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Honoring the “Hello Girls” of World War I
The Hello Girls were the telephone operators who responded to a call from their country to provide bi-lingual telephone services in the theatre of war. It is estimated that they connected 26 million calls and were a significant factor in turning the tide of the war. They were denied veteran status from the end of the war until 1977. The U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, pre-COVID, recommended to Congress that the Hello Girls be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Honoring the “Hello Girls” of World War I
By Nicole Kunze
via the Lehi Free Press newspaper (UT) web site
More than 100 years ago, women from every state in the U.S. volunteered to serve as switchboard operators and real-time translators on the front lines of World War I. They served under commissioned officers, wore dog tags, rank insignia and uniforms and swore the Army Oath, but the 223 women and 2 men of the Signal Corps Telephone Operator Unit were told when they came home that they had served as “civilian contractors” instead of soldiers. Lehi’s John Hutchings Museum Director Daniela Larsen is doing her part to get the “Hello Girls” recognition they’ve long deserved.
Daniela Larsen“At first, they had men operating the phone lines, but they were slow. General Pershing requested women who were already trained as switchboard operators instead,” explained Daniela Larsen. The women were six times faster at connecting calls than the men they replaced. “A few minutes made the difference between life and death on the front lines in France.”
Two of the “Hello Girls” were from Utah, Emelia Katharine Lumpert and Mary Marshall.
For almost 60 years, the surviving members of the Signal Corps Telephone Operator Unit petitioned Congress for the same veterans’ recognition afforded to their male colleagues and female Army nurses. In 1977 Congress passed a law paving the way for the “Hello Girls” and the WASP pilots from WW2 to be recognized as full veterans of the US Armed Forces. In 2009 the WASPs received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest medal bestowed by civilians in the United States.
The World War One Centennial Commission is working to honor the “Hello Girls” with the same honor. Congressional Gold Medal bill, S.206 currently has 24 cosponsors and bipartisan support.
“World War I was so long ago; we’re losing our connections to it and the lessons from it. The John Hutchings Museum was built as a monument to World War I. We really want to take up this cause and properly memorialize the ‘Hello Girls,” Larsen explained.
On Monday, March 21, Larsen met with staff members in Utah Senator Mike Lee’s office to ask them to support S. 206. Both Utah senators’ offices are busy fielding calls about helping Ukraine, but Senator Lee’s staff listened attentively to Larsen. “We will always take time to hear from constituents. This is a great cause,” said Nate Jackson, Northern Utah Director and Military Affairs Advisor for Senator Lee.
An American Father-Daughter Story in World War I
After the death of his mother Dorothy Martin at age 94 in 2001, James Larrimore (left) was stunned to discover a trove of information about World War I the service of his grandfather Don Martin as a wartime correspondent. Larrimore turned the father-daughter letters, his grandfather's diaries, and other materials into a blog, and finally a book (center), “In Their Own Words, Writings of war correspondent Don Martin and his 11-year-old daughter Dorothy. An intimate view of WWI.”
An American Father-Daughter Story in World War I
By James Larrimore
Special to the Doughboy Foundation web site
On my mother’s death in 2001 at age 94, I came into possession of family records from the World War I era. My grandfather, Don Martin, whom I never met, had died in France while serving as a war correspondent; a poem written about him was titled “Soldier of the Pen.” I found original letters he wrote to his daughter (my mother) and letters from her to him. Also, there were my grandfather’s diaries for 1917 and 1918, and letters of condolence upon his death from Spanish influenza in October 1918, including from Commander-in-Chief John J. Pershing. My mother had told me little about this. I realized that I had to learn about the role my grandfather had played in World War I.
Don Martin was a well-known political journalist of the New York Herald in 1917, when he was assigned to cover the American Expeditionary forces in France. Once he reached the war zone in March 1918, he quickly became recognized as one of four leading American war correspondents, together with Floyd Gibbons of the Chicago Tribune, Martin Green of the New York Evening World and Ray Carroll of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. On learning of his death, former President Theodore Roosevelt wrote:
“Martin was one of the best and truest men with whom I have had relationships…He was of that sort that makes it quite worth while for a real man to do his best, efficiently, honestly and thoroughly.”
I had found that my grandfather was a role model and a hero.
With the WWI Centennial approaching, I decided to make public Don Martin’s reporting and writings on WWI. I set up a blog on which I posted daily, from December 2017 to October 2018, what Don Martin had written one-hundred-years before in his diary and in his war dispatches. It was exciting to relive his wartime experiences day by day, yet something important was missing - the story of the separation of a father from his 11-year-old daughter Dorothy by WWI and how their relationship was maintained through letters, handwritten one a week by Dorothy and sometimes even more frequently by her father. Collating all these sources to tell their story was a moving experience. This book, “In Their Own Words, Writings of war correspondent Don Martin and his 11-year-old daughter Dorothy. An intimate view of WWI,” is intended to be a further contribution to the Centennial of WWI.
Book Launch & Photography Reception, Washington, DC – April 6, 2022 for the two-volume book “In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War”
April 6 Book Launch & Photography Reception, Washington, DC for the two-volume book “In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War”
By Kathy Abbott
Staff Writer
In recognition of the 105th anniversary of the American entry into World War I, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), the Doughboy Foundation, the Embassy of Hungary, and Mathias Corvinus Collegium invite you to a Book Launching ceremony and Photography Reception for the premiere of Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy’s forthcoming two-volume book, “In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War.” The event will be held at the DAR Headquarters, located in the heart of Washington D.C at 1776 D St NW, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 5 p.m.
Attila Szalay-BerzeviczyAlso attending will be Jari Villanueva, Taps for Veterans, producer and lead bugler for Daily Taps at the National WWI Memorial, in Washington, DC. All proceeds from the event will be used to complete the National WWI Memorial, DC , and to ensure that Daily Taps is played at the Memorial forever.
In Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy’s program notes for the ceremony “Lessons from the First World War to Prevent the Third World War” he notes, “After concluding my centennial project, I am delighted to present to you the story of the Great War in full-color photographs. I very much hope that the images in this volume and the next will inspire you to visit these historic places with your children in order to discover the peace and beauty I found there, and to reflect at the exact location on the tragic events that took place there over one hundred years ago. I also hope that this two-volume book will in some small way contribute and support future commemorations beyond the centenary, and will remind everyone that peace can never be taken for granted. It is my wish that our great-great-grandchildren will be able to commemorate the bicentenary of the outbreak of the Great War on 28 June 2114, after a century of global peace.”
Below Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy reflects on “In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War” as it chronicles and explains the historical events and the horrors of the First World War through photos that were taken 100 years later, between 2014 and 2021 in each and every theatre of the war, covering altogether fifty-seven different countries:
