French honor final doughboy to die in war

NANCY, France - One minute before the guns fell silent on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I took its last American victim.

Henry Gunther was hit by German machine-gun fire at 10:59 a.m. in the northeastern French town of Chaumont- devant-Damvillers in a clash with German troops.

A monument honoring the 23-year-old from Baltimore was erected in Chaumont-devant-Damvillers before yesterday's 90th anniversary of the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice that ended the bloody four-year war.

Gunther, an employee of the National Bank of Baltimore, arrived in France in July 1918 as a staff sergeant in the 313th Infantry Regiment.

A letter he sent to a friend complaining of living conditions was intercepted by military censors, and he was demoted to the rank of private, said Pierre Lenhard, mayor of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers.

Gunther then volunteered to be a messenger.

On that fateful Nov. 11, his regiment took up position in Chaumont-devant-Damvillers. Gunther and a fellow American soldier made for the German lines, bayonets fixed, Lenhard said. The Germans, who at 10:45 a.m. knew that the armistice was to take effect at 11 a.m., fired into the air above their heads. The two soldiers hit the ground, but Gunther got back up on his feet and surged ahead - only to be gunned down.

US General John J. Pershing designated Gunther as the last US soldier to die in combat in the 1914-1918 war.

ASSOCIATED PRESS