On April 6, 1917, the United States entered the Great War. Six days later, a telegram from the War Department arrived at Camp Keyes in Augusta: The 2nd Maine Regiment was ordered into active service.
“I am, in consequence,” the letter from Secretary of War Newton Baker read, “instructed by the President to call into the service of the United States forthwith, through you, the following units of the National Guard of the State of Maine.” President Woodrow Wilson and Congress had exercised their right to mobilize the National Guard in a state of war for the first time since the signing of the National Defense Act of 1916.
The 15 companies of the 2nd Maine began recruiting to wartime strength in towns across the state. On July 5, the companies began to assemble at Camp Keyes in Augusta.
Who were the men who made up this 2,002-man organization? More than 50 percent were traditional National Guardsmen who had been with the regiment since they were mobilized to the U.S.-Mexican border in 1916 and before. Men signed on eagerly to serve with “the Old Second.”
One unique individual was Brig. Gen. Albert Greenlaw, who in 1915 was the adjutant general commanding the Maine National Guard. In this capacity, he had represented the Military Department of Maine at the funeral of Maj. Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in 1914. Greenlaw resigned as adjutant general to accept appointment as captain and commander of the Support Company, serving in that capacity in the Mexican border expedition. He retained this position as the 2nd entered service for the war.
Hundreds were students from Maine universities. No fewer than 23 Harvard graduates passed through the regiment during its train-up and wartime service.
A notable member of Augusta’s Company M was George Sterling of Peaks Island. He enlisted into Company M after graduating high school, serving on the Mexican border. When he returned home, he took a job as a wireless radio operator on the steamship Philadelphia because of his interest in radio communications. On April 6, his ship received a coded order to raise the Navy’s colors and run without lights — the U.S. was on war footing with the Central Powers — Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Sterling requested a transfer to the Signal Corps, but his commanding officer denied that request.
Once in France, however, Sterling learned the French wireless tactics, and he was eventually transferred to be an instructor of wireless at the U.S. Army 1st Corps School at Gondrecourt in northeastern France. From there, he was transferred to Gen. John J. Pershing’s headquarters at Chaumont, where he helped establish the new radio intelligence service, intercepting German radio transmissions. After the war, Sterling’s career led him through the newly developing world of wireless communications, including in the Radio Intelligence Division in World War II. By 1948, Sterling was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Some men were recent high school graduates, such as Ralph T. Moan from East Machias who joined Company K, and one whole squad in Company E was made up of recent graduates from Skowhegan High School.
Some, such as Michael McQuade from Rumford who enlisted into Company B, and John Murphy of Bangor’s Company G, were former soldiers in the British army.
Frank Marinelli, Mike Molino, Ignazio Polleschi, Dominick Samarco and Fortunato Verro were all of Italian birth, and they had been living in western Maine working on the railroads when the call for recruits went out. All joined up in Company B.
Lucien L. Arsenault was one of eight Arsenaults from the neighboring towns of Rumford and Mexico who enlisted in the 2nd Maine in 1917.
From the Passamaquoddy town at Pleasant Point in Down East Maine came Samuel Dana, Charles Lola, Peter Lewey, John Newell, David Sopiel, George Stevens, Henry Sockbeson, Peter Stanley and Moses Neptune. Not yet American citizens, they came to do their part — including the tribal governor’s own son, Moses Neptune.
In a time when to be German, or to even have a German sounding name, was a liability, Albert and Eric Klick — both born in Mecklenburg in northern Germany — decided to show their loyalty by enlisting into Company H.
For all their varied backgrounds, the majority of the aforementioned men had one thing in common: By the close of 1918 and the end of World War I, they would all be casualties.
First Lt. Jonathan Bratten is the Maine National Guard historian.