28 MAY 10, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Ridgewood & Glendale soldiers’
roles in The Great War
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM / @
RIDGEWOODTIMES
Turn the clock back 100 years ago,
and you’ll fi nd the United States
in the throes of "The Great War,"
the confl ict that would eventually be
called World War I. The U.S. entered
the war in April 1917, and a number of
our soldiers who went “Over There”
came from Ridgewood and Glendale.
A draft signed into law by President
Woodrow Wilson required that all
American males between 21 and 31
years of age register for selective
service. On June 5, 1917, nearly 10 million
Americans registered, including
approximately 41,066 from Queens
County.
Selective Service Boards were established
in communities across the
United States with offi cials to review
draft ees and determine their fi tness
for confl ict. Several of these boards
were established in Our Neighborhood,
including Board 179 located
at 818 Cypress Ave. in Ridgewood,
where 480 men from Ridgewood and
Glendale registered.
The Aug. 3, 1917, issue of the Ridgewood
Times published the names and
addresses of those men from the area
who had registered — the purpose
of the listing being that if a neighbor
knew someone should have registered
and didn’t, they would be reported to
the Selective Service Board for appropriate
action.
Many of the men who were draft ed
from Ridgewood and other communities
in New York were assigned to the
77th Division. Activated on Aug. 25,
1917, it became known as “New York’s
Own,” and its shoulder patch included
the Statue of Liberty.
In World War I, the U.S. Army employed
three types of divisions: the
Regular Army, which included a cadre
of professional soldiers bolstered by
draft ees; the National Guard, which
includes troops formed into regiments
during peacetime who drilled
as reservists within their respective
states; and the National Army manned
by men who were inducted into the army
by their Selective Service Boards.
The 77th Division was one of those
National Army regiments.
The 77th Division would be trained
at the hastily built Camp Upton in
Yaphank, Long Island. An army of civilian
laborers were hired to construct
The mall at Camp Upton in Yaphank, Long Island, where many Army recruits from Ridgewood and Glendale
were trained for battle during World War I.
wooden barracks to house the newly
arriving troops. The fi rst inductees
reported to Camp Upton in September
1917, followed by larger numbers later
in the month.
As it turned out, Camp Upton was
a sea of mud, and initially there was
no electricity; acetylene torches were
used by the fi rst residents until power
was fi nally provided.
The 77th Division was organized
into the 152nd Field Artillery Brigade,
composed of the 304th, 305th and
306th Regiments Field Artillery; the
153rd Infantry Brigade, composed
of the 305th and 306th Infantry Regiments;
the 154th Infantry Brigade,
composed of the 307th and 308th
Infantry regiments; the Machine
Gun Battalions from the 304th, 305th
and 306th regiments; and the 302nd
Regiment of engineers, fi eld signal
battalion, sanitary train, ammunition
train and supply train.
As additional inductees arrived,
Camp Upton grew to almost 26,000
offi cers and men. To help the recruits,
the YMCA, Red Cross, Salvation Army
and Knights of Columbus all installed
Courtesy of the Queens Borough Public Library, Archives, Thomas R. Bayles Photographs
units at Camp Upton.
Aft er the initial training period was
over, the recruits were granted weekend
passes departing the camp at noon
on Saturday, but they had to be back
for reveille on Monday morning. The
troops used the Long Island Rail Road
to visit their families in New York City.
Training continued through the
holidays and into the spring of 1918.
Camp Upton had a mock trench, a
British tank and machine gun nests
installed to prepare the men for the
fi eld of combat.
Once their stateside training was
completed, the fi rst units of the 77th
Division left Camp Upton on March
27, 1918, via the Long Island Rail Road;
they were followed by other units in
the weeks that followed.
Aft er arriving in Manhattan, the
troops boarded ships bound for Halifax,
Nova Scotia, that arrived in the
Canadian port city within two days.
From there, they boarded a convoy
of nine ships — led by a U.S. cruiser
— bound for Europe. As they passed
down the lane of ships in the harbor,
one of them, a British battleship, had
their band strike up, playing “The
Star-Spangled Banner” and “Over
There.”
The 12-day voyage from Halifax to
Liverpool, England, proved uneventful.
Upon arriving in England, the
troops boarded trains that took them
to the eastern coast of the island, then
took a small, yet fast ferry across the
English Channel to Calais, France.
When the Americans arrived in
Europe, they were greeted by soldiers
in uniform from armies across the
globe: French, Scottish, Belgium, English,
Moroccan, Canadian, Algerian,
Australian, Italian, Serbian and New
Zealand.
Aft er disembarking in Calais, the
77th Division marched 8 kilometers
to a camp where they unpacked, then
marched back to Calais to exchange
their Springfi eld rifl es with British
Enfi elds. They were also provided
with gas masks and helmets. They
were then assigned to Pas-de-Calais
for 30 days of training with the British
Army’s 39th Division.
In mid-May, the 153rd Infantry
Brigade left for the front and marched
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