Portrait of Harold Roberts

On this Memorial Day holiday, I thought I would post an update on the Corporal Harold Roberts project.

As he has done in the past, Retired Army Sergeant First Class Gary McMaster ordered a flower arrangement to be placed on Roberts' grave at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery today from the Camp Roberts Historical Museum in the name of the Soldiers and Civilians at Camp Roberts. He plans to do this every year.

In addition, McMaster sent me this photograph of the near-completed portrait that he has commissioned to hang in the museum. The painting includes a depiction of Roberts' Medal of Honor and a background view of the village of Exermont, France.

Photograph courtesy of Gary McMaster.

Read the entire series:
Part 1 — Searching for Harold Roberts
Part 2 — Roberts: What We Found
Part 3 — Roberts' Battlefield Letter
Part 4 — A Face for Harold Roberts
Part 5 — A Hero's Final Resting Place

A Hero's Final Resting Place

William Harold Roberts is buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France near the place where he died. The cemetery is the final resting place for 14,246 soldiers, most of whom lost their lives in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive during World War I. It is the largest American military cemetery in Europe. Gary McMasters sees to it that Corporal Harold W. Roberts is honored every Memorial Day by having flowers placed at the gravesite from the soldiers and civilians at Camp Roberts.

On October 4, 1918, Roberts' company was engaged in a fierce battle in the Montrebeau woods. Roberts and Sergeant Virgil Morgan were in a two-man tank, a French Renault, weighing slightly over seven tons and with a top speed of seven miles per hour. Sergeant Morgan and Corporal Roberts saw a disabled tank with a soldier crouched by it. As Roberts stopped his tank, the soldier asked for help. The reply was given that they would return after the battle and they drove off.

In an interview with Sergeant Virgil Morgan, the gunner whose life Roberts saved, Morgan said, "Bob, as we called him, came to our company last summer and almost at once he was liked by everybody. By his good work he soon was promoted to Corporal. There never proved to be a better soldier."

The Medal of Honor was presented to Harold's father, John A. Roberts. The citation reads "Corporal Roberts, a tank driver, was moving his tank into a clump of bushes to afford protection to another tank which had become disabled. The tank slid into a shell hole, 10 feet deep, filled with water, and was immediately submerged. Knowing that only one of the two men in the tank could escape, Corporal Roberts said to the gunner, "Well, only one of us can get out, and out you go," whereupon he pushed his companion through the back door of the tank and was himself drowned."

Roberts was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Palms, The French Military Medal, and the Italian War Cross.

This Saturday, May 3, 2008, Camp Roberts is celebrating sixty-seven years at an Open House at the Camp Roberts Athletic Field from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. McMasters plans to unveil the completed portrait of Roberts that he commissioned of a Sacramento artist. He promises to send a photo of the completed work.

McMasters still hopes to locate the missing yearbook so he can see a proper portrait of Corporal Harold Roberts. If you have a 1913 Wilmerding High School yearbook, or you are a descendant of the Seifert or Roberts family, please contact the society.

Read the entire series:

• Part 1 — Searching for Harold Roberts
  
• Part 2 — Roberts: What We Found
  
• Part 3 — Roberts' Battlefield Letter
• Part 4 — A Face for Harold Roberts

A Face for Corporal Roberts

One of the items that Gary McMaster most wanted was a photograph of Corporal Harold Roberts. The CGS research team determined that Roberts graduated from Wilmerding High School in 1913. Unfortunately, no book for that year could be located in the archives of Lick-Wilmerding High School, the San Francisco Historical Society or the San Francisco Public Library. The June 1911 Commencement Issue of the school newspaper, Wilmerding Life, carried an informal group photograph of the class of 1913, but entirely without names.

Newspaper research yielded several articles about Roberts and his family, including marriage notices, obituaries and reports about his heroic death and honors. A few included photographs but most were small and without significant detail. The photo archives of the San Francisco Public Library's History Center had a folder on Roberts which contained this image from the San Francisco Call Newspaper. There was no notation to indicate its source or whether it was ever printed.

One article covered the medal presentation of the French Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) made to Harold's father, John Roberts, on the steps of the San Francisco City Hall in 1919. The item contained a small oval photo insert of Harold Roberts which McMaster is using to create a more accurate depiction than the painting that now hangs in the Camp exhibit. Curator McMaster made a blurred sepia drawing of the image and added the correct World War I issue helmet and uniform to create this likeness.

He has commissioned a Sacramento artist to paint a new portrait to hang in the base museum. It is scheduled to be finished and delivered to Camp Roberts this coming Saturday for a preview during the Camp Roberts Open House. McMaster has promised to send us a photograph of the finished work when it is hanging in the Museum.

Read the entire series:

• Part 1 — Searching for Harold Roberts
• Part 2 — Roberts: What We Found
• Part 3 — Roberts' Battlefield Letter
• Part 5 — A Hero's Final Resting Place

Roberts' Battlefield Letter

July 4, 1918

My dear Dad,

I know that you shall be glad to hear that I am with my new outfit and well pleased. I'm feeling better than I have felt since arrival over here.

We are out in the country billeted in a small village which would cause the average American to turn pale; but it is better than some I have seen and it is way better than the rice paddies I slept in when out on manouvers in the Philippines.

Sure did hate to leave some of my old pals behind; but shall try my best to make new friends here. I had some very good friends amongst officers and men in the Fifteenth and I know that I can do my duty here as well as I have done it in the past.

So please do not worry about me and you shall surely be surprised to see me when I come home to stay this time. However that time is a long way off and it is not good form to think about the future. The present is what counts and I shall surely do my best to make good and shall stick it out despite the fact that there may be disappointment in store for me.

Do hope that your business keeps on improving and please do not take any bad nickels.

Just my luck that my pen had to run dry, but why sorry over a little thing like that. Liable not to have a pencil to finish with next time.

Remember Dad if I die I want Ida May Zeile to have everything. I send you the very best of wishes.

Lovingly,
Harold

Pvt. 1st cl. Harold Roberts,
Co. A 326 Battalion Tank Corps
311 Tank Center
A.P.O. 714
A.E.F.

Censored by:
H.J. Ellis
1st. Lt. Tank Corps

Read the entire series:

• Part 1 — Searching for Harold Roberts
• Part 2 — Roberts: What We Found
• Part 4 — A Face for Harold Roberts
• Part 5 — A Hero's Final Resting Place

Roberts: What We Found

CGS volunteer Dick Rees handles the mail at the society, so it was he who first read McMaster's request. Dick spearheaded the research efforts of a small group that included Verne Deubler, Nancy Peterson, Vinnie Schwarz and Pat Smith.

William Harold Roberts was the son of John and Elfreda Seifert Roberts, born October 14, 1895, in San Francisco. No official birth record exists because the ledgers were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

The team gathered data from all the likely sources and also contacted the Episcopal Diocese Archives, the Lick-Wilmerding High School, the San Francisco Historical Society and the San Francisco Public Library and their Sixth Floor History Center.

But "Look-up" volunteer, Pat Smith, hit pay dirt when she followed the "no stone left unturned" approach and found a listing for William Harold Roberts in the San Francisco probate index.

The estate file includes a typescript of a letter that Roberts wrote to his father on July 4, 1918 from France. After Robert's death in November of that year, the letter became his last will and testament.

Harold's letter was started in ink but was finished in pencil when his fountain pen went dry. It was in the closing sentences, in pencil, that Roberts indicated that if he died everything should be left to his father's sister, Ida May Zeile.

Roberts, who was unmarried, left a war risk insurance policy, probably standard issue by the Army. The "will" was challenged by family members when Harold's aunt filed for probate in 1924, two years after the death of Roberts' father. An article from the November 18, 1924, San Francisco Chronicle, "Will of Hero Hit in Court - Relatives Attack Letter Written on Battlefield Leaving Estate" describes charges of forgery and the fight for the money.

Ultimately, Ida was named the executor and Roberts' $8000 estate was divided among the living relatives.

Read the entire series:

• Part 1 — Searching for Harold Roberts
  
• Part 3 — Roberts' Battlefield Letter
• Part 4 — A Face for Harold Roberts
• Part 5 — A Hero's Final Resting Place

Searching for Harold Roberts

The letter to CGS didn't use these words but the message was clear:
find Corporal Harold W. Roberts.

Periodically the California Genealogical Society and Library receives a research request that morphs into a group project. In this case the letter came from Gary McMaster, director and curator of the Camp Roberts Historical Museum. He was looking for Harold Roberts, the World War I soldier posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, for whom the camp is named.

Camp Roberts is a one-time Army base, now National Guard training facility, off U.S. 101 about half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Originally called Camp Nacimiento, the name was changed even before it became operational during World War II. It is the only U.S. facility named in honor of an enlisted man.

Gary McMaster, Retired Army Sergeant First Class, has been on a mission to find out all he can about Roberts. He first contacted CGS last summer with the letter that said in part:

"We would like to find out about any of his family and try to find out whatever happened to his parents and his Medal of Honor. We also would like to find any photographs of him, as we have none. The large painting we have in his exhibit in the Museum... is an artist's impression. We would like to know what he actually looked like."

The Paso Robles Gazette did a story about McMasters and the planned exhibit on Roberts, but no mention was made of the efforts of the research team at the California Genealogical Society. I thought I should set the record straight.

Read the entire series:

• Part 2 — Roberts: What We Found
  
• Part 3 — Roberts' Battlefield Letter
• Part 4 — A Face for Harold Roberts
• Part 5 — A Hero's Final Resting Place