We are pleased to share that World War I materials from the 322nd Field Artillery Reunion Association Collection (MS-100) are now freely available online, anytime, through the Wright State University Campus Online Repository, at CORE Scholar: 322nd Field Artillery Reunion Association Collection.
The online materials include 70 photographs, depicting Camp Sherman as well as France; a manuscript describing activities at the front in the Fall of 1918; and a portion of Claude Cadot’s scrapbook, including items from WWI and the first few years of the reunion.
322nd Field Artillery Group Photograph (ms100_l76_08)
The 322nd Field Artillery was formed at Fort Benjamin Harrison on June 15, 1917. From September 5, 1917, to June 3, 1918, the regiment trained at Camp Sherman, near Chillicothe, Ohio. Artillery practice was conducted on a range at Stoney Creek. On June 12, 1918, the regiment departed for Europe aboard the S.S. Canopic. After twelve days at sea, they arrived at Le Havre, France, with stopovers in Liverpool and Southhampton, England. The regiment left for the front on September 9th, where it participated in the Meuse‑Argonne offensive until the end of the war on November 11, 1918. In that offensive, thirty men were killed, seventy‑eight were wounded, and sixty were gassed. After the war, the 322nd was assigned to the 32nd Division as part of the Army of Occupation. The regiment remained in Germany until April 1919, when it was ordered home. The first annual reunion was held at Dayton, Ohio in 1920. After sixty‑two reunions, the 322nd Field Artillery Association closed its books for the final time in 1981. It was the oldest continuing reunion of a military unit in the United States.
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- 322nd Field Artillery in Field (ms100_02_21_01)
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- Soldiers Posing for Group Photograph (ms100_02_23_36)
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- Soldiers Playing Instruments (ms100_02_23_40)
This digital project has been a collaborative effort between the University Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives and the University Libraries’ Digital Initiatives and Repository Services (DIRS) Department, which provided the digitization, metadata encoding, and uploading of digital content to CORE Scholar.
Please visit the Special Collections & Archives’ CORE Scholar page to browse additional digital collections. Don’t forget to check out the University Archives’ CORE Scholar page as well.