Clyde John Meece was born on August 20th, 1893, in Bold Springs, TX. His father, Monroe Dawson Meece, was 46 years old and his mother Danielle Alice “Allie” Baggett Meece was 32 years old. More than likely his father selected the middle name John in honor of his brother John W. Meece. The 1900 United States Federal Census showed nothing of significance. Not surprising considering the fact that he was only 6 years of age. In the 1910 census he was identified as being able to read, write and speak English. He was 16 years of age. The census worker began to write farm under occupation but stopped after penning the first letter.
On June 5th, 1917, he completed the U.S., World War I Draft Registration Card. Clyde was 23 years old. He described himself as medium height, medium build, blue eyes and having black hair. He listed his occupation as farming and his status as single. Amusingly, he listed his place of birth as Nettie, TX.
Bold Springs, along with Colita, is one of a series of small communities known collectively as the Louisiana Settlement Bold Springs was established during the 1840s and named after the springs in the area. A Baptist church (Bethel) was organized there in 1849. The community subsequently had a small turpentine distillery. The Bold Springs post office was known as Nettie after the postmistress, Nettie Burgess, which operated from 1903 to 1923. Nettie was not officially known as a town or community per se.
Clyde joined the Ninetieth Division, 360th Infantry, Company D. It was also known as the “Alamo Division.” The Insignia had red monogram of letters “T” and “O”, symbolizing Texas and Oklahoma, the native states of the first members of the division. The Ninetieth Division was organized at Camp Travis in September and October of 1917. Camp Travis, originally known as Camp Wilson, was five miles northeast of downtown San Antonio on the northeastern adjacent boundary of Fort Sam Houston. Camp Wilson was renamed Camp Travis in honor of Alamo hero William B. Travis.
On June 14th, 1918, Clyde boarded the RMS Olympic for transport to, more than likely, Liverpool, England. The majority of the division traveled to England although a few travelled directly to France. The 360th Infantry was sent to Rouvres, France, where the division stayed for six weeks. They trained eight hours a day until they were called to action.
Just prior to this sailing, the Olympic crew sighted a German U-boat in the English Channel on May 12th, 1918. The gunners opened fire at once, and the ship turned to ram the submarine. The Olympic struck the submarine, just aft of her conning tower, with her port propeller slicing through U-103’s pressure hull. It was learned afterwards that the submarine was preparing to fire two torpedoes at the Olympic.
RMS Olympic was a British ocean liner and the lead ship of the White Star Line’s trio of Olympic-class liners. Her sister ships were the Titanic and Britannic. On April 14th, 1912, the Olympic was on a return trip from New York when the crew received a distress call from the Titanic. The Captain of the RMS Carpathia waived off the Olympic when it was roughly 100 miles away. There was nothing more that could be done.
The Captain of the Olympic offered to take on the survivors, but he was turned down. Ismay of the White Star Line was concerned that asking the survivors to board a virtual mirror-image of Titanic would cause them distress. The Olympic was ultimately placed in service as a troop ship during the First World War. During the war, the Olympic was reported to have transported 201,000 troops. I wonder if the troops knew the historical significance of the vessel they were boarding.
The division was under fire from Aug. 20th to Nov. 11th and fought for seventy-five days without relief. During this time, it was a part of two major offensives and seven minor operations. The 360th Infantry played a role in the third phase of a major offensive that began on November 1st, 1918. During the advance descriptions of the battle included:
• “The battalion suffered very heavily from artillery fire”.
• “Two attempts were made to push forward, but the result was so ghastly that the line was halted. The men took refuge in shell-holes, and the situation was reported to regimental headquarters”.
• “When they began to emerge from cover, terrific machine gun fire poured into the lines”.
• “Lieutenant Fleming Burk, commanding Company D (Clyde’s Company), was wounded, and replaced by Lieutenant Alfred L. Jones.”
I’ve attached the full article published in a La Grange, TX, newspaper detailing the battle. The Stars and Stripes published on November 15th, 1918, was referenced in the article. The Stars and Stripes was a daily American military newspaper reporting on matters concerning the members of the United States Armed Forces and their communities. I don’t know if they were trying to rally the troops or scare the holy hell out of them. The local author showed a total lack of empathy for the Texas families that were reading this trash. Could you imagine, if you were a parent that had a son in the Ninetieth Division 360th Infantry, reading this article.
I can’t even conceive what Clyde was feeling in the midst of this battle. Here he was, a young man from a small farming community suddenly thrust into the hellscape that was World War I and the Meuse-Argonne offensive. I’m sure he was proud and felt a sense of duty but the fear and anxiety had to be off the charts. It was the deadliest campaign in American history, resulting in over 26,000 soldiers being killed in action (KIA) and over 120,000 casualties. The U.S. was only involved in WWI for approximately 19 months.
Sergeant Clyde John Meece was reported MIA. His body was never discovered. Dog tags were in use during WW1 so identification of the dead was not an issue. According to the headstone located at Bold Springs Cemetery in Bold Springs, TX, Clyde died on November 1st, 1918. According to the Veterans Administration Master Index and the memorial at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France, Clyde died on November 4th, 1918. Honestly, I don’t think that anyone truly knows when he died. I’ve included two articles reporting his death. One is dated December 7th, 1918, and the other is dated December 12th, 1918.
December 12th, 1918
IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE WAR
THE PART PLAYED BY THE BOYS FROM TEXAS
Address to Relatives and Friends of the 360th Infantry
News coming in slowly from the blood-bathed banks of the Meuse shows that our boys knew how, like Crockett and Bowie, to die but not to surrender or retreat.
There is practically authentic information in hand showing its battle losses, between September 10 at St. Mihiel and Sedan on November 11 will total, if not exceed, 50 per cent. When our boys come home for the final muster out more than one-half of the old faces will be gone. As our men were shot down their places were taken by others, but the regiment never faltered.
Raked by deadly and venomous boche artillery and machine gun fire, it swept onward, never failing to attain its objective. On November 5, presumably at Dun-Meuse, its losses were 5 officers killed, 29 officers wounded, and 900 of its heroes in the ranks killed or wounded. When the sun went down the night of November 10, Stenay had been taken and the gateway of the German retreat closed; but it was not until about 11 a.m. next day that the 90th division occupied that stronghold and gap.
The Stars and Stripes, printed in Paris on November 15, in describing that crossing at Dun-Meuse, tells how the Americans–Texans, if you please, plunged into that river, icy cold, bridged it, waded it, swam it, mounted the opposite heights and in hand-to- hand work, drove back the Hun hosts, forever silencing their terrific artillery, machine gun and hand grenade work. Even after that, the work of the 90th division was not done, for with thinned ranks it went undaunted up that narrow path leading northward along the Meuse raked by machine guns and artillery. Of the last 24 hours of that work Stars and Stripes says:
“The heights near Wadelincourt were hard to reach. The last 24 hours of the American path to those heights were marked by some of the bitterest moments of the Argonne-Meuse drive. The valley that runs northward was commanded by many machine guns, swept by the fire from guns across the river which will not soon be forgotten by the troops that trod it. That deadly path was travelled that day.”
After telling how an advance of 15 kilometers had been made under such conditions, Stars and Stripes proceeds to give the lineup in what it calls the “Hinge of the Hinge” of the final American operations. It says:
“When the full story comes to be told, it will be shown that when the order came to ‘cease firing’ on November 11, the divisions in line in that region (“The Hinge of the Hinge”) were, from left to right, the 77th (New York City), 2d (Regulars), 89th (Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona), 90th (Oklahoma and Texas) 5th (Regulars), and 32d (Michigan) and Wisconsin). When the drive started its third and last phase on November 1 the divisions there were: 78th (Western New York, New Jersey, Delaware), 77th (New York City), 80th (Virginia, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania), 2d (Regulars), 89 (States above named), 5th (Regulars) and 90th.”
This shows that on November 1 the 78th and 80th were in line for the final drive in that “Hinge of the Hinge,” but when the order came to ‘cease firing’ on November 11 the 78th and 80th had been retired or changed and the 32d had been thrown in. The above also shows that while the 90th was on the extreme right of the “Hinge of the Hinge” on November 11, it, along with the 5th Regulars held the very center of that bloody “Hinge of the Hinge.”
The Casualty List
Official casualty lists given out by the war department during the week ending Saturday morning (and no other sort are mentioned in these bulletins) show that 112 additional 360th infantrymen carried. Here are their names and home towns:
Sgt. Fred H. Lindsey, Lufkin, K. Sgt. Clyde Meece, Nettie, K. Sgt. Weaver Shoffner, Huntington, K.
On the morning of November 11th in Compiègne, France, an armistice was reached between the Allies and Germany, declaring a cessation to hostilities on the western front effective the 11th hour, of the 11th of day, of the 11th month. As sad as Clyde’s death was, it was made far worse knowing that he had been just days away from surviving this horrible war and returning home.
It’s highly probable that it took several days to weeks before the Army notified his parents of his death, especially considering the fact that he was MIA. News of the armistice probably reached them first, and I’m sure that they were elated and expecting him to return home safely. His parents, Monroe and Danielle, must have been absolutely devastated and heartbroken when the news finally arrived. Closure, if it does exist, was made even more difficult by the fact that they did not have his remains.
World War I has been somewhat forgotten and overshadowed by World War II and the “Greatest Generation.” World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers, 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. According to most historical records, approximately 116,516 Americans died in World War I, with the majority of those deaths attributed to combat and disease, particularly the influenza pandemic of 1918. Combat deaths were estimated at 53,402 and disease related deaths were estimated at 63,114. World War 1 helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people. These are mind numbing numbers!
According to Lynda Lee Evans, “my 3rd cousin, a woman by the name of Trish Thomas places flowers at the memorial every year for Clyde. She also places flowers at the grave for her Uncle Claude. Both were killed just days before they were to come home. Both of them were from Livingston, TX. Claude was found but Clyde was MIA”. The Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. The French should be lauded for the way they memorialized the American dead.
Clyde has a beautiful headstone located at the Bold Springs Cemetery adjacent to the Bethel Baptist Church in Bold Springs, TX. I’m not sure of its composition but it is very porous and it doesn’t weather well. We travelled to Livingston, TX, over Labor Day weekend in 2024. The primary purpose of the trip was to meet my Great Grandfather Theophilus Franklin (T.F.) Meece. We spent a portion of two days tending to the Meece grave sites at the Bold Springs location. As you can tell by the pictures most of that time was spent on Clyde’s headstone.
The epitaph on his headstone reads as follows:
“Who gave his life in the world war for his country”
This was one of the more painful and difficult stories that I have researched. He was a handsome young man who lost his life at the age of 25, defending his country.