Early in the war, the newspapers in North Dakota carried casualty lists containing only meaningless names or numbers. But by this date in 1918, that changed. The death of Louis Ousley from Wilton in early February brought home the fact that the men from the North Dakota Regiments were now in the front line trenches. The news from the battlefields, more and more, echoed from house to house across the state The war was no longer an alien concept. It now invaded the innermost thoughts of family and loved ones.
Most of the officers and non-commissioned officers of the 164th, the North Dakota Regiment, had become part of the Headquarters Company and were out of harm’s way. However, the casualty list for March 14th had the names of multiple North Dakota soldiers killed in action in France. It included Fred Gard and Hans Larson of Crosby; Claude Keller of Glenburn, and Frank Alidak of Minot. These men were among eighteen hundred former 164th Regiment privates transferred to other units. They became the first casualties. Martin Olstad of Kathryn, in Barnes County, who survived the war, became part of the 1st Machine Gun Battalion and in mid March found himself at the front with more experienced British and French troops. He came under immediate, unrelenting artillery fire and gas attacks as the Germans mounted their spring offensive near the Somme River. After seven days his unit was relieved and send to Cantigny for the first major American offensive of the war. He spent thirty-six days in the trenches, again under constant shelling.
But just as North Dakota’s soldiers began entering the trenches, the War Department announced that casualty lists would no longer carry the addresses of the men. They claimed that this information allowed the Germans to map troop movements. The Department began providing only the names of casualties nationwide This caused great consternation. People might see a familiar looking name , but not know if it was a loved one. It would take weeks to overturn this decision
F. W. Wardwell had made a prediction in the Pembina Pioneer almost a year earlier. He said , “It takes blood to make people understand what war means and what war is.” With the casualty lists coming in, for North Dakota that time had come. The blood and carnage of war, which seemed so far away a year earlier, now was a reality. The face of war had changed as the casualty lists brought the war home to loved ones in North Dakota.
Dakota Datebook by Jim Davis
Sources:
The Fargo Forum, March 9, 1918
The Pioneer Express, April 13, 1917.
Grand Forks Herald, March 04, 1918
Sioux County Pioneer, March 14, 1918
The Kathryn Recorder, February 6, 1919
