Howard DeHart Hughes first was a Harvard man, Class of 1904. Following his graduation he entered the University of Washington’s Law School graduating in 1907. He worked for several years as an attorney for the City of Seattle, later opening his own law practice, following in his father’s footsteps. One of two children, Howard was born in Carthage, Illinois, to Elwood Clark Hughes and his wife, Emma Jane DeHart.
He entered the first Officers’ Training Camp at the Presidio in 1917 and was commissioned a captain. He was assigned to the 361st Infantry, 91st Division, and was killed in action on November 1, 1918, at Woertigem, Belgium during the Lys-Scheldt Offensive. He was conferring with the unit’s colonel when both were hit by a shell.
He told his brother-in-law who he had chanced to meet up with in France he expected to be killed and that he “had a personal conviction that he would never return to America.” (Memoirs of The Harvard Dead In The War Against Germany) Originally buried in Belgium, he was reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery. (bit.ly/uw_hughes) He was awarded the Silver Star for his “distinguished and conspicuous ability in handling his company.” (Congressional citation)
Frank Harold Hubbard, ’20, corporal in Company L, 161st United States Infantry, died of scarlet fever at Base Hospital No. 9, Chateauroux, France, on 27 January 1918.
Corporal Hubbard served on the Mexican border with the Second Washington during the summer of 1916. Upon the declaration of war he was again called into service. After a period of training, his unit left Camp Mills, New York, in December of 1917 and landed in France the first day of 1918. Originally buried in the American plot of the cemetery at Chateauroux, Frank was reinterred at San Francisco National Cemetery in 1920. (bit.ly/uw_hubbard)
Frank was the only child of Kenneth Hubbard and Emma Freeman. Born in Chicago, Frank and his parents later moved to Seattle. He was a 1916 graduate of Lincoln High School. Kenneth Hubbard received a pharmacy degree from Northwestern University and while at the UW Frank followed in his father’s footsteps studying chemistry and pharmacy. He was a pledge of Sigma Nu which named their fraternity house Hubbard Hall in his honor. The Hubbard family lived at 7200 Woodlawn Avenue.
Influenza claimed yet another victim, First Lieutenant Earl Malcolm Hoisington, on November 10th, 1918. While recovering from a hunting accident, influenza settled in his lungs and developed into double pneumonia. Earl died at Rockwell Field, near San Diego, California. To honor his excellence in fulfilling his duties, the posthumous rank of captain was conferred upon him. He attended the Second Officers’ Training Camp at the Presidio in August, 1917. Earl was commissioned a first lieutenant and ordered to Camp Lewis following his training. He later transferred to the aviation corps, being one of the few who made this change without a demotion in rank. After ground work training at Austin, Texas, Earl undertook flight work at Rockwell, Otay Mesa and Oneonta Fields. In July, 1918, he was made chief instructor of aerial gunnery, and in that capacity had supervision over four flying fields.
The older of two children born to Phillip Burlingham Hoisington and Eva Elizabeth Weger, Earl was a native of Spokane. He was a member of the class of 1918, studying business administration at the University of Washington. Earl was an active supporter of the YMCA and a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. Earl was working as a bookkeeper in Wallace, Idaho, at the time he registered for the draft. In 1925, a portion of Parkwater Field (now Felts Fields) in Spokane was designated headquarters for the 116th Observation Squadron of the Washington Air National Guard and named Camp Earl Hoisington (also known as Earl Hoisington Field). Earl is buried at Spokane’s Moran Cemetery along with other members of the Hoisington family. (bit.ly/uw_hoisington)
On July 27, 1918, Mrs. Catherine Hoke of Seattle received a telegram from the War Department informing her that her son, Thomas Everett Hoke, was missing in action near Chateau Thierry, France. It would be six long months before the news would come that Everett had been killed in action on July 1st. A member of Company A of the 161st Infantry, Hoke had recently been promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He was buried at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France. (bit.ly/uw_hoke)
Born in Tacoma, Everett was the younger of Michael Hoke and Catherine Jones’ two sons. He had resided in Seattle for several years with his widowed English-born mother and brother following his graduation from Olympia High School. His brother Sergeant Herbert Sumner Hoke served with the 69th Artillery. Everett was employed at the Seattle Hardware Company at the time of his enlistment. He had enrolled as a freshman at the University of Washington in 1914 studying Liberal Arts.
Alfred Clarence Hoiby, ’18, was the only child of Norwegian immigrants Peter Arenson Hoiby (originally Hoideby) and Ida Evenson. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Alfred and his parents moved west between 1905 and 1910 and he was a 1914 graduate of Broadway High School. While majoring in liberal arts, in preparation for pursuing a law degree, Alfred also turned out for basketball and crew at the University of Washington.
Alfred enlisted upon the declaration of war, near the end of his third year at the UW. He trained with the Coast Artillery Corps, 7th Company, at a Puget Sound coastal fort until his unit was sent to Montana to provide protection for Butte’s copper mines; their uninterrupted output critical to the war effort.
Alfred died in Butte on 10 December 1917 of complications from pneumonia. His mother Ida escorted his body back to Seattle where he was buried at Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery. (bit.ly/uw_hoiby) He made his home with his parents at 1909 Minor Avenue, Seattle. A member of Psi Upsilon Fraternity, the house was named Hoiby Hall in his honor.
Lieutenant Clarence Joseph Hemphill died of pneumonia on February 22, 1919, at Evacuation Hospital 21, near Rimaucourt, France. He served with the 1st Army within the 26th Division and was sent to France in January, 1918. Later he was with the 101st Field Artillery and saw action at Chateau Thierry and Verdun. He was gassed three times, the last attack occurring the day before the Armistice signing. “At the time of the last attack he was a liaison officer, not being in physically fit condition to assume command of his battery. While some apprehension had been felt because of his continued presence in a hospital, he had never written home of his condition, and the news of his death came with heartbreaking force.” (Seattle Daily Times, March 19, 1919, pg. 14) Clarence is buried at Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in France. (bit.ly/uw_hemphill)
Clarence was working in the Bay Area at the time he registered for the draft, having previously served in the California National Guard with General Pershing along the Mexican Border in 1916. Following his enlistment, Clarence attended the first Officers Training Camp at the Presidio. The third of William Nelson Hemphill and Harriet Elizabeth “Abbie” Brannan‘s six children, Clarence was born and raised in Auburn, Washington. He graduated from Auburn High School in 1909 and attended the University of Washington from 1912-1914 where he was a member of Acacia Fraternity.
Scarcely a decade after Orville and Wilbur Wright’s first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, airplanes had already become incorporated into modern warfare. Nicholas Paul Comeford Healy, Class of 1920, responded to the call for aviators in November, 1917, and applied for commission in the Signal Corps. Nicholas was sent almost immediately to Berkeley, CA, for instruction and from there to the Signal Corps Aviation School at Rockwell Field, San Diego. He made rapid progress in flight school and was declared qualified to fly solo.
On a training flight on May 3, 1918, Healy’s Curtiss Jenny (JN-4D) crashed near La Jolla. According to accounts “the airplane fell in a spinning nose dive from an altitude of about 500 feet after the cadets made a dip for landing for some unknown reason and started up.” (Leavenworth Times, 4 May 1918) A cadet flying with him, Emmett O’Hanley merely suffered a broken ankle.
Nicholas was one of six children born to Nicholas Caine Healy, a prominent pioneer lumberman, and his wife Estella Comeford. Born in Marysville, he was a graduate of Broadway High School and briefly attended Washington State College. The UW sophomore was studying liberal arts and was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. Nicholas was buried with full military honors at Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery and his death came just days before he was to receive his commission. (bit.ly/uw_healy)
Corporal Daniel Norman Hart was killed in action in early November, 1918, in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. In the fog of the final days of the war Dan was first reported as severely wounded. By December he was reported as Missing in Action. It would not be until February, 1919, that his family would learn definitively he had been killed on November 2, 1918, while serving with the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Division.
Dan was born and raised in Auburn, Washington, one of David Hart and Anna Dingler’s four children. Anna was David’s second wife and she divorced him in 1897 when Dan was four years old, supporting herself and her children as a seamstress. He enlisted just six months after enrolling at the University of Washington, where he had begun a course of study in Liberal Arts. Dan is buried at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. (bit.ly/uw_hart)
Immediately following the declaration of war, Rhodes Harold Gustafson, a freshman in Liberal Arts, withdrew from classes along with dozens of other students in order to enlist in the University of Washington’s newly formed ambulance unit. The unit was made up entirely of UW students who began drilling and training for hospital service without delay. Their equipment was purchased through donations made by Seattle and Tacoma merchants.
Headed by Professor of Hygiene and University Health Officer David C. Hall, the newly formed Ambulance Corps No. 12, was sent to Allentown, Pennsylvania, for training where Rhodes died of pneumonia on 27 March 1918. (bit.ly/uw_gustafson) The unit trained there until shortly after Rhodes’ death, when the UW’s ambulance corps – now organized as Ambulance Service Sections 570, 571 and 572 – received their long-awaited transfer to active duty in Italy.
Born in St. Louis, Rhodes was the son of Charles Gustafson and Danish-born Hansina Hansen. A talented debater, Rhodes was a graduate of Broadway High School and was active in the Episcopal Church and the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. His older brother Raymond Carl Gustafson also served in WWI, with Evacuation Hospital No. 26.
Private George Congdon Gorham was killed instantly by enemy shell fire on October, 10, 1918, near the village of Escaudœuvres. George was a member of the 1st Canadians, Motor Machine Brigade, Bordon Battery. He enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force on April 27, 1917, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and shipped to England in August 1917. George was a student in the College of Forestry and would have graduated in 1916, but left the UW to enlist in Canada prior to the entry of the United States into the war. He is buried at Cantimpre Canadian Cemetery in France. (bit.ly/uw_gorham)
George was named for his grandfather, a prominent California politician, newspaper editor and Mayflower descendant. Born in Seattle, his parents were William Hills Gorham, a lawyer, and Kathleen Mary Louise Walton, a native of Ireland. George was the oldest of five children, with four younger sisters. He was a 1912 graduate of Broadway High School. While at the UW, he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. The Gorham family were members of Seattle’s University Unitarian Church and George was the first gold star for their congregation. (Unitarians in the State of Washington, 1870-1960, pg. 169.)