Doughboy MIA For November 2024: 2nd Lieutenant Carl Abell Dudley

Carl Abell Dudley

Carl Abell Dudley was born in Keene, New Hampshire, on February 27, 1889. He attended Harvard University, where he graduated in the class of 1907-1908. On December 8, 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the Officers Training School at Camp Upton, New York. In March 1918, he sailed to France with Company C, 306th Machine Gun Battalion, 77th Division. While in France, he was promoted to Corporal, followed by Sergeant. On June 1^st, 1918, he was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant and assigned to Company A, 306^th Machine Gun Battalion.

On September 14, 1918, Lieutenant Dudley’s position near Merval, France, came under a German barrage. Corporal Anderson and Private Curran later recounted the incident to Graves Registration Service investigators:

“The last Lieutenant Dudley was seen was the morning of the big barrage, about September 14^th, 1918, when he ordered us to cease fire and take cover. Later in the morning, we found him dead. He had wounds from shell fragments to his head.”

Chaplain Nye, who conducted the burial with four men, provided further details to the Graves Registration Service:

“Lieutenant Dudley was wrapped in a wool blanket, placed on a piece of corrugated iron, and buried in a crude grave alongside an embankment. The burial was made halfway between the stone block house and Merval distillery, on the east side of the road running south from Merval. The distance from the stone blockhouse is perhaps 20 meters north. Coordinates 206.8-209.15.”

In 1928, the Graves Registration Service conducted a physical search at the reported burial site. According to the searcher’s report, the following discovery was made:

“The embankment referred to, on the east side of the Fismes-Merval road, was trenched from the stone blockhouse to the brick kiln. A former grave was encountered about 21 meters north of the stone block house. The grave contained a large piece of corrugated iron and parts of O.D.U.S. uniform and blanket. The details check in every way with those furnished by Chaplain Nye.”

Despite this discovery, the Graves Registration Service was unable to locate or trace the remains from the grave. Lieutenant Dudley was officially listed as Missing and is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, where he likely rests as an Unknown American Soldier. His official date of death is carried as September 15^th, 1918. In his honor, a cenotaph was placed at Woodland Cemetery in Keene, New Hampshire.

Would you like to be involved with solving the case of 2nd Lieutenant Carl Abell Dudley, and all the other Americans still in MIA status from World War I? You can! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization today, and help us bring them home! Help us do the best job possible and give today, with our thanks.  Remember: A man is only missing if he is forgotten.