Regular Army Troops Passing Reviewing Stand in an Army Day Parade in New York City (Story Page Five)

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RECRUITING NEWS

UNITED STATES ARMY

THE RECRUITING PUBLICITY BUREAU, U. S. ARMY Governors Island, N. Y.

Lt. Col. Thos. B. Woodburn, A.G.D., Officer in Charge Major LeRoy W. Yarborough, Inf., Executive Officer First Lieutenant H. North Callahan, Inf., Assistant

Issued monthly by direction of The Adjutant General in the interest of recruitment for the Regular Army, the National Guard, the Organized Reserves, and the ROTC.

Permission is granted to reproduce any material in the United States Army Recruiting News, except that which is copyrighted or otherwise restricted.

Change of address should be reported promptly to this Bureau and at least one month in advance of the date of issue with which the change is to take effect.

May, 1941

HIGH COMMANDERS OF THE A. E. F. WILLIAM WEIGEL

Portrait by Joseph Cummings Chase

For approximately two weeks in October 1901 Captain William Weigel, Eleventh Infantry, at the head of fortyeight men stood off a force of Filipino insurrectos estimated at more than five hundred. Taking the initiative he drove them over the mountains to the east coast of the Island of Samar. He was stationed with his little force at the time at Balangiga, where, only a few days before his arrival, the insurrectos had fallen upon Company C, Ninth Infantry, in a surprise attack in the early morning and massacred three officers and twenty-nine enlisted men.

That same spirit of initiative and dash still inspired him nearly twenty years later, when, as a brigadier general, he commanded the Fifty-sixth Infantry Brigade, Twenty-eighth Division, during that unit's participation in the Aisne-Marne offensive in France in the summer of 1918. For this effort he was cited by Marshal Petain of France, then the Chief of the French Armies of the East, for giving "proof of the greatest ardor of the defensive, ceaselessly pursuing the retreating enemy between the Vesle and the Aisne, and capturing numerous prisoners."

Later during the World War he was promoted to the grade of major general and assigned to command the Eightyeighth (Cloverleaf) Division, composed of National Army troops from the States of North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. Following the Armistice he commanded the Ninth Army Corps on two occasions in an ad interim capacity.

General Weigel was born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Philip and Anna (Silzer) Weigel, on August 25, 1863. He was graduated from high school in that city in 1881. Two years later he was enrolled as a cadet at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. He was graduated from that school on June 12, 1887, commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry, and

assigned to the Eleventh Regiment, then stationed at Madison Barracks, New York.

Lieutenant Weigel served at the New York garrison for between four and five years. From December 1891 to June 1892, according to one source, he was in Europe, "making a study of military forces." He then rejoined his regiment at Whipple Barracks, Arizona. He served at that post and at San Carlos, in the same State, until April 1, 1894. At the latter place he was in command of a company for a time; he also served as post adjutant and commanded the Apache Indian Scouts from December 1893 to April 1, 1894.

From the Arizona frontier Lieutenant Weigel was transferred to the Military Academy at West Point, where he remained until after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in the spring of 1898. While there he was promoted to first lieutenant on June 6, 1894, and assigned to the Twenty-second Infantry. On the 22nd of the same month, however, he was transferred back to his old command, the Eleventh Infantry.

In May 1898 he was ordered to Camp Black, Hempstead, Long Island, New York, where he was detailed as quartermaster and acting commissary of subsistence with the New York State Volunteer forces. On November 25, 1898, he was appointed a captain in the United States Volunteer service, continuing temporarily on duty at the same station. While there he served also as mustering officer, and as aide-de-camp to his fellow-statesman, Brigadier General Alexander Cummings McWhorter Pennington, also a native of New Jersey, from June 17 to December 10, 1898.

From Camp Black Captain Weigel went to Havana, Cuba, for duty as assistant to the chief quartermaster, Division of Cuba, in which capacity he served until December 16, 1899. In March 1899 he was promoted to captain, Regular Army, and three months later was honorably discharged from his Volunteer commission. He was reassigned to the Eleventh Infantry after his promotion, and served with that regiment, as regimental quartermaster, at San Juan, Puerto Rico, from January 1 to December 6, 1900. The same month he returned to the United States, taking station at Washington Barracks, D. C. He remained in this country for only a short time, however, for on April 5, 1901, he sailed with his regiment for the Philippine Islands, where he remained until September 1903.

In addition to the affair at Balangiga, where with his little band of forty-eight he stood off half a thousand insurrectos in October 1901, Captain Weigel also took part in a campaign against ladrones and insurrectos on the Island of Samar, October 10, 1901, to December 31, 1902. On this expedition he served as chief quartermaster, Sixth Separate Brigade. He also took part, in the same capacity, in an expedition against ladrones and insurrectos on the Island of Mindanao, March 30 to July 16, 1903. All this time, he was also serving as regimental quartermaster, Eleventh Infantry, and was not relieved from that assignment until August 1, 1903, on the eve of his return to the United States.

Upon arrival in this country, Captain Weigel was detailed as constructing quartermaster, Fort Sheridan, Illinois, which post he filled from the fall of 1903 until September 1907, following his assignment to the Eighteenth Infantry, August 24, 1907.

He joined the latter command at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on September 27, 1907, just in time to leave with it for the Philippines. This time he was stationed at Camp Keithly, on the Island of Mindanao, where he remained until November 1909. This tour in the Islands was less exciting than the former. For several months, however, he was in

command of an outpost on the shore of Lake Lanao and that, according to some accounts, could still be exciting as late as 1909.

Upon arrival in the United States in November 1909, Captain Weigel was assigned to duty with his regiment at Fort Mackenzie, Wyoming. There he remained until March 12 of the following year, when he was promoted to major and assigned to the Second Infantry, which he joined at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.

He remained a member of this regiment until April 1912, but served with it, however, for only a comparatively

short time in 1910, as commanding officer of the Second Battalion. During the summer of that year he took part with the command in the Gettysburg maneuvers. Less than two months later on September 10, 1910-he was detailed on recruiting duty in Philadelphia. He continued on that duty until his transfer to the Twenty-third Infantry in April 1912, From that time until January 1914 he served with his new command at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and at Texas City, Texas. During this interval he served as provost marshal of the Second Division, commanded a battalion of his (Continued on Page Eighteen)

F

OR what is said to be the first occasion in modern times, the War Department has named a permanent Army station in honor of an enlisted man. Named two such stations, in fact.

The enlisted men so highly honored were killed in action in France during the World War, receiving the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor for their outstanding heroism under fire. They were Private David B. Barkeley, Company E, 356th Infantry, 89th Division, A.E.F., in whose honor Camp Barkeley, near Abilene, Texas, has been named; and Corporal Harold W. Roberts, Company A, 344th Battalion, U. S. Tank Corps, A.E.F., in whose honor Camp Roberts, near Nacimiento, California, has been named.

Private Barkeley, a native Texan, volunteered with another soldier to reconnoiter the enemy's position on the opposite side of the River Meuse near Pouilly, France, on November 9, 1918. He unhesitatingly swam the river and reached the enemy-held opposite bank, scouted the terrain, secured the needed information and was swimming back to his organization's C. P. on the American-held side when he was unfortunately seized with cramps and drowned. His Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded, was sent to his mother, Mrs. Antonio Barkeley of San Antonio, Tex

as.

Corporal Roberts, hailing from San Francisco, California, was driving a tank into action in the Montrebeau Woods, France, on October 4, 1918,

Lands Plane with Locked Controls to Win D. F. C.

First Lieutenant William T. Hudnell, Jr., Air Corps, was recently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism displayed when he landed his fast pursuit ship at Langley Field without loss to property, although its control stick was locked in the neutral position.

He was flying at 2,000 feet, returning to the field from an aerobatic flying mission, the War Department citation said, when the stick locked.

"Convinced that if he abandoned the airplane much damage to property and perhaps casualties among the residents of the semi-congested area over which he was flying would result," the citation read, "Lieutenant Hudnell disregarded all consideration of his own safety despite the fact that his first attempt to land proved unsuccessful and rather than risk the probable damage his uncontrolled airplane might cause, made a second attempt, and brought the dis

abled airplane to a safe landing. The courage, sound judgment and skill displayed by Lieutenant Hudnell averted the destruction of valuable government property, possible loss of civilian life and property, and reflected great credit upon himself and the military service."

Lieutenant Hudnell was born in Aurora, North Carolina, and entered the service from that state.

Fort Bliss in Technicolor Motion picture representatives recently visited Fort Bliss, Texas, with a view to making a film, in technicolor, of that historic Army post. The film, a short of the historical-travelog type, would be used in a general public release, according to the producing plans which had the approval of the War Department. Major William M. Wright, Jr., of The Adjutant General's Office, Washington, D. C., accompanied the producers' party.

The Cosmopolitan Army

A striking instance of how the elements of our varied population merge into each other without a suggestion of friction came to light recently in the ranks of the 22nd Infantry at Fort McClellan, Alabama. An officer was interviewing a recruit just assigned to the unit, and the following conversation took place:

Officer: Do you speak French fluently?

Recruit (from the Bayou country of Louisiana): I don't know, sir.

Officer: Well, have you always spoken French in your home? Recruit: Yes, sir.

Officer: Do you speak any other foreign languages?

Recruit (face brightening): Oh, yes sir, I also can speak the English!

Louisiana became United States in 1804.

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