveiled at his grave site in America at 10:59 a.m. by the German Society of Maryland."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown LTC Greg Henning LTC Jeff Shearer Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan CPT Scott Sharon CWO3 Dennis M. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG William Jones SGT (Join to see) SGT John " Mac " McConnell PO1 H Gene Lawrence PO2 Kevin Parker PO3 Bob McCord SSG Donald H "Don" Bates
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LTC Stephen F.
FYI PO2 Jeffery Marcussen Sr LTJG Robert M. PO3 (Join to see) PO2 Jonathan Scharff LCDR (Join to see) CMC Robert Young CWO3 Dave Alcantara PO1 John Johnson LTJG Richard BruceSgt Jay JonesCWO3 (Join to see) GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad SPC Americo Garcia Sgt (Join to see) SSgt Terry P. Sgt David G Duchesneau LT John Chang LTJG Josh Thaxton CWO3 Dennis M. CMDCM Gene Treants
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LTC Stephen F.
FYI CW5 John M. LTC (Join to see)Sgt John H.PVT Mark Zehner1sg-dan-capriSGT Robert R.CPT Tommy CurtisSGT (Join to see) SGT Steve McFarland SGT Mark AndersonSFC Jack ChampionA1C Ian WilliamsCpl James R. " Jim" Gossett Jr SPC Jon O.Cynthia CroftPO1 William "Chip" Nagel LTC Wayne Brandon LTC Bill Koski SPC Woody BullardSgt Albert Castro
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Thank you LTC Stephen C. - great historical post and my he rest in peace. Bless you.
COL Mikel J. Burroughs SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM PO3 Lynn Spalding PO1 H Gene Lawrence SSG William Jones Maj William W. 'Bill' Price LTC Stephen F. ] Alan K. SGT John " Mac " McConnell ] Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SPC Douglas Bolton Lt Col Charlie Brown Sgt Randy Wilber MSgt John McGowan Cpl (Join to see) PO3 Bob McCord SPC Margaret Higgins Sgt Albert Castro
COL Mikel J. Burroughs SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM PO3 Lynn Spalding PO1 H Gene Lawrence SSG William Jones Maj William W. 'Bill' Price LTC Stephen F. ] Alan K. SGT John " Mac " McConnell ] Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SPC Douglas Bolton Lt Col Charlie Brown Sgt Randy Wilber MSgt John McGowan Cpl (Join to see) PO3 Bob McCord SPC Margaret Higgins Sgt Albert Castro
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