FORT SILL, Okla. (AP) - The Field Artillery Museum staff and volunteers have created a new diorama to commemorate the centennial of World War I, which began on July 28, 1914, and ended with the signing of an armistice on Nov. 11, 1918.
The Lawton Constitution (https://bit.ly/1PHHClz ) reports that the last living veteran of that war died Feb. 4, 2012, at the age of 110. With no one left to provide firsthand accounts, it is only through museums and historical documents that people of today can learn about a titanic struggle that tore Europe apart, brought down the 400-year-old Ottoman Empire and eventually drew the United States of America into the fray.
In this case, the historical document that inspired the diorama is a famous photograph of a U.S. gun crew firing its French 75 howitzer during the St. Mihiel offensive. An unknown U.S. Army photographer shot the photo of Battery C, 6th Field Artillery, on Sept. 12, 1918.
The gun emplacement depicted in the diorama is near Montfaucon, France, in October 1918.
Field Artillery Museum Curator Gordon Blaker said work on the diorama began with the painting of a background mural on Nov. 20, 2015, and reached completion on March 18.
According to a timeline provided by Blaker, museum officials began searching for and acquiring items for the diorama in 2012. It took more than four years to acquire 27 original French 75 brass shell casings. Fifty steel reproduction casings were then painted to match. A resin mold was used to fabricate an additional 40 shell casing ends.
The museum acquired one original World War I sandbag, and workers then sewed and dyed 75 reproduction sandbags to be filled with lightweight sawdust for the display.
The donation of an original French 75 ammunition box was followed by the building of four reproduction boxes.
The museum also acquired four original barbed wire pickets for the display. Workers constructed a faux ruined stone wall and fabricated a large number of stone blocks to simulate debris on the ground, and constructed a shell crater with faux dirt thrown up around it.
The museum acquired an original field telephone and sergeant’s chevron for inclusion in the exhibit.
The mud, dirt and ground surface were made using five five-gallon buckets of drywall “mud” and faux dirt made of sawdust and paint. The battlefield debris includes a German camouflaged helmet and trench knife, rifle and pistol shell casings, “shrapnel” and scrap iron debris, burnt and/or broken wood, a wine bottle and a broken door from a 75mm caisson.
According to SRCTec, a subsidiary of the not-for-profit defense contractor SRC Inc., “during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, this American crew of a French 75mm gun is in action firing against German targets. In this ruined farmyard, the sergeant who serves as a chief of section commanding this gun, communicates by telephone with the battery command. The battery is performing the calculations necessary to the guns to hit its unseen target several miles away.”
The French M1897 75mm Gun had a maximum elevation of only 19 degrees, which caused a problem when firing highangle at nearby targets, he noted. The American artillerymen’s remedy was to dig a hole in which to set the trail of the howitzer, thus elevating the gun’s tube.
An opening has been cut through the old barbed wire to allow the gun to be put in position. This crew has improved their position with sandbags to provide some cover when the Germans returned fire.
In addition to the sergeant, the gun crew consisted of a gunner corporal (left seat of the gun) who commands the gun and sets elevation; an assistant gunner (right seat of the gun) who sets the direction of fire, operates the breech and pulls the lanyard to fire the gun on command from the gunner corporal; and No. 1 cannoneer (down in the hole loading a high-explosive round into the breech).
The following individuals had a hand in creating the diorama: Zane Mohler, exhibits specialist; Rod Roadruck, graphic artist and painter; Lynden Couvillion, technical consultant; Katie Blaker, painter; Erik Sunderman and Elizabeth Mercer, mural artists; Carrie Starsnic, dyeing and makeup; Marsha Chasteen, seamstress; John Rogers, barbed wire and mud; Gordon Blaker, curator, and Spcs. Benitez, Merchant, McGlawn and Villegas.
Museum-goers will find the new diorama in the north gallery next to a statuette of Capt. Harry S Truman in his doughboy uniform. The former president trained as an artilleryman with the Missouri National Guard’s 35th Infantry Division at Fort Sill’s Camp Doniphan in preparation for U.S. entry into the war.
Blaker said artillery accounted for 80 percent of all casualties during the war, so it was “hugely important.” According to the History Channel, trench warfare and the introduction of machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons brought about unprecedented levels of carnage, leaving 9 million dead and 21 million wounded.
Despite America’s emergence from the war as a world power, the U.S. wanted no part of Europe’s problems and reverted to isolationism, rejecting President Woodrow Wilson’s plea for membership in the League of Nations. Unresolved issues left over from World War I would lead to a second world conflict one generation later.
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Information from: The Lawton Constitution, https://www.swoknews.com
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