Wyoming Sleuths Help Return WWI Dog Tags Buried In France For A Century

Published: 26 January 2025

By Jackie Dorothy
via the Cowboy State Daily website

World-War-I-dog-tag-mud-camp-and-dog-tag-1.26.25

A photo of American troops trying to navigate the miserable "mud camp" area of France during World War I. A dog tag lost there by a U.S. soldier more than 100 years ago is being returned to its family in part thanks to a Wyoming author and investigator who tracked his descendants down. (Getty Images)

A French field infamously known as the “mud camp” is still giving up World War I relics lost there more than a century ago, including dog tags. A Wyoming author and investigator are helping them get back to their families.

A French treasure hunter found an abandoned U.S. dog tag in 2012 that had been buried for nearly 100 years in a farm pasture where American forces had camped during World War I, an area that was known as the “mud camp.”

This unexpected discovery started a quest to reunite the dog tag with the descendants of the soldier in America.

The U.S. Army camp was located near the village of Glonville, France, on what is now a farm. Jean Claude Fonderlick often hunted old artifacts in this field on weekends and holidays with his trusty metal detector, looking for artifacts left behind from this large WWI camp.

He collected or sold most of the stuff he found: buttons, shell casings, knives, buckles and anything else that thousands of soldiers might drop or throw away in war.

When he dug up the American dog tag, Fonderlick considered it far too valuable to stash in a drawer or sell. He instead wanted to reconnect it with any living descendants he could find.

However, his English was poor, and he didn’t know how to navigate the U.S. government’s record-keeping labyrinth, so he asked a friend if he knew of anybody stateside who might help.

The friend asked a friend who asked another friend who asked a buddy and so on. Finally, an American author was contacted who said, “Oh I know Ron Franscell is a journalist and author who does a lot of research. Let’s ask him!”

When Franscell, a New York Times best-selling crime writer and Wyoming native, was told about the proposed plan, he felt that it could be one of the most important volunteer projects he had ever undertaken, so he agreed.

What followed was a Wyoming tag-team effort to return a single dog tag to the family of U.S. Army Pvt. John J. Scott of Kansas.

Returned Home

Eventually, the men would reunite seven World War I dog tags to their respective communities as Fonderlick continued to find more dog tags and other artifacts in the field of the infamous mud camp.

According to Franscell, these dog tags that Fonderlick had found were simple, stamped metal discs. They were worn on leather thongs or strings that often broke in the stressful, wet, violent environment of war, and would then be lost in the muck.

“None of the dog tags he found had been lost when the soldiers were killed,” Franscell said. “Most of these men had returned home, started families and careers, and done some extraordinary things.”

In the process of his research, Franscell heard wonderful family stories and met some very grateful people who were astonished to receive this little piece of metal that their grandad or great-grandad had worn in a war 100 years before.

Franscell described World War I as a collision of old school strategy and tactics. Soldiers were being mowed down by technology in a horrific scene. The mud they were mired in made their situation even worse.

“There is a human component to this war,” he said. “These are not just ghosts, but real people. It made this project worth doing, and that’s why I did it.”

Read the entire article on the Cowboy State Daily website here:

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