U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing, who had been bent on continuing the fighting, even had to explain to Congress the high number of last-day losses.
HE DIED AT 10:59
Anti-German sentiment ran high after the United States declared war in April 1917, and Gunther and his family in Baltimore were subjected to the kind of prejudice and suspicion that many of German descent faced at the time.
"It was not a good time to be German in the United States," said historian Alec Bennett.
Gunther had little choice when he got drafted. He was given the rank of sergeant, but he later was demoted when he wrote a letter home critical of the conditions in the war.
Soon after, he was thrown into the biggest U.S. battle of the war, the Meuse-Argonne offensive in northeastern France.
There were reports he was still brooding over his demotion right on Nov. 11. When he emerged from a thick fog in the valley around Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, he and his comrades faced a German machine gun nest on the hillside.
Indications are that the Germans fired one salvo over his head as a warning, knowing the war was almost over. But he still charged onward.
"His time of death was 10:59 a.m., which is just so haunting," Bennett said. Gunther was recognized by Pershing as the last American to die on the battlefield.
On November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front in France suffered more than thirty-five hundred casualties, although it had been known unofficially for two days that the fighting would end that day and known with absolute certainty as of 5 o'clock that morning that it would end at 11 a.m. Nearly a year afterward, on November 5, 1919, General John J. Pershing, commander of the AEF, found himself testifying on the efficiency of the war's prosecution before the House of Representatives Committee on Military Affairs.
The encounter was amicable and respectful since members were dealing with the officer who had led America to victory in the Great War. However, a Republican committee member, Alvan T. Fuller of Massachusetts, deferentially posed a provocative query: ‘This question is somewhat irrelevant to the matter under discussion,' Fuller began, ‘but I would like to ask General Pershing if American troops were ordered over the top on the other side on the morning of the day when under the terms of the Armistice firing was to cease … and that those troops who were not killed or wounded marched peacefully into Germany at 11 o'clock. Is that true?'
Pershing answered with his customary crisp confidence:
Just days later, however, the congressman forwarded to Pershing a letter from a constituent with a cover note saying, "I have been deluged with questions on this subject." The enclosed letter had been written to Fuller by George K. Livermore, former operations officer of the 167th Field Artillery Brigade of the black 92nd Division, stating that that force had been engaged since 5 a.m. on November 11 and had been ordered to launch its final charge at 10:30 a.m. Livermore lamented "the little crosses over the graves of the colored lads who died a useless death on that November morning." He further described the loss of U.S. Marines killed crossing the Meuse River in the final hours as "frightful." Congressman Fuller closed his letter to Pershing asking for "a real frank, full answer to the question as to whether American lives were needlessly wasted."
Fuller had Pershing's answer within the week, and it was categorical. By allowing the fighting to go forward, Pershing reiterated that he was simply following the orders of his superior, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, commander in chief of Allied forces in France, issued on November 9, to keep up the pressure against the retreating enemy until the cease-fire went into effect. Consequently, he had not ordered his army to stop fighting even after the signing of the armistice, of which, "I had no knowledge before 6 a.m. November 11."
gets started with WWI British in 15mm.
