Maybe it was Veteran’s Day, or maybe it was my brother sending me more materials from Carolina (Brenner) Renner which included letters written home when her fiancee Leslie was in World War I. Whatever it was, I decided to see what I could find out about Lesley and World War I. The photo at the right is Leslie ready to go to war.
He spent some time training in New Mexico and then at Camp Kearny, California. This is determined by letters he wrote from those two places to family. There is little in his military records except when he left for Europe and when he returned and was discharged. He left the United States 8 Aug 1918 on the British ship Balmoral Castle. He was back in the United States by 18 July 1919 and returned on the U.S. President Grant. The materials we had included letters, postcards, and photographs. Some of the photographs were purchased and some appeared to be snapshots.
Some of the photographs were purchased and some appeared to be snapshots. Some were commercial photos of training in Camp Kearny, California, but others were war destruction. The letters we have were all from the United States so we have no idea if there was any communication during the almost a year he was in Europe.
I don’t know much about World War I, so for our edification, here is what Wikipedia says about it:
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East, as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare and the use of artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas). World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated 9 million military dead and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed millions.
-Wikipedia
Also included in the materials that my brother Kenneth Klamm got from our Great Aunt Carolina (Brenner) Renner was this lovely newspaper. On it is written in handwriting the local people involved in that war. I can read the label — it went to John P. Brenner, Carolina’s father.
