Finishing Touches Completed on Fallen Warriors Memorial
/The Fallen Warriors Memorial is being completed and prepared for its dedication at Jesse James Park, north of Kearney. The dedication ceremony and official unveiling will take place on Memorial Day, May 27, at 10 am.
Kearney Chamber of Commerce executive director Stacie Bratcher will serve as Master of Ceremonies and Sheriff Will Akin will be the keynote speaker.
As a tribute to these fallen heroes, KPGZ News will publish biographies of the soldiers as provided by Rich Kolb of the Kearney-Holt Fallen Warriors Memorial.
Gilbert Duncan
Home of Record: Holt
Birthplace & Date: Paradise, Aug. 6, 1897
Gilbert was born on a farm near Paradise, but lived south of Holt since the age of 8. He graduated from Holt High School in 1916. Working as a druggist clerk, he eagerly volunteered for the Missouri National Guard even before U.S. entry into the war. Inducted March 28, 1917, at Kansas City, he was assigned to C Company, 3rd Infantry Regiment. It subsequently became the 140th Infantry Regiment of the 35th Division (the division of future President Harry Truman), which was originally formed with recruits from Missouri and Kansas.
Duncan was overseas from April 25, 1918 to Feb. 2, 1919. The 35th landed in France during May of 1918 and eventually spent 30 days on the battle line. The 140th got its first taste of combat in the Gerardmer Sector of the Vosges Mountains that July. Held in reserve during the St. Mihiel Offensive, the regiment fought for five intense days in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive before being relieved. Two days into that massive battle, September 28, Duncan was wounded by machine gun fire and gassed while lying in the Argonne Forest. Recuperating in France, he finally arrived home more than four months after the war ended.
Discharged with a 10 percent disability on Feb. 15, 1919, he was married that July. He soon had to give up his job in Kansas City because of poor health. With his condition rapidly worsening, Duncan was admitted to a Public Health Service (the Veterans Bureau did not take over until 1921) hospital in Los Angeles for treatment in January 1920. (Studies later confirmed that victims of gassing suffered chronic respiratory disease and several forms of cancer.) His death occurred within weeks, on January 22. At his funeral in Holt, the minister accurately said, “He gave his life for his country just as if he had died upon the battlefield.”
The Missouri First World War Monument at Cheppy, France, dedicated in 1922, was erected “in memory of her sons who died in France, 1917-1918.” Perhaps it should be amended to include the war-related deaths after 1918 both at home and on occupation duty in Germany.
Sparrel Harris
Home of Record: Paradise
Birthplace & Date: Paradise, Aug. 17, 1886
Sparrel attended the rural school at Prairie Home and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Paradise. A bachelor and farmer, he entered the Army at the “old” age of 31 on April 26, 1918. He was placed in a national Army division; the 89th was composed of draftees from the Midwest. Not surprisingly, it was dubbed the “Middle West Division.”
The division arrived in France in June. It spent 54 days in Sector and 28 days on the battle front. This included time in the Toul and Limey sectors as well as the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. It went on line October 20 and was on the attack the last days of the war, November 1-11. Harris served with the 356th Regiment of the 178th Infantry Brigade. The 89th Division as a whole sustained 1,466 battle deaths during the course of the war.
But for Harris, occupation duty proved far deadlier than combat. For his unit, the U.S. occupation of Germany began Nov. 24, 1918. Two days after Christmas, he was felled by a deadly disease. At year end and early 1919, a third wave of the infamous “Spanish flu” resurged among Doughboys stationed in Germany. Producing a lethal pneumonia, it swept through the ranks. All inflammatory diseases of the respiratory tract combined claimed an incredible 46,992 U.S. military lives during WWI. First buried in Statisha Fredhof, Tier, Germany, Harris was brought back for burial near his home town in 1920. Only an obscure 1918 Spanish Flu Memorial in Hope Cemetery, at Barre, Vermont, which was unveiled in 2018, pays homage to the horrendous worldwide toll taken by this disease.
Clinton Marsh
Home of Record: Holt
Birthplace & Date: Holt, Dec. 8, 1896
Clinton was born in DeKalb County and came to Clinton County when he was 3 months old. He enlisted in the Marine Corps on Aug. 29, 1917, and was inducted at Kansas City. He arrived in France on Feb. 25, 1918. During WWI, the unusual situation of a Marine unit being incorporated into an Army division occurred. His unit, the 5th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Brigade, was assigned as one of the brigades of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, which was eventually commanded by a Marine general. After processing through the replacement holding company, Marsh served on guard duty from March to September in Havre. Then he joined the 30th Company at Chattion-Sur-Cher, which participated in the Battle of Mont Blanc Ridge and later became a replacement company in the 4th Brigade.
Then Marsh was assigned to the 66th Company (also known as C) of the 1st Battalion. He was a company runner carrying messages between units until November 8, when he assumed the same duties at battalion headquarters. The 1st Battalion crossed the Meuse River on November 10. Starting from Buzancy, the “Fighting Fifth” engaged in heavy fighting at Landerville, and by November 11 the 1st Battalion was on the far side of the river. Many casualties occurred in the crossing. The 66th Company penetrated the farthest eastward.
On the last night (November 10) of WWI, the 5th Marines lost 31 men killed and 148 wounded. Among the mortally wounded was Marsh, reportedly hit in the spine and paralyzed. 2nd Division commander Gen. John A. Lejeune later would write: “We fought our last battle…it was pitiful for men to go to their death on the eve of peace.” Marsh died of his wounds on November 15 – four days after the war ended. He was one of the nearly 700 5th Marines who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield or succumbed to disease during 1917-18. In France, the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial commemorates all the U.S. losses in this terrible battle.
But Marsh’s odyssey does not end there. Originally buried at Cheppey, his body was later moved to the American Cemetery at Romagne, France. His cousin, Garnett, also a veteran of the fighting, tracked down his grave site in 1919 and wrote an emotional letter to Clinton’s parents describing his quest. Two years after, Clinton’s body was returned home and on Aug. 21, 1921, buried at his Baptist church cemetery near the old town of Lilly, west of Holt.
KPGZ News - Brian Watts contributed to this story
