Posted by Terri St. Angelo

Roxane Cole introduced our very own, Rusty Atwood, as our speaker. Rusty asked to be on the program for the July 20 meeting because of the date, July 18, 1918, being a critical turning point in World War I. He wanted to tell us “the rest of the story,” and, by extension, pay homage to many others whose service and sacrifice during “the war to end all wars” has faded into history. He spoke to us about a Centennial Saga involving 1st Lt. Earle Adams Billings. Rusty’s wife, Sue, is the great niece of Earle Billings. 

The Saga began with “the Immortals” of Portland High School, the boys that never came home from the war. Earle Adams Billings was one of those boys. A Gorham native, he graduated from Portland H.S. in 1912, then entered West Point in 1914. According to the Register of the U.S. Military Academy:  “His career at the Academy was one anyone might well be proud in that he graduated with his class in August, 1917, nine months prior to the date set for the graduation of the Class of 1918. His kindness and thoughtfulness toward everyone with whom he came in contact was distinctively prominent in his every act and those characteristics, coupled closely with his loyalty, integrity and his everlasting determination to succeed through squareness to others, gained for him from his classmates a profound respect and admiration.”

Lt. Billings, upon graduating, was assigned to the 9th Infantry, which at that time was overseas. He was one of the few officers of his class who was fortunate enough to receive an assignment to a unit which had already embarked for foreign service.

Before sailing, he married Ruth Dingley Jenkins, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Wesley Jenkins of Portland, Maine, on October 10th, 1917. He was with her only until November 2, 1917, at which time he sailed for England. He remained in London a few days and then joined his regiment, the 9th Infantry, in France and was with it until sometime in January, 1918, when he was detailed to an officers’ school as an instructor. In the latter part of March, 1918, he was appointed as range officer, which duty he performed until the thirtieth of May when he was sent to the front to rejoin his organization and was with the 9th Infantry up to the time of his death on July 18, 1918.

Many events were taking place in the world in 1918. The US declared war on Germany. Moscow became the capital of the Soviet Union. The Red Sox won the World Series. The Romanov family was executed in Russia. Nelson Mandela was born. The Battle of Soissons began on July 18 between the Allied (French, British, American) and German troops. This battle ended after four days with 107,000 Alied casualties and 168,000 Germans. 

After falling on the battlefield at Soissons, the West Point class ring of Lt. Billings was stripped from his body by a German soldier. It was recovered when the German was captured a short while later, and returned to Earl’s widow, Ruth. When Ruth remarried and had a daughter, Katharine, the ring eventually was passed down to her. Katherine married another West Point graduate, Edgar Nichols and many years later, Billings’ ring was donated back to West Point. It was carried into space by yet another West Point graduate, Col. William McArthur, in October, 2000.

Upon the completion of the space shuttle mission, the Billings ring was back at West Point to be melted down as part of the Academy’s nascent Memorial Ring Program. Gold from the Billings ring, along with several others, was incorporated into the class rings of the West Point Class of 2002. Each year since, more donated rings are melted and the new class receives rings containing gold from past graduates.

After the war, Portland recognized their fallen sons by planting Linden Trees on Baxter Boulevard, one for each soldier lost. Each soldier from the Great War had a story to tell, perhaps not involving a ring that traveled into space, but important to a family nonetheless.

Rusty recommended several books: one by Richard Rubin, The Last of the Doughboys and Back Over There as good accounts of life as a soldier in the Great War, and a two-volume book by Don Zillman and Elizabeth Elsbach, Living The World War: A Weekly Exploration of the American Experience in World War I.
 

 

(Photo L-R: Rusty Atwood and President John Curran.)