WISCONSIN

Wisconsin woman visits France WWI battlefield 100 years after her grandfather was wounded

Meg Jones

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

NEW BERLIN - Grant Hill carried World War I with him for the rest of his long life.

Laurie DeMoss holds a photo of her grandfather Grant Hill in his World War I Army uniform. Hill was severely wounded in the Battle of Hamel in France on July 4, 1918, and 100 years later DeMoss and her family traveled to the small French town where the battle occurred for commemoration ceremonies.

It was in his memories, which he did not share with his family, and it was in his legs riddled with shrapnel on a French battlefield.

Laurie DeMoss has fond memories of her grandfather who died in 1974 when she was 20. To honor his sacrifice she wanted to visit the battlefield of Hamel on the centennial of his wounding, July 4, 1918.

At first she figured it would be a low-key visit — just DeMoss, her husband and son going to the rural site in France. But then she learned that hundreds of Australians were coming to honor their ancestors who fought in one of the first battles with combined American and Australian forces.

Laurie DeMoss holds one of the small wooden crosses made by Australian schoolchildren in honor of the allied troops wounded and killed in the Battle of Hamel on July 4, 1918. The New Berlin woman’s grandfather Grant Hill was wounded in the battle.

A crowd estimated at 800 to 900 turned out on the day for the remembrance ceremony and DeMoss said she and her family were the only relatives of American troops who fought in the Battle of Hamel.

"I was stunned. This was 100 years ago. In all these battlefields so far from Australia they haven't forgotten," said DeMoss, who lives in New Berlin.

Hill was 18 when he enlisted in the Army in Madison in January 1918, a 6-foot-6 red-haired farm kid from Soldiers Grove. Hill's brother John also enlisted and served in France during World War I.

Grant Hill was wounded in the Battle of Hamel on July 4, 1918. The Soldiers Grove man survived World War I and his granddaughter visited the battlefield in France 100 years to the day Hill was wounded.

DeMoss tracked down her grandfather's military records though she couldn't figure out which unit he was serving in during the Battle of Hamel. Historians tell her he was likely in the 33rd Division, which provided four companies attached to Australian units. The Battle of Hamel was the first time in history U.S. troops fought under a foreign commander.

She knows her grandfather was seriously wounded during the battle, but DeMoss has had difficulty trying to obtain a Purple Heart for him because she was told military records were destroyed in a 1970s fire in St. Louis.

Though Purple Heart medals were not awarded until 1932, troops injured during previous conflicts were eligible to receive a wound chevron. DeMoss suspects her modest grandfather never sought the gold stripe worn on his uniform’s right sleeve signifying he had been wounded.

As a kid she watched her grandfather pull up his pant leg after sterilizing a knife over an open flame to lance embedded shrapnel. "He would lift out the shrapnel and hold it up and say 'I got another one,' " DeMoss recalled.

At the ceremony on July 4, DeMoss left a bouquet of silk red roses in her grandfather's memory next to a memorial dedicated to the Battle of Hamel. She was given a wooden cross created by an Australian student with the words "Lest We Forget." As the only American family at the ceremony, DeMoss was interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Her family was invited to a reception where she met the Australian consul general. She also met a man who told her his grandfather was a stretcher bearer and they wondered if his grandfather carried her grandfather off the battlefield when he was wounded.

The Battle of Hamel was a victory for Allied troops. On the morning of July 4 — the Australian commander chose the date in deference to the American soldiers — 7,000 soldiers, including 400 Americans, attacked Germany's 13th Infantry Division. The main battle was over in only 90 minutes, but the victory came at a high cost — 1,400 dead or wounded, mostly Australians. Hill was among 176 American casualties.

"It's hard to envision what happened until you're on the battlefield. I didn't realize the Americans and Australians were coming up a slope and were being fired upon," she said. "It gave me a greater appreciation for what he went through."

Though DeMoss could not find details about her grandfather's whereabouts after he was wounded, she assumes he recuperated in France because he was fit enough to participate in the final battle of World War I, the Meuse-Argonne.

Hill worked as a carpenter and cabinet-maker for most of his life; some of the houses he built still stand in Soldiers Grove. He enjoyed hunting and fishing, flew an American flag at his home and was the town constable for 25 years. He unsuccessfully ran for Crawford County sheriff in the 1930s.

Laurie DeMoss, of New Berlin, holds a card her grandfather Grant Hill used to promote his bid for Crawford County sheriff in the 1930s. Hill was seriously wounded in the Battle of Hamel during World War I and DeMoss and her family traveled to France on the battle’s July 4, 1918 centennial.

Hill married in 1923 and raised two children, including DeMoss' father, a Marine who fought on the South Pacific islands of Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa in World War II. Like many World War I veterans Hill rarely spoke about his war experiences, not even to his son, the World War II veteran.

So it was left to DeMoss to speculate

"For a young man of 18 years old who came all the way from Wisconsin to France, I kept wondering what he thought when he was there and encountering that kind of battle," DeMoss said.