This tall somber granite memorial preserves the community's memory of PFC Burt M. Fleming, who went to war in France in WWI and died a hero.
The memorial contains a photo of PFC Fleming probably taken at Camp Bowie in Fort Worth, and details of his short but very brave tour of duty in France, where he earned a medal for bravery on 6 October in action in the Somme, before being killed a week later.
The monument text reads as follows:
"BURT M. FLEMING
SON OF J. S. FLEMING AND WIFE
Born Apr. 15, 1894. Volunteered in the United States Army May 26, 1918. Assigned to Company C, 143rd Infantry of the 36th Division. Was stationed at Ft. Worth Texas until July 3, 1918. Was transferred from there to Newport News. Sailed July 7, landed in France Aug 11, 1918. Went on firing line Oct. 6, 1918. Was cited for bravery and awarded a medal Oct. 8, 1918. Sacrificed his life Oct 13, 1918."
Blasterz have tried and failed to discover the exact medal PFC Fleming was awarded.
An INCREDIBLY detailed, well written and evocative account of the experiences of the 36th Division was published a few years after the war by an officer of the 36th. It is 200 pages long, and the 143rd infantry is mentioned 31 times. those excerpts mentioning the 143rd Infantry are too long to reproduce here, but we can post some excerpts that paints the picture of some of PFC Fleming's general experience in France, as follows:
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"STORY OF THE 36th : The Experiences of the 36th Division in the World War", By Capt. Ben H. Chastaine 142d Infantry, U. S. A.
HARLOW PUBLISHING COMPANY, Oklahoma City 1920.
[page 7] Camp Bowie was well located on the hills about two and a half miles to the west of Fort Worth in that suburb of the city called Arlington Heights and on the road from Fort Worth to Weatherford, Texas.
[page 28].
The first of the units of the division to depart, were the infantry brigades, the additional machine gun battalion and the field signal battalion. . . . All organizations of division went to Camp Mills with the exception of the 143d Infantry, which embarked at Newport News, Virginia. . . .
[page 32] The 143d Infantry, sailing from Newport News, however, went by way of Halifax, Canada, and then crossed the northern part of the ocean to Liverpool, England. Passing through England, this regiment landed at La Havre . . . .For the greater part of the division the crossing of the ocean was without excitement other than that attending the first experience at sea and the novelty of strange sights. Constant boat drills were held on all the transports and every precaution [page 33] taken to guard against attacks by submarines.
[page 73] To the Front
During the afternoon of October 5, . . . the Second Division . . . received orders that the brigade had been placed in the twenty-first French Army Corps, and that it would relieve the front line of the Second Division the night of October 6. This was received with considerable surprise, as former instructions had been to the effect that the brigade would only take over from the Marines, or half of the front occupied by the Second Division.
The instructions received from General Lejeune were that the entire front line of the Second [page 74] Division would be relieved. This was the be-ginning of misunderstandings which later cost the relieving troops heavy losses.
Sunday morning, October 6, orders were issued to all units of the brigade [including the 143rd Infantry – BMB] to get under way for the front. . . . The troops fell into columns and all units were on the march before 7 o'clock.
By this time most of the men realized that they were marching into actual battle. This was the time of trial that all had been looking toward ever since they first donned the uniform more than a year before. In the marches of previous days they had always felt that there was no particular reason why they should not fall out if their strength failed. But this was a different kind of march. To fall out on the way to the battle line was disgrace, and although it was to be the hardest test of strength and endurance that they ever were destined to face, there was to be no straggling as long as will power remained.
. . . The main road from Suippes to the north was literally filled with all kinds of traffic on wheels. Here was a field artillery piece, being dragged along by men as well as bv horses when the occasion demanded. [page 75] Behind it would be a string of combat wagons filled with all kinds of supplies for the fighting men. Then would be a water cart, a camion laden with water casks and trucks filled with ammunition and supplies for the various branches of service. These were all going toward the front. On the other side of the road would be a counter-current of ambulances carrying wounded, empty trucks and wagons going to the rear for more supplies, and here and there on both sides of the road would be a wrecked wagon or other vehicle, broken in the press of getting to and from the lines. In this jam of traffic there was no room for the dough-boy. Before the column had proceeded more than a kilometer from Suippes it was necessary to march by the side of the road.
Before two kilometers had been placed behind them the marching troops found themselves crossing the lines of defense which had been occupied by the French through more than four years of fighting. . . . No more desolate scene existed in all the western front, than existed here. For miles on every side there was no vegetation. The entire face of the earth was covered with debris. Mines had added their fury to the exploding shells, up-heaving the ground in all directions. Trees had been shot away until they were only jagged stumps sticking out of the mangled soil. This is the "naked land" of France, the "Champagne pouilleuse. . .
Formerly this had been a land of beauty, of inhabited places where the grass furnished grazing and where the planted pine groves not only relieved the barren appearance but added a freshness to the scenery that was highly attractive. . . .
This was the scene of the most terrible struggles between the French and the German armies in September and October, 1915, or just two years before the men of the Thirty-sixth marched across it. Here the grandest offensive conducted by the French during the entire war took place. On a [page 78] front more than twenty-five miles in width they drove into the German lines and tried to break through to hurl the invaders out of the land. Failing, they settled down to a stubborn defense that made raids of nightly occurrence. Sometimes the lines would be raided by both sides twice in one night. Here the bursting shells had set fire to the houses of interlaced logs and thatched roofs with such readiness that scarcely one of these remained. Constant exposure to fire had left hardly an undemolished stone in Souain. Of the giant mill that formerly was located there nothing but a bit of the wheel remained. Churches that had stood through six centuries were crushed to powder by the high explosive shells of both sides and the splendid highways that had been main arteries of travel since the days the first Roman road builders entered the country, were torn and shattered by shells until in places they ceased to exist.
[page 79]
But the country as witnessed by the marching doughboys in 1918, had lost all its former attractiveness. Unable to follow the road on account of the congestion of traffic, they made their way in and out among the barbed wire entanglements and maze of trenches which had been occupied but a short time before by the opposing forces. Thickly scattered through all parts of the former lines were "dud" shells of all calibers. Some of these were almost as large as a man and all were avoided carefully. They had been known to explode with but a slight jar after remaining in exposed positions. Here and there were the graves of both French and German dead. In that part of the field which had been "no man's land" for a long time, these graves were particularly noticeable, the dead having been buried in the night where they had fallen. . . .