Honoring service & sacrifice: Author memorializes WWI, WWII casualties of Madison County
Born in 1898 in Hamilton, World War I veteran Lloyd Evans enlisted in the Marine Corps and was sent to France in 1917. Evans wrote letters home that were published in local newspapers describing his life in the trenches, being in the midst of a mortar attack and other firsthand accounts - sharing his personal experiences to vividly describe the everyday life of a Marine during the war.
A few decades later, World War II veteran Donald MacArthur was born in 1920 in Wampsville and spent his early days in Oneida. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 to serve in the Pacific. While on leave, MacArthur was interviewed and revealed the scenes he saw during their raids. He also described being on the other end of a raid as their own airfield was attacked, telling just how scary it was to hide in those foxholes.
Madison County Historian Matthew Urtz has memorialized these stories and many more recalling the service and sacrifice of area veterans in his new book, "Honoring World War Casualties of Madison County, New York."
Urtz recalled in 2016 he decided he wanted to write a paragraph about every World War I soldier who had died in the service to preserve their memory. He said his goal was to share a little of their background, where they were from originally and their education, families and military history. But then he found many stories were so interesting they just couldn't be confined to a single paragraph. He expanded his writing to include World War II veterans and found a publisher also interested in presenting those stories.
He started the book in 2017. Working from home during the early part of the pandemic, Urtz said he found the time then to "hunker down and finish it." His research took him on visits to libraries, historical societies, museums and the Madison County Veterans Agency for newspaper stories, obituaries and military records and he met with historians throughout Madison County.
Urtz ended up with the stories of more than 190 veterans with a Madison County connection who were killed in action, or died later from wounds they received, during the two world wars.
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"There are a lot of really compelling stories that are full of both heroism and sadness; there are also some tales that are just devastating," Urtz said. "One soldier and his wife died in a car accident soon after he got back to the states driving home to get discharged, leaving behind a young daughter."
The most compelling aspect he found in his research was that every single community in Madison County was touched in some way by the wars, Urtz added.
"A soldier from Canastota was able to stop a German sniper. Smithfield had a soldier on the USS Arizona that died during the attack on Pearl Harbor, while another soldier on the USS Arizona from Chittenango was listed as dead after the attack but he actually survived. Madison had a soldier who survived being on a ship that was torpedoed, only to die on a different ship that was torpedoed shortly thereafter. Two brothers from Morrisville who served in the medical corps died within a few weeks of each other. A soldier from Cazenovia after being shot continued to speak to squad leaders and give out orders up until his last breath," he said.
Urtz will be making several public presentations of the book in the coming months, including visits at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 9 at the Canastota Public Library, at 7 p.m. Aug. 10 at the Town of Nelson Hall and 6:30 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Oneida Public Library.
He noted he has a personal family connection to the veterans who served in the world wars that helped inspire him to complete the book and share their tales.
"Both of my grandfathers served in World War II so I felt a tinge to make sure we remember the sacrifices that these men and women made," Urtz explained. "I think as time passes these stories get lost and I hope in some little way this helps people for generations to come to remember the sacrifice men and women made during the world wars."
What happened to veterans Evans and MacArthur?
Evans wrote a letter to his mother May 24, 1918 saying there was a reason he hadn't written much recently and he would explain later. He died June 17, 1918 at 19 years old from wounds received in France. Evans is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Hamilton and the Lloyd V. Evans American Legion Post 375 in Hamilton is named in his honor.
MacArthur's plane was shot down Jan. 2, 1944 in the South Pacific and his remains were never recovered. He was only 23. MacArthur is memorialized at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Published by The History Press, an imprint of Arcadia Publishing, "Honoring World War Casualties of Madison County, New York" retails for $23.99 and officially goes on sale Aug. 8. It is available from Amazon or from Urtz himself at his public appearances.
Mike Jaquays is the community news reporter for the Mid-York Weekly. Email him at mjaquays@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Memorializing WWI, WWII soldiers: How writer uncovered Madison stories
