thedrifter
05-25-03, 07:06 PM
Lt. William "Chink"Lowe, USMC
4th Marine Bgd & 90th Aero Sq.
Volunteer Warrior
From the University of Tennessee
Alumni Magazine
More than 75 years ago, a young UT football hero soared above European battle lines during World War I. The early airman earned the Distinguished Service Cross before returning to UT and the Volunteers. His son-in-law draws on letters and family reminiscences to reconstruct Chink Lowe's experiences as a
V o l u n t e e r W a r r i o r
Neal O'Steen (Knoxville '50) is a regular contributor to Tennessee Alumnus and a former editor of the magazine. His wife, Margaret, Chink Lowe's daughter and a UTK alumna, died last year.
Traditionally the U.S. Marine Corps has been the Navy's landing force, storming and securing contested beaches during the country's wars. Only occasionally have "Leathernecks" been cast in roles with other military branches, such as Lieutenant William O. (Chink) Lowe filled in World War I, as observer and gunner in the Army's fledgling aviation corps.
Fresh off the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus, his B.A. degree studies completed, Lowe was eager to enlist the moment the United States entered the war. His sister Alberta, then a teenage girl, recalls that day, April 6, 1917. "Chink came home and told our mother, 'the President declared war on Germany today -- and I'm going!'" The next day he joined the Marine Corps. Later, he would become one of three Marines attached to the Army's small air force in France.
Besides finishing his degree work, Chink Lowe had achieved success on the football field. As a freshman lineman in 1914, he helped Tennessee to an undefeated season, its first victory over Vanderbilt, and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship.
In 1916 he made the All-Southern team as a guard. And he had been named captain of the 1917 team, an eleven that never took the field. Two seasons, 1917 and 1918, would pass before the Volunteers fielded another football team.
Lowe came from what might be called an "all-UT" family. He was the oldest of four brothers and two sisters to earn UT degrees early this century. He and his brothers, Andy, J.G., and Ted, all played football, the only four brothers in UT gridiron history to earn Volunteer letters. The older of his two sisters, Gladys, earned a UT degree, a doctorate at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and taught psychology at Michigan State. The only surviving sibling, Alberta, finished at UTK, earned a doctorate at Ohio State, and from 1950 to 1968 taught in UTK's College of Education. Her late husband, Dale Wantling, was dean of UTK's Graduate School. Alberta now lives in Richmond, Virginia.
After the war, Chink returned to UTK as a law student and as captain of the 1919 football team. And he returned as a war hero.
Lowe capitalized on his war record and decorations to win a term in the Tennessee legislature in 1920, before finishing law school, and he was active in state politics until his early death in 1949 at age 54. He was the Republican party's nominee in an unsuccessful race for state governor in 1946.
Lowe's wartime experiences are described in some 50 letters he wrote to family members and his future wife in Knoxville. These letters were among the papers of his late daughter, Margaret, this writer's wife.
His first letters were mailed from the Marine Barracks at Quantico, Virginia, where he attended officer school and learned the art of trench warfare and how to operate a machine gun. He was not destined to use the former skill, however; but he put the machine gun to good use in a half dozen dogfights in the air.
Months before he was assigned to aviation duty himself, he had recommended flying to his brother, Andy Lowe, who later trained as an Army pilot. "You won't have to go around in the mud or have to stick a German with a bayonet," he wrote Andy.
Andy completed flight training and was commissioned about the time the war in Europe ended.
All the time he was undergoing bayonet practice at Quantico, Chink wanted more meaningful action. "I want to go to France as soon as possible," he wrote his parents.
He finished officer training school at Quantico on October 20 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. His record in school entitled him to choose his future duty: either go directly to France and the front or to guard duty somewhere in the United States. He chose to go to the front.
In November 1917 he was assigned to a machine gun company of the Sixth Marine Regiment, which had been ordered to France. "I was not only lucky in getting to go to France, but further got my choice to go with a machine gun company," he wrote.
Shortly before sailing, Lowe was put in charge of his company for the weekend while the captain was away. "To have men come into the office and stand at attention while I gave orders to do something that I knew nothing about, and they did, was embarrassing," the young officer wrote. "But I put on a stern face and tried to talk natural, so got away with it pretty well."
Also sailing that cold December day with the Sixth Marine Regiment was another former Tennessee football player. A year older than Lowe, Clifton B. Cates had been an undersized lineman, weighing 158 in his senior year as a Volunteer. But unlike Lowe, Cates would have a long career in a Marine uniform. With ground troops in the first world war, Cates took part in several offensives -- Belleau Wood, Meuse-Argonne, St. Mihiel -- probably with Lowe soaring above in a flimsy aircraft.
Cates went on to lead troops in a number of World War II actions -- at Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands, Saipan, Tinian -- and win a chest full of medals. He became a Marine general in 1948 and that year was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps.
At other times during his service, Lowe encountered other gridiron comrades: Graham Vowell, who, along with Lowe, was named an All-Southern lineman in 1916; Bill May, Tennessee's diminutive quarterback; and M.W. (Big) Vowell, who at 188 pounds was among the biggest Vol linemen.
As the Sixth Marine Regiment neared the coast of France, a submarine alert gave the troops a foretaste of war. The ship's guns went into action, and a destroyer raced to the spot where a periscope had been reported. The Marines hurried to their assigned lifeboats, expecting the worst. "The boys tell me I was running hard but telling everybody else to take their time," Lowe wrote. "After the smoke settled, it wasn't a submarine but something else. Nothing dangerous."
On leaving the ship, the regiment boarded a train for a long, cold 60-hour ride to a camp in the vicinity of Paris. There, to Lowe's surprise, he learned that he was not destined for the trenches. He was ordered to the Army's aviation school at Tours to become an aerial observer.
He trained at Tours, southwest of Paris, from January 12 to February 20. Then he was sent to Amanty, France, for two months of advanced training, including flying. Among his Army classmates he was familiarly called "Marine," a nickname that stuck with him until the end of the war.
On one of his early training flights, the Marine experienced a thrill known to few humans in 1918. "I broke away from the usual routine for a pleasure trip above the clouds," he wrote to Nina Burkhart, his future wife. "The top of the clouds were shaped something like pictures we have seen of distant mountains, with sharp peaks and deep valleys. The sun added grandeur by giving them a bright shiny silvery effect." In anticipation of future thrills, he added: "A fight in the air will be the most exciting affair I have ever enjoyed."
Because the United States had not produced planes for combat in Europe, the Americans used British planes mainly. The small observation planes were two-seaters, with the observer in the forward cockpit and the pilot behind. Besides a camera, the observer was provided with a mounted machine gun, the plane's only defense.
Earlier in the war, planes were not equipped with guns, and a kind of camaraderie developed between the contending warriors in the sky. While concentrating on their missions, Allied and German fliers might exchange a friendly wave as they passed. Then firearms became a part of the airborne cargo -- first pistols and rifles, then machine guns. In 1915 a Dutch engineer, Anthony Fokker, perfected a machine gun that fired between the revolving propeller blades, an invention the Germans quickly adopted. By the time Chink Lowe joined the aerial circus, war in the air had become a deadly game. Being required to fly at low altitudes over battle lines made the small observation planes vulnerable to ground fire. Lowe and his pilot would find both aerial and ground opposition troublesome.
By late March, Lowe had his fill of training flights. "I have had enough training now and would like to be a regular player in the game," he wrote his family.
But he managed to find diversions. To help fill his free hours, he made friends with a French girl. "I teach her English and she teaches me French," he wrote home. The girl was a good musician, he reported, and her repertoire included familiar tunes such as "Tipperary" and "Everybody's Doing It."
Once he and another lieutenant walked eight miles to a nearby village where they knew two girls. Another time he hired a motorcycle and driver for an extensive tour of the countryside.
continued.........
http://pr.utk.edu/alumnus/sum95/A-1.GIF
Chink Lowe as an All-Southern Guard.
4th Marine Bgd & 90th Aero Sq.
Volunteer Warrior
From the University of Tennessee
Alumni Magazine
More than 75 years ago, a young UT football hero soared above European battle lines during World War I. The early airman earned the Distinguished Service Cross before returning to UT and the Volunteers. His son-in-law draws on letters and family reminiscences to reconstruct Chink Lowe's experiences as a
V o l u n t e e r W a r r i o r
Neal O'Steen (Knoxville '50) is a regular contributor to Tennessee Alumnus and a former editor of the magazine. His wife, Margaret, Chink Lowe's daughter and a UTK alumna, died last year.
Traditionally the U.S. Marine Corps has been the Navy's landing force, storming and securing contested beaches during the country's wars. Only occasionally have "Leathernecks" been cast in roles with other military branches, such as Lieutenant William O. (Chink) Lowe filled in World War I, as observer and gunner in the Army's fledgling aviation corps.
Fresh off the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus, his B.A. degree studies completed, Lowe was eager to enlist the moment the United States entered the war. His sister Alberta, then a teenage girl, recalls that day, April 6, 1917. "Chink came home and told our mother, 'the President declared war on Germany today -- and I'm going!'" The next day he joined the Marine Corps. Later, he would become one of three Marines attached to the Army's small air force in France.
Besides finishing his degree work, Chink Lowe had achieved success on the football field. As a freshman lineman in 1914, he helped Tennessee to an undefeated season, its first victory over Vanderbilt, and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship.
In 1916 he made the All-Southern team as a guard. And he had been named captain of the 1917 team, an eleven that never took the field. Two seasons, 1917 and 1918, would pass before the Volunteers fielded another football team.
Lowe came from what might be called an "all-UT" family. He was the oldest of four brothers and two sisters to earn UT degrees early this century. He and his brothers, Andy, J.G., and Ted, all played football, the only four brothers in UT gridiron history to earn Volunteer letters. The older of his two sisters, Gladys, earned a UT degree, a doctorate at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and taught psychology at Michigan State. The only surviving sibling, Alberta, finished at UTK, earned a doctorate at Ohio State, and from 1950 to 1968 taught in UTK's College of Education. Her late husband, Dale Wantling, was dean of UTK's Graduate School. Alberta now lives in Richmond, Virginia.
After the war, Chink returned to UTK as a law student and as captain of the 1919 football team. And he returned as a war hero.
Lowe capitalized on his war record and decorations to win a term in the Tennessee legislature in 1920, before finishing law school, and he was active in state politics until his early death in 1949 at age 54. He was the Republican party's nominee in an unsuccessful race for state governor in 1946.
Lowe's wartime experiences are described in some 50 letters he wrote to family members and his future wife in Knoxville. These letters were among the papers of his late daughter, Margaret, this writer's wife.
His first letters were mailed from the Marine Barracks at Quantico, Virginia, where he attended officer school and learned the art of trench warfare and how to operate a machine gun. He was not destined to use the former skill, however; but he put the machine gun to good use in a half dozen dogfights in the air.
Months before he was assigned to aviation duty himself, he had recommended flying to his brother, Andy Lowe, who later trained as an Army pilot. "You won't have to go around in the mud or have to stick a German with a bayonet," he wrote Andy.
Andy completed flight training and was commissioned about the time the war in Europe ended.
All the time he was undergoing bayonet practice at Quantico, Chink wanted more meaningful action. "I want to go to France as soon as possible," he wrote his parents.
He finished officer training school at Quantico on October 20 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. His record in school entitled him to choose his future duty: either go directly to France and the front or to guard duty somewhere in the United States. He chose to go to the front.
In November 1917 he was assigned to a machine gun company of the Sixth Marine Regiment, which had been ordered to France. "I was not only lucky in getting to go to France, but further got my choice to go with a machine gun company," he wrote.
Shortly before sailing, Lowe was put in charge of his company for the weekend while the captain was away. "To have men come into the office and stand at attention while I gave orders to do something that I knew nothing about, and they did, was embarrassing," the young officer wrote. "But I put on a stern face and tried to talk natural, so got away with it pretty well."
Also sailing that cold December day with the Sixth Marine Regiment was another former Tennessee football player. A year older than Lowe, Clifton B. Cates had been an undersized lineman, weighing 158 in his senior year as a Volunteer. But unlike Lowe, Cates would have a long career in a Marine uniform. With ground troops in the first world war, Cates took part in several offensives -- Belleau Wood, Meuse-Argonne, St. Mihiel -- probably with Lowe soaring above in a flimsy aircraft.
Cates went on to lead troops in a number of World War II actions -- at Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands, Saipan, Tinian -- and win a chest full of medals. He became a Marine general in 1948 and that year was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps.
At other times during his service, Lowe encountered other gridiron comrades: Graham Vowell, who, along with Lowe, was named an All-Southern lineman in 1916; Bill May, Tennessee's diminutive quarterback; and M.W. (Big) Vowell, who at 188 pounds was among the biggest Vol linemen.
As the Sixth Marine Regiment neared the coast of France, a submarine alert gave the troops a foretaste of war. The ship's guns went into action, and a destroyer raced to the spot where a periscope had been reported. The Marines hurried to their assigned lifeboats, expecting the worst. "The boys tell me I was running hard but telling everybody else to take their time," Lowe wrote. "After the smoke settled, it wasn't a submarine but something else. Nothing dangerous."
On leaving the ship, the regiment boarded a train for a long, cold 60-hour ride to a camp in the vicinity of Paris. There, to Lowe's surprise, he learned that he was not destined for the trenches. He was ordered to the Army's aviation school at Tours to become an aerial observer.
He trained at Tours, southwest of Paris, from January 12 to February 20. Then he was sent to Amanty, France, for two months of advanced training, including flying. Among his Army classmates he was familiarly called "Marine," a nickname that stuck with him until the end of the war.
On one of his early training flights, the Marine experienced a thrill known to few humans in 1918. "I broke away from the usual routine for a pleasure trip above the clouds," he wrote to Nina Burkhart, his future wife. "The top of the clouds were shaped something like pictures we have seen of distant mountains, with sharp peaks and deep valleys. The sun added grandeur by giving them a bright shiny silvery effect." In anticipation of future thrills, he added: "A fight in the air will be the most exciting affair I have ever enjoyed."
Because the United States had not produced planes for combat in Europe, the Americans used British planes mainly. The small observation planes were two-seaters, with the observer in the forward cockpit and the pilot behind. Besides a camera, the observer was provided with a mounted machine gun, the plane's only defense.
Earlier in the war, planes were not equipped with guns, and a kind of camaraderie developed between the contending warriors in the sky. While concentrating on their missions, Allied and German fliers might exchange a friendly wave as they passed. Then firearms became a part of the airborne cargo -- first pistols and rifles, then machine guns. In 1915 a Dutch engineer, Anthony Fokker, perfected a machine gun that fired between the revolving propeller blades, an invention the Germans quickly adopted. By the time Chink Lowe joined the aerial circus, war in the air had become a deadly game. Being required to fly at low altitudes over battle lines made the small observation planes vulnerable to ground fire. Lowe and his pilot would find both aerial and ground opposition troublesome.
By late March, Lowe had his fill of training flights. "I have had enough training now and would like to be a regular player in the game," he wrote his family.
But he managed to find diversions. To help fill his free hours, he made friends with a French girl. "I teach her English and she teaches me French," he wrote home. The girl was a good musician, he reported, and her repertoire included familiar tunes such as "Tipperary" and "Everybody's Doing It."
Once he and another lieutenant walked eight miles to a nearby village where they knew two girls. Another time he hired a motorcycle and driver for an extensive tour of the countryside.
continued.........
http://pr.utk.edu/alumnus/sum95/A-1.GIF
Chink Lowe as an All-Southern Guard.