I think you'll enjoy this Radio Times podcast of Richard Rubin's interview on his book The Last of the Doughboys. And speaking of World War I -- and in honor of Memorial Day -- I have a picture of a monument on the lawn of the Lunenburg, Virginia, courthouse.
Last winter I posted about a gun captured from Germany in World War I that now is on the courthouse lawn in Emporia in Greensville County Virginia. So I was not as surprised as I might otherwise have been when I saw another World War I era cannon on the courthouse lawn in Lunenburg County. In fact, I think Rich says in the interview that there are more monuments to World War I in this country than any other war -- that sort of surprises me. But I guess the country was a heck of a lot bigger after World War I than the Civil War (and richer) and so there was more opportunity to put those up. Also, there was not so much of a need for monuments to World War II -- our entire country was a monument to it. Incidentally, for those who care about this sort of thing, you can see the Confederate statute in the background, to the right of the cannon.
The plaque on the front of the weapon details a little bit of its history:
This German cannon, captured by American forces in France, during World War I, 1917-1918, was presented by the U.S. government in 1928 to Lunenburg Post 102, The American Legion. Moved from Victory [a nearby town] to Courthouse in 1968.
My next post in this series will be of a mortar captured by the US government during the Civil War and then given (or maybe it's put on loan, I'm not sure anyone cares at this point) to Amelia County.
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