Tag: World War I

January 17, 1918: Engineering Firm Hired to Build Plant at Nitro

On January 17, 1918, the U.S. War Department hired a New York engineering firm to build a nitrocellulose plant along the Kanawha-Putnam county border. The DuPont Company had previously chosen the site to manufacture munitions for World War I.

However, there were political objections to one company receiving such a large contract, so DuPont abandoned its plans, and the federal government picked up the task.

Within 11 months, workers—including a young Clark Gable—had built the town of Nitro, containing a large munitions plant, a civic center, a hospital and worker houses, which were segregated by race and nationality.

In November 1918, just as Nitro was nearing completion, World War I ended. The munitions plant had been in partial operation for only a week. The army inventoried and sold off the plant to the Charleston Industrial Group, which marketed the facilities to chemical companies. In 1937, one of these companies, American Viscose, built the largest staple rayon plant in the world at Nitro. Over the years, Nitro was home to at least 17 different chemical companies, including Ohio Apex Chemical, Monsanto, and Fike Chemical.

December 28, 1879: Brigadier General Billy Mitchell Born in France

Brigadier General Billy Mitchell was born in France on December 28, 1879. By 1921, he’d become chief of the Army Air Service. After seeing the potential military impact of aircraft during World War I, he wanted to demonstrate how planes could be used to quell civil unrest at home.

The West Virginia mine wars provided him with an ample opportunity. On August 25, 1921, armed miners began their long march culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County. Billy Mitchell arrived in Charleston the next day and ordered the 88th Squadron—part of the 1st Provisional Air Brigade—to southern West Virginia. Mitchell’s planes were used solely for reconnaissance. Many got lost, and one crashed in Nicholas County—located in the opposite direction from Logan.

Mitchell’s planes remain a confusing part of the mine wars story because Don Chafin, the Logan County sheriff, hired his own pilots to drop makeshift bleach and shrapnel bombs on the miners. Although Mitchell’s planes never dropped bombs, Blair Mountain holds the distinction of being the only time in U.S. history when law enforcement used planes to bomb American civilians.

World War I Exhibit Opening in West Virginia

Uniforms, artillery and weapons from World War I are included in a new exhibit at the West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s Culture Center in Charleston.

The exhibit is being unveiled Saturday at the State Capitol Complex. The event runs from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and is open to the public.

The exhibit is titled “World War I: West Virginia in the War to End All Wars.” Items included are from battles on the Eastern and Western Fronts. Some have been donated from West Virginians and their families.

The event is being held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I.

West Virginia's Supreme Court OKs Moving WWI Veteran's Remains

The remains of a World War I Medal of Honor recipient could be relocated to a West Virginia military cemetery.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Chester Howard West is buried at an overgrown and untended plot located in Mason County’s Chief Cornstalk Wildlife Management Area. A state Supreme Court opinion filed Wednesday affirms a March 2016 county circuit court ruling on a petition to relocate West’s remains in a place of honor at the Donel C. Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery in Institute.

World War II veteran and fellow Medal of Honor recipient Hershel Woodrow Williams filed the petition after Eagle Scouts uncovered West’s headstone.

West served in the U.S. Army and had enabled his company to advance without the loss of life while under heavy machinegun fire in France.

May 12, 1971: Nurse Col. Florence Blanchfield Dies at 87

Colonel Florence Blanchfield died in Washington on May 12, 1971, at age 87. She was born in Shepherdstown in 1884, the daughter of a nurse and a stonecutter. After training as a nurse in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps in 1917 and served in France during World I.

Between the wars, Blanchfield served in various army hospitals and in the surgeon general’s office. She was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1942 and became superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps a year later. During World War II, she oversaw expansion of the corps from 1,000 to 57,000, the largest group of nurses ever to serve on active duty.

After the war, she played an important role in passage of the Army-Navy Nurses Act. It allowed female nurses to hold full rank and receive the same rights, privileges, and pay as commissioned male officers. In 1947, Blanchfield became the first woman to hold a permanent commission in the regular U.S. army. She retired the same year. 

May 2, 1919: The W.Va. Department of the American Legion Meets in Charleston

On May 2, 1919, the West Virginia department of the American Legion first convened at a meeting in Charleston. At the time, the Legion was only about six weeks old, having been founded in Paris by members of the American Expeditionary Force after World War I.

A state women’s Auxiliary of the American Legion was organized at Grafton in 1922 for wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters, grandmothers, and steprelatives of Legion members or deceased veterans. The women’s Auxiliary’s work is dedicated to the welfare of veterans in hospitals, veteran homes, or for other veterans and veterans’ families with special needs. Women veterans may join both the Legion and the Auxiliary.

During the 20th century, the American Legion was opened up to veterans of any major American conflict from World War I on. By the end of the century, the American Legion had 114 posts in West Virginia, with more than 27,000 members. Both the Legion and Auxiliary sponsor programs for youth, including Boys’ State, Rhododendron Girls State, King-for-a-Day, scholarship programs, and American flag programs. They also promote legislation that encourages respect for the flag.

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