Remembering Doughboy Joe: A Tribute to Veterans on Memorial Day

Every year on Memorial Day, I share this illustration I created years ago. I first saw a picture of an untitled, unnamed veteran pop up in my feed, and the striking image of this aging man holding the flag really moved me. After I created it I chose not sell it, because I don't want the image to lose it's impact. If you would like a copy please comment and I may have a limited run.

I felt a connection with him. As I looked at his face, I wondered about the hell and heavens he had experienced, not only during the war but in those quiet moments when the only thing he had were his memories. In this illustration, I tried to capture those thoughts of wars fought and friends lost.

I never served in the military, so I don't fully understand the trauma one goes through. Outside of Scouting, the little time I spent in the Civil Air Patrol, and being married to a military woman for a few years, I have never experienced the trauma of war and military life other than as a civilian.

What I do know is that the military and war change you, almost down to every fiber of your being. I watched my ex-wife struggle with being home. The way her personality changed as she pushed me away, and told me I would never understand. It amazes me to reflect on those days. Those innocent days when we watched the Twin Towers collapse and the US go to war on the screens in our high school classrooms. The fear we felt of being drafted, the rage, the worry, war. We changed; we all did in that moment and we didn't even know it.

The Story of Doughboy Joe

After a few years, the image resurfaced, and I finally had a name: Joseph Francis Ambrose.

Who was Joseph Ambrose? Mr. Ambrose was born on May 24, 1896, in Joliet, Illinois, not far from where I grew up.

Mr. Ambrose's father and mother were Roman Catholic Austrians, not uncommon for that area. He was drafted in 1917 and served in the United States Army until 1919. Before being drafted, he was a laborer at the Phoenix Horse Shoe Company. Mr. Ambrose served with Company I, 140th Infantry, 35th Division, A. E. F., from 1917 to 1919. He and his company fought in St. Mihiel (September 12-15, 1918), Meuse-Argonne (September 26-November 11, 1918), and was in the Defensive Sector, commonly known as the Western Front. He was awarded the World War I Victory Medal.

After the war, Mr. Ambrose returned home and lived for a time with his father and sister, working as a heater technician for a gas company. In the mid-1920s, he married a woman named Maria. Together, they had four children. According to his WWII draft document in 1942, he worked in the tile business for E. I. Du Pont Construction.

I assumed he didn't serve in WWII due to age. Unfortunately, Mr. Ambrose's tale of war survivor filled with tragedy didn't end. On February 14, 1951, Mr. Ambrose's third son, Sergeant Clement A. Ambrose, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, was killed in action while serving in the Korean War at the age of 22.

So what about the picture? The picture that inspired me was from a dedication day parade for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was 86 at the time. The picture was taken by the United States Defense Audiovisual Agency. He is featured in his WWI uniform, equipped with his field equipment, and carrying the American Flag that draped Sergeant Ambrose's casket when he returned home to be laid to rest.

Mr. Ambrose joined his wife in eternal peace on May 1, 1988, at age 91. U.S. Senator from Illinois Dick Durbin gave this dedication speech about Mr. Ambrose in 2012: "Joseph Ambrose wore his old Army 'doughboy' uniform and carried his son's flag often to Veterans Day parades and VFW conventions. He confessed that some years he had to go on a crash diet to squeeze back into it. But he did it to honor the veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars, wars he believed America was trying then to forget. He wanted to remind us of an important truth: that no matter the outcome of a war, those who answer the call of duty and risk everything to defend America deserve the respect of a grateful nation."

Thank you for your service to all military members of all branches, spouses, and children. Lift your glasses in honor of all who live and have passed. May one day war be a distant memory. 

Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_F._Ambrose

Cross-Posted from my Store https://matthewdyeart.com/blogs/blah-blah-blah-art-talk/memorial-day

This is the first article I have written.

The Baker Rifle, the rifle that defeated Napoleon -By Matthew Dye

The Pattern 1800 Infantry Rifle, also known as, the Baker Rifle was created in 1799 by Ezekiel Baker,a master gunsmith from Whitechapel, England. The rifle was designed to be soldier-proof, effective, dependable, and easy to produce and has the honor to be the first military made rifle. It was put into mass production in 1800 and by 1801 it was taking lives on the battlefields all across the world. The Baker Rifle has a long and illustrious career serving in many battles and skirmishes through the Peninsular War of the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, the American Indian Wars and the Texas Revolution.

The Baker rifle was the first rifle to be designed as military weapon, up to this time the few troops that used them used hunting rifles, such troops were the German Jägers and the Rogers Rangers, all other weapons at the time were smoothbore muskets or carbines. Up to this time rifles were looked as something for civilized gentlemen and hunters to own because of the cost of production and slow reload speed. Although this mindset was very common among officers, the American Revolution showed the British the damage a group of trained soldiers could do with rifles, and created the Experimental Corps of Rifleman, designated as skirmisher units, to help stop the marching feet of Emperor Napoleon's army across Europe.

Although the Baker Rifle had several different variations to them and produced by 20 different gunsmiths under the Tower of London program. some of the variations were shorter or had minor changes to the lock and grip or like the East India variant didn't have a butt-trap compartment. The Baker Rifle is a muzzle loading rifle weighing in at 9 pounds with a browned camouflaged barrel, that features 7 rectangular grooves measuring the length of the 30in barrel. The overall length the firearm is 43.75in., 12 inches shorter than standard issued Brown Bess. The trigger guard had an elegant brass scroll to help ensure a sturdy grip. The lock, the firing mechanism, also called dog head, which held the flint, is the same sturdy swan-neck cock style found on the Brown Bess musket. The stock of the Baker Rifle was made from English Walnut that extended the length of the barrel. The barrel was held into place by 3 flat captive wedges. The butt of the rifle featured a raised cheek-piece on the left-hand side and had a butt-trap covered with a 4.5inch brass cover that contained a single or double compartment that carried cleaning supplies and/or patches.

 The ramrod housing was slit into the stock and secured with two brass holders to hold the steel ramrod. At the end of the barrel, there was a metal lock bar that would accommodate a single edge 24-inch sword bayonet. Some other interesting features of the Baker Rifle is that it featured a rear sight that consists of a block situated 7 inches forward of the breach and cut with a V notch and the front sight was made from an iron blade on a thin rectangular base that could be used to aim up to 200 yards. The ammunition of the Baker Rifle was a 0.625 lead ball, also known as carbine bore and fine powder. usually, riflemen would carry two different types of powder, depending on the needs of the rifleman, in different powder horns this was later to be replaced with a cartridge system.

What made the Baker Rifle so deadly was that the patch would grip the grooves and spin the bullet allowing the bullet to be accurate up to 150-200 yards if not more, compared to standard musket of the time being only accurate up to 75 yards. The usual procedure for riflemen of the time was to work in twos, one to load and the other to shot. The Riflemen would deploy into combat ahead of the main force to take strategic positions and snip the officers, NCOs, drummers, cannoneers and causing general chaos at oncoming combatants and other skirmishers. Another advantage of the Baker Rifle is how short the gun was, at least for infantry units of the time, that a rifleman could use the terrain to their advantage to get better shots of valuable targets. The Rifle could also be used in standard formation when needed, they simply just wouldn't use the patch and just load the powder and bullet.

Although the Baker Rifle was a terrifying weapon it did have its downfalls, one of the biggest ones is that it was slow to reload. The average British soldier could load and fire 3 rounds per minute and have a study rate of volley while in formation. Where the Baker could load and fire at 2 rounds per minute and it would be a shoot at will, this is the main reason why Napoleon himself despised the rifle and refused to arm his soldiers with them. Another drawback of the rifle was that after 20 or so shots the grooves would get mucked up and would lose accuracy and be harder to reload, some soldiers would use water or urine to wash out the powder residue.

Although the Baker had several downfalls, the overall damage it caused on the battlefields of the past was a large advantage. In my opinion the Baker Rifle helped defeat Napoleon by taking out key officers, damaging moral of the French Troop and causing the disruption of communication by taking out the drummers. The rifle wasn't only deadly in the hands of trained riflemen of both the British rifles and Portuguese Caçadores, it was also given to the Spanish guerrilla's to harass the occupying French troops causing more moral issues and loss of much needed information. To demonstrate the accuracy of the Baker Rifle in capable hands was when Rifleman Thomas Plunkett, 1 st Battalion 95 th Rifles, shot French General Colbert in the head at what most records estimate at 600 yards, during the retreat of Corunna, during the Battle of Cacabelos, in 1809. Who knows what other damage has been done with this rifle and how it changed the outcome of Peninsular wars and victories it made for British that help start rise of the British empire.

The Baker rifle was finally retired and production ceased in 1838 but some records show that some British troops still used the rifle up to 1841. This rifle had the longest serving life of any other rifle in British history, it saw conflicts in Waterloo, Ireland, the West Indies, South Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Nepal, New Orleans, and the Alamo. The Pattern 1800 Infantry Rifle lead the way for the rest of the world to standardize the rifle, without the Baker we wouldn't have modern day rifles and Napoleon may have been able to create a French Empire instead of the English.

Refernces

The Baker Rifle

Eric W. Edwards

Pitt Rivers Museum Library Assistant http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-baker-rifle.html

Military History Magazine

The Accurate and Deadly Baker Rifle

Arnold Blumberg http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/the-accurate-and-deadly-baker-rifle