The night of Nov. 13, 1919 was cold and raw. Out over the Atlantic Ocean, a heavy fog had cut the visibility to almost zero.
Moving cautiously through this fog, the American freighter Lake Daroga made her way slowly past the Ambrose Lightship and headed into New York Harbor.
After passing safely through the Narrows and the Upper Bay, the freighter then proceeded up the North River where, a short distance upstream, she was met by several tugboats. Due to the strong tide running, these tugs put lines aboard the freighter and began easing her toward the Army’s Port of Embarkation piers in Hoboken.
A short time later, the Lake Daroga was safely moored to one of these piers, and the tugs had moved onto their next job. It was close to midnight. The inside of the long, silent pier that the Lake Daroga was tied up to was a colorful and impressive sight. Wherever you looked were American flags. Some were draped like bunting from the pier’s steel cross-braces, while others, huge ones, hung suspended at intervals along the entire length of the pier. These huge ones reached from the ceiling to the floor.
Why this ceremony for one American freighter?
Because in the holds of this freighter was a cargo which this country wished to receive with the deepest respect and the highest honors.
The Lake Daroga was bringing home the first of our war dead.
Months before, this same pier had echoed with the sound of marching feet as the men of the American Expeditionary Force returned home from France. Next came the hospital ships with the wounded. And now, tonight, came the dead.
Heroes lost
Aboard the Lake Daroga were 114 bodies. Most of them were Michigan men who had served with the 339th Infantry Regiment. The 39th had been attached to the 85th Division. This division had been commanded by Col. Wilds P. Richardson and had gone into North Russia in 1918 to support the government of Alexander Kerensky, who at that time was in danger of being overthrown by the Bolsheviks.
As Kerensky, who had proclaimed Russia a republic after the revolution, was more acceptable to the United States government than the Bolsheviks, the 85th had been sent to assist him. Much of the division’s time had been spent guarding the lines of communication and supply from the seaports to Kerensky’s troops.
This task had been done under extremely difficult weather conditions, with the temperature frequently dropping to 20 and 30 degrees below zero. This extreme weather, along with unusual living conditions, caused most of the 339th’s casualties.
Now, on the night of Nov. 13, 1919, these men of the 339th who had not survived, lay quietly in the hold of the Lake Daroga.
On the following morning, Nov. 14, gangs of longshoremen quietly boarded the ship and began removing the 600-pound caskets from the holds to the flag-draped pier. Once the bodies had been removed by the longshoremen, no other civilian hands would touch them, only uniformed soldiers.
As each casket came out of the hold and reached dockside, it was gently placed on a hand truck, which had been equipped with rubber tires to prevent jolting, and then carefully heeled to its assigned spot on the pier. Here it was placed on a small platform and covered with a new American flag while an honor guard stood nearby, ready to maintain a 24-hour watch.
Hoboken pays its respects
The next afternoon, still covered with the flag they had fought under and died for, the bodies of the men of the 339th were quietly put aboard a string of baggage cars to begin the last stretch of their long journey home.
As the train made its way slowly up the Shore Road and thence along Hudson Street to the uptown rail yards, many Hoboken citizens, glimpsing the flag-covered caskets, stood with their heads bared.
It was a melancholy day for the nation, and particularly for Hoboken, whose sad duty it was to receive these men back into the homeland.
It was 1922 before the last traces of war disappeared from Hoboken, and the city once again resumed its peacetime role.
However, one thing is certain. Hoboken will never be forgotten by its countrymen who fought in World War I. Because in some mysterious manner, a slogan is born in every war that catches the fancy of the troops. In the Civil War it was “On to Richmond,” in the Spanish-American War it was “Remember the Maine,” and in World War I it was “Heaven, hell or Hoboken.”
Every soldier in the American Expeditionary Force – and there were over two million of them – knew this slogan, and to them Hoboken meant the United States. What finer way could a city go down in the history of a war than to have it recorded not as a city of battle or death, but as a symbol of home.
Editor’s note: A full version of this column was originally printed in The Hoboken of Yesterday by George Long Moller, Hoboken’s first City Historian. It was reprinted in Hoboken History Issue No. 19, published by the Hoboken Historical Museum. Please visit the museum at 1301 Hudson St. for more information. To read past columns from this year-long series, visit www.hobokenreporter.com.