All Aboard for War
A Railroad Man's Experiences in WWI France
ABOUT ME
Who am I?
EP Dudley was my grandfather. His WWI experiences were left for his family in a daily diary he kept from June 1917 to November 1918. My goal has been to put his diary into context for his great grandkids and their great grandkids.13th ENGINEERS (RAILWAY)
About the 13th Engineers
The 13th Engineers (Railway) regiment was created on Friday, July 13th, 1917. The regiment departed from Chicago a week later in three trains of thirteen cars each. And it was to record thirteen deaths during its term of service.SHARE
Let us hear from you!
If you would like to share the experiences of your own family members in WWI, especially if they served in the 13th Engineers, please comment on these blog pages or send me a note through the Contact option in the main menu.
The 13th Engineers didn’t stay in England long, but their visit marked the first time US troops had landed there since the Revolution. Their parade passed before the King and...
After weeks of drilling and preparation in Chicago, the 13th Engineers finally headed to England in late July, arriving in England in mid-August 1917. Monday, June 18, 1917 Back to...
If war is boredom punctuated by moments of terror, the weeks in Chicago definitely represented the boredom side of that notion. Interminable drilling and packing up, and on his mind...
The final call to all officers and men was issued on June 1, 1917, to report at the Municipal Pier in Chicago for active service, to begin basic training and...
On April 24, 1917, shortly after the US declared war on Germany, former French Prime Minister René Viviani arrived in the US as head of a commission to solicit US...
During the first two years of the war in Europe, President Wilson had carefully avoided making any commitments on behalf of the United States. He was careful, even, to avoid...
I’m getting ahead of my story. In fact we need to go back a few years. In 1887 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway began to build a 350-mile...
In the late summer of 1914 war in Europe was far from the minds of Americans. To be sure, there were plenty of Americans of European descent, and many not...
At the beginning of August 1914 the world was suddenly and unexpectedly at war. The establishment of alliances and mutual protection agreements in Europe in the preceding decades had been...
This blog is about a man, a railroad, and a war. It is the history, one hundred years later, of EP Dudley’s experience in the 13th Engineers (Railway) during the...