DEATH IN THE ARDENNES
DR. JOSIAH A. POWLESS, ONEIDA HERO OF WORLD WAR I
BY LAURENCE M. HAUPTMAN AND L. GORDON Mc LESTER, III
D First Lieutenant Josiah A. Powless, M.D. 26 AMERICAN INDIAN SPRING 2015
r. Josiah Alvin Powless (1871– 1918) was the first Oneida In- dian to graduate from a medical school in the United States. The physician fought two wars: one on the home front to help his
people deal with the scourges of diseases that ravaged Indian Country and the other, trying to help his comrades survive the horrors – battle- field wounds and poison gas – on the Western Front of World War I. Severely wounded while pulling a wounded colleague from enemy fire, he died a hero on Nov. 6, 1918, just five days be- fore the armistice that ended “the war to end all wars.” Although he received the Distinguished Service Cross, we believe that previously unre- ported details of his rescue make Dr. Powless deserving of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. Dr. Powless served as a first lieutenant in
the Medical Department attached to the 308th Infantry, part of the legendary “Lost Bat- talion” of the 77th
(Liberty) Division of the
American Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Oneida was seriously wounded on Oct. 14, 1918, at Chevieres, France, approximately two miles from the town of Grandpre, just north of the Argonne Forest, within the Ardennes District of northeastern France. The military engagement near the Aire River was part of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that had begun on September 26. The physician died of his
wound at the base hospital in November. At least 12,000 American Indians repre-
senting more than 60 tribes were in the AEF. First Lt. Dr. Powless was one of approximately 150 Oneida Indians from Wisconsin who served in World War I. According to the late Susan Applegate Krouse, an authority on American Indians in the war, nearly three percent died, approximately twice the overall rate of fatalities. Powless was among the 540 officers of the Army Medical Corps killed on the Western Front. All of the five physicians assigned to the 308th
were wounded or killed
in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Powless received his posthumous com-
mendation for his rescue of a wounded fellow physician, Dr. James McKibben, a captain in the Medical Department who had been re- cently transferred into the regiment. According to the War Department’s General Order No. 46 (1920), Powless had crossed an area subjected to intense machine gun and constant artil- lery fire, reaching McKibben, “whose wound proved fatal, and after dressing his wound had him carried to the rear.” Dr. McKibben died of his wounds in a base hospital on October 24. General John J. Pershing, the Commander in Chief of the AEF, posthumously awarded Pow- less the Distinguished Service Cross, saying he had “bravely laid down his life for the cause of his country.” But, as we shall see, there was more to the story, justifying the Medal of Honor.
COURTESY OF THE ONEIDA NATION MUSEUM, ONEIDA NATION OF WISCONSIN
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