This bronze plaque stands outside American Legion Post 118 listing the names of all the young men from Woodhaven that went off to fight the Great War (World War 1) and never came home. That brutal war ended 106 years ago this week.
Ed Wendell
Five hundred and eighty-five days. That’s how long the United States was embroiled in The Great War, or as it is known today, World War 1. Although it officially began on August 1st, 1914 it wasn’t until nearly three years later, on April 6th, 1917, that the United States joined by declaring war on Germany.
During those first few years, while the war raged overseas, Woodhaven was still a neighborhood in development, not too far removed from the mostly rural farming town it was in its infancy. The elevated train had just been built on Jamaica Avenue, silent movies were the norm, as were wooden school houses and Woodhaven ‘Avenue’ was still just a sleepy single-lane dirt road.
Public opinion was originally against joining the war, but that began to change with the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in May 1915. Locally, residents of Woodhaven were horrified by a first-hand account of the sinking by Tom Adamson of Leggett Avenue (now 80th Street) who barely survived the sinking.
“We were just eating lunch when we heard the first shot,” he wrote home. “We knew they had got us. The Lusitania immediately listed to starboard; it was almost impossible to get up the companionway. When we got to the boat deck, the forward part of the ship was completely under water.”
Adamson’s legs were crushed after he plunged into the ocean and he was sucked underwater. He had given up any hope for survival when he miraculously grabbed onto a rope and pulled himself to the surface. There he described a horrific scene of an overturned boat which he had just helped fill with women and children moments before. All of them drowned.
Though the United States joined the war in April of 1917, it wasn’t until later in the year that we saw our local boys go off to war with rousing support from an enthusiastic press and public (’41 More Sons of Woodhaven Gayly Go To War’ was an actual headline in November 1917).
But by May of the following year the war began to take its toll on the locals. At first there were a few isolated casualties. But as the weeks wore on, readers of the local papers would nervously look at each week’s headlines to see the latest news and grim announcements that more local boys had been killed.
The first recorded death from Woodhaven was Chief Boatswain’s Mate Frederick Zahn of Rector Avenue (now 77th Street). Zahn never made it overseas, dying instead in Fort Lyons, Colorado of “disease.” Ironically, though he was the first reported casualty, he is last (alphabetically) on the monument that sits outside American Legion Post 118 today.
One of the more famed casualties was Arthur Engels, who lived on Jamaica Avenue and was well-known around the neighborhood for his early morning long distance runs. He made headlines as a 17-year old, smashing world hurdling records at races in Madison Square Garden. He earned the nickname “King of the Eastern Hurdlers.”
Engels lived at 4088 Jamaica Avenue (right off Woodhaven Boulevard, above what would later be well-known around Woodhaven as Carlo’s Pizza). Less than one year after racing at the Garden, Engels was badly wounded in action, developing gangrene in his right leg. Doctors amputated his leg in an attempt to save his life but he died shortly afterwards.
On the day that the armistice was signed on November 11th, 1918, ending the war, Woodhaven celebrated. All of the shops were shut at midday. Automobiles were turned into impromptu parade floats and rolled down Jamaica Avenue celebrating the news.
Residents flooded out into their streets and embraced their neighbors. People checked in with friends whose sons were still overseas. Together, they prayed that the war ended soon enough, before any more boys from Woodhaven had lost their lives.
In the end, seventy young men from Woodhaven had lost their lives. The neighborhood, and the entire nation, had been battered from our brief but brutal involvement in this war, which ended 106 years ago this week.
A family in Woodhaven poses with their loved one before he ships off to war. Seventy young men from Woodhaven went off to war and never came home.
