Beyond the Memorial: The Lives and Legacies of Piedmont’s Fallen
It was another warm/hot Piedmont day on October 7th when 44 members of our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group and three of our K-9 best friends gathered once again at the Exedra for our weekly walk.
Sherry J was leading the walk. Her theme was “Piedmont WWI Fallen Heroes.” Sherry was going to provide the stories of the seven young Piedmont men who were killed in World War I. She wanted us to see where they lived and remember them.
Sherry started off by leading us up Mountain Avenue to 21 Dormidera Avenue where Thomas Edward Graves and his parents lived. Graves was a U.S. Army Lieutenant and flight instructor. He was 23 years old and an aviation instructor in Washington, D.C. when he was killed when his airplane crashed during a preliminary test.
We retraced our steps back to Highland Way, crossed Highland Avenue, went over to Vista Avenue and the Piedmont Veterans Memorial Building where the city’s original marble World War I Memorial has been placed. It honors Piedmont residents who died in the war and sits underneath a set of tall redwood trees at the right of the building’s entrance.
This memorial was designed by architect Albert Farr and dedicated on Armistice Day, November 11, 1921. It commemorates the men who died during World War I. The names inscribed on the memorial are Egbert William Beach, Henry Augustus Butters, Otto Julius Carlsen, Hunter McClure, Frank Jay Field, Thomas Edward Graves, and Carl Castlemayne Jones. It was originally placed in a grove of redwood trees east of Piedmont's commercial center, where Memorial Day observances were held. California Governor Earl Warren visited the memorial on Armistice Day, November 11, 1943. Piedmont historian Meghan Bennett provided images colorized through ChatGPT of the event.
The marble memorial was later relocated near the entrance of the Piedmont Veterans Memorial Building. Records are not definitive on the exact date when it was moved, but it was most likely when the Piedmont Veterans' Building (originally called Veterans Hall) was built in 1953.
It was noted that up the steps to the entrance of the building is an Honor Roll with the names of all the service members from Piedmont who lost their lives during all four of our country’s major 20th-Century conflicts. This memorial has the seven men from World War I and 50 casualties from World War II and six from the Korean War. Six more from the Viet Nam War were later added to the plaque.
The large number of 50 Piedmont World War II casualties was noted. The United States suffered roughly 416,800 military deaths during World War II out of a 1940 national population of 131.7 million. This equates to about 0.31% of the total U.S. population. In the 1940 Census, the total population of Piedmont, California was 9,866 residents. The 50 young men lost represented approximately .51% of Piedmont’s entire population. However, young men of prime military age (i.e., 18 to 30 years), made up roughly 10% of the city's total population, so the 50 deaths means that about 5% of Piedmont’s fighting age men were killed in World War II. That was about one in 20.
We took our group photo in front of the World War I Memorial and then went down to Bonita Avenue and up to 323 and 319 Bonita. These were the homes of Henry Augustus Butters’ family members. Butters died on August 31, 1916 at the age of 24. He was a Second Lieutenant in the British Army and was killed during the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War I. Unlike the other men on Piedmont's memorial, he served in the British Army rather than with the American forces. His death in 1916 also means he was killed before the United States formally entered the war in April 1917.
We continued up Bonita to 128 Bonita. This was the home of Hunter McClure of the U.S. Army, who lived in Piedmont with his aunt, Mrs. G. H. Harris. A November 1921 Oakland Tribune account said he was killed in the Argonne on September 26, 1918, the opening day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
We made our way to and down Park Way to Arroyo Avenue, crossed Grand Avenue, and went up to 906 Rose Avenue. This was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Jones, whose son, Carl Castlemayne Jones of the U.S. Army, was 26 years when he was killed in the Argonne on September 27, 1918, one day after Otto Julius Carlsen and Hunter McClure's reported deaths. These deaths occurred during the opening days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, when American troops were attacking heavily defended German positions.
The last stop on Sherry’s tour was up Linda Avenue at the front of Beach Elementary School. The school was first known as the Lake Avenue School and was built in 1913 but was renamed in 1918 for Lt. Egbert W. Beach, Second Lieutenant U.S. Army. Beach was born in San Francisco, grew up in Piedmont, graduated from Oakland High School in 1909 and the University of California, Berkeley in 1916. Before entering military service, he worked in the engineering department of the San Francisco-Oakland Terminal Railways. He was killed on April 27, 1918 by a German artillery shell near Villers-Tournelle, France, while helping locate trenches for an infantry working party. He was 29 years old. Sadly, orders had been issued two days earlier for him to return to the United States to train new troops, but the orders came too late. He is buried at Somme American Cemetery in Bony, France. He was remembered locally as an active church member who worked with young people. He is also remembered as the first California officer killed on foreign soil during the war. His family home was at 111 Sunnyside Avenue, which the walkers plan to visit at a later date.
It was a hot morning and time for us to make our return to the Exedra via Grand, Wildwood, and Magnolia Avenues. For time and distance reasons, we did not go to the family homes of Otto Julius Carlsen and Frank Jay Field, the other Piedmonters who were killed in World War I. Carlsen was killed in the Meuse-Argonne campaign on September 26, 1918. His body was returned to California, and he was buried in Oakland in 1921. Field died of influenza on September 21, 1918, while awaiting assignment to a ship in New London, Connecticut.
These men and all the others from Piedmont who lost their lives fighting in these wars should be remembered. Last Wednesday, thanks to Sherry Jacobs, they were by the Wednesday walkers.
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