Henry Henley Chapman, USMA Class of 1917, Military Family dating back to the Revolution.

No. 5733, Class of April 20, 1917. Killed in action September 29, 1918, at Cambria, France, aged 24 years.

Captain Henry Henley Chapman, of the class of 1917, U. S. M. A., was killed in action, in France, September 29th,. 1918. He fell on the field of honor while leading his men over the top in the first wave of the great attack of the Thirtieth Division that broke the Hindenberg line at Bellicourt, about four miles north of St. Quentin, and where the St. Quentin Canal enters the tunnel. The 30th was operating with the 4th British Army and covered itself with glory in the hard fighting as shock troops on that and succeeding days, being highly commended by General Rawlinson and Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. Captain Chapman was commanding Co. F 120th Infantry (old 2nd N. C.) and charged into a storm of German artillery fire which brought heavy casualties to the gallant North Carolina men following their intrepid young leader.

He was the great-great-grandson of Lt. Henry Henley Chapman of the 2nd Regiment Maryland Continental Infantry, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, under General George Washington, and an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati, to which Captain Chapman had been elected by right of direct iineal descent. He was the great-grandson of Lt. Col William Chapman, of the class of 1831, U. S. M. A., a veteran of the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars, and eldest son of Captain William H. H. Chapman, class of 1891, U. S. M. A., who fought through the Cuban and Philippine campaigns and died in active service. He was the eldest grandchild of the late Major General William S. McCaskey, veteran of the Civil, Indian, Cuban and Philippine Wars, and nephew of Colonels Garrison and Douglas McCaskey. His brother, Captain William McC. Chapman, of the class of 1918, U. S. M. A., is aide-de-camp to Major General William S. Graves, commanding the U. S. forces in Siberia. Born of the 20th Infantry, in which his father and grandfather had served for many years, he was a son of the old Army and a long line of fighting men, and died leading men of the new Army he had helped train for service in France.

Captain Chapman was born at Fort Assinnaboine, Montana, August 8th, 1894, and at the time of his death was only 24 years old. Upon his graduation from West Point in the first war class of 1917, he was assigned to the 20th Infantry and made a creditable record in training new men of that regiment and of the new regiments formed from the old 20th at Fort Douglas, Utah. Selected by Brigadier General Samuel Faison as aide, he later assisted in training the North Carolina guardsmen of the 119th and 120th Infantries, forming the 60th Brigade of the 30th Division at Camp Sevier, South Carolina.

His promotion to Captaincy in April, 1918, took him to the 39th Infantry, which he joined on the eve of their embarkation to France. While with the 39th he took part in the heavy fighting of the 4th Division, which was hurriedly brought down from the British area, where it had been in training and placed in immediate reserve behind the new French front, in June, 1918. The second battle of the Marne was the 4th Division's first great battle. The 39th Infantry attacked at 8 a. m. July 18th, ad took all objectives ordered by 3 p. m. At 4 a. m., July 19th, the regiment again advanced and took all objectives. The regiment was cited by General Tennant, commanding the French Division, for its work while attached to that Division. Captain Chapman commanded Company D, and his regimental commander writes that "he acquitted himself with credit and gallantry on both days."

When adjusting the position of his Company on the night of August 1st, the German air- planes bombed the locality, killing and wounding many of the men of his Company and throwing Captain Chapman against a tree causing such severe shell concussion he was evacuated to the hospital. Upon recovery and being passed again for duty at the front, he was given command of F Company 120th Infantry, 30th Division, just ten days before his death.

His Division Commander, Major General E. M. Lewis, wrote of him: "While he has been but a few days in his regiment (the 120th) his worth as an officer was recognized by his superiors and he had endeared himself to his comrades."

Colonel S. W. Miner of the 120th Infantry, in writing of his death, said: "There was not an officer in the regiment, old or young, whose death could have caused any more universal sadness and regret and we have lost a man whom it will be almost impossible to replace. His sweet, gentle and Christian character had so endeared himself to us that all -of us who knew him, however slightly, felt they had lost a personal friend, and this regiment has lost the benefit of his wide experience and military knowledge which I believe we can never replace."

Colonel F. C. Bolles of the 39th Infantry, wrote of him: "He was a brave and competent officer in combat, a capable, energetic and agreeable officer in administration. He was greatly beloved by all officers and men with whom he came in contact."

Besides his mother and two brothers, he leaves a wife, who before marriage was Miss Urania Hudson Edwards, now at her grandmother's home, 28 Ryder Avenue, Patchogue, L. I., and an infant daughter, Margaret Hudson, whom he had never seen. His one favorite of the popular war books was Donald Hankey's "Student in Arms." He carried it with him at Camp Sevier, and perhaps became "the beloved Captain" to some of his men in whose training he put his whole heart and whom he finally led into battle, and with many of those gallant crusaders made the supreme sacrifice on the field of honor.

"He was a Captain born and bred. In years, Though yet a boy, he was a man in soul, Led older men and held them in control; In danger stood erect and quelled their fears; When death calls such a Captain, he but hears As 'twere a distant bugle and the roll Of far-off drums. We wrong him if we toll The mournful bell. Give him our cheers, not tears! Through deadly scorch of battle flame and gas, Through iron hail and burst of shrapnel shell, Smiling as when we played at mimic wars, He was our leader. Is it, then, not well That he should lead before us to the stars? Stand at attention! Let his brave soul pass!"

A Student in Arms by Donald Hankey http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/memoir/Student/HankeyTC.html Memorial http://thehawaiidescendants.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/henry-henley-chapman/

VFW Post discontinued http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/captain-henry-henley-chapman-post-no-1930-veterans-of-foreig/39466549.aspx

Possible Links - that is the best that can be said http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=38696295

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mrmarsha&id=I16856 The Library Records at West Point contain information relating to Graduates who were Ancestors

Some information on Donald Hankey. One is constantly struck by the enormous waste of World War 1 and how it only prepared the way for the greater hecatomb of the Second World War and how it fatally damaged European culture and perhaps the white race:

Donald William Alers Hankey (27 October 1884 – 12 October 1916) was an English soldier best known for two volumes of essays about the British volunteer army in World War I both titled A Student in Arms.

Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Works
3 References
4 External links
Biography[edit]
Donald Hankey was born in Brighton, Sussex, the youngest child of Robert Alers Hankey and Helen Bakewell Hankey. The senior Hankey returned to England with his Australian wife after having made his fortune sheep farming in South Australia. Maurice Hankey was one of Donald’s brothers. As his father and his three older brothers had done, Donald attended Rugby School and from there he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in the autumn of 1901 when he was not yet seventeen. After what he later remembered as “the two most miserable years of my life” at Woolwich Academy, Hankey received his commission as a second lieutenant, joined the Royal Garrison Artillery and was ultimately stationed in Mauritius until serious ill-health led to his return to England on extended sick leave at the end of 1906.

With his military career apparently cut short, three considerations entered into Hankey’s view of his future. One was his long-standing attraction to an eventual career as a Church of England clergyman; another was a recently formed fascination with the challenge of ministering in some way to the manifold needs of the urban poor; and finally, a comfortable legacy at his father’s death (1906) gave him the means to make these two objectives practicable. Accordingly, he spent four months in residence at Rugby House, a mission in one of London’s roughest pockets of poverty, and at the same time enrolled in a “crammer” at Charterhouse with the aim of gaining admittance to university and ultimately to ordination in the Church. Rugby Mission opened Hankey’s eyes to what it might take to work effectively with young people in the slums, but he did succeed in entering Oxford.

Having resigned his army commission and having treated himself to a four-month holiday on the Continent, Hankey began his theological studies as a member of Corpus Christi College. His three years at Oxford were fruitful. His theological studies gave focus to his convictions, and he produced what was eventually published as The Cross, a short book on the Atonement. Still more crucial, however, was Hankey’s introduction to life at the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission, established and maintained by Oxonians in what was then a notoriously squalid London neighborhood south of the Thames. His connection with Bermondsey became one of the most decisive influences in Donald Hankey’s life.

After Oxford (and after a return visit to Mauritius by way of Kenya and Madagascar), Hankey entered the clergy school in Leeds, but found it stultifying and soon gravitated back to Bermondsey where he plunged into the demanding work of the Oxford mission’s several boys’ clubs. But what Hankey had assumed would be his path to ordination in the Church of England continued to lead him in unexpected ways. For various reasons, as he accustomed himself to the life of an Oxford missionary among the noise and stench of Bermondsey, it came to seem all too congenial and curiously unchallenging. Accordingly, (dressed as a labourer, an identity he sometimes assumed in London’s mean streets), Hankey sailed for Australia as a steerage passenger, seeking first of all hard manual work and also the chance eventually to establish a wholesome refuge for London’s hopeless poor somewhere in the vast reaches of the sub-continent. Farm work, travel, and a series of articles on “Australian Life” for the Westminster Gazette occupied this interval.

Returning to England and to Bermondsey in the winter of 1913, Hankey resumed his work with the Mission, looking ahead to a more constructive sojourn in Australia the next summer and throwing himself into the writing of a book on Jesus and the failings of the contemporary church. That book, The Lord of All Good Life, was headed for publication and Hankey was all but headed back to Australia when war came in August 1914. He put in for a commission, but hearing that Lord Kitchener had called for one hundred thousand recruits under thirty, Hankey (who was some two months short of that limit) decided that as a “possible parson” he preferred “experience in the ranks,” and on 8 August enlisted as a private in the 7th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade.

Though they naturally stood out, “gentleman rankers” such as Donald Hankey were not unknown in what became spoken of as “Kitchener’s Mob”; but few, like Hankey, had gone to a military academy and had previously held commissions. So given the extreme needs of the new army, Hankey’s military experience marked him at once, and within a week he was made a sergeant, then sent to barracks at Aldershot and later billeted upon elderly Mrs. Coppin of Firs Cottage in nearby Elstead. His few short months there, training recruits and sharing meaningfully in their lives, mediating to some degree between humble men and the rigid authority above them, were among the happiest and most fulfilling days of Hankey’s life. They corresponded, too, with the beginnings of his recognition as a writer; The Lord of All Good Life “by Donald Hankey, Sergeant, Rifle Brigade,” was published in October of that year. Its modest but gratifying reception could be explained in part by the technically accurate but essentially misleading identification of its author as a soldier in the ranks. Hankey had found his relationship to his fellow men-in-arms more deeply satisfying even than work among London’s poor, and his book subtitled “A study of the greatness of Jesus and the weakness of His Church” gave him needed confidence in his promise as a writer.

From Elstead his posting to dismal Borden Camp was a next step toward active combat. About this time the captain put in charge of Hankey’s company turned out to be such a detested contrast to the man Donald had been serving under that he gave up his sergeant’s stripes in order to be transferred to another company. This incident was part of the inspiration for what became Hankey’s most popularly admired essay, “The Beloved Captain,” an uncharacteristically effusive tribute to the memory of Captain Ronald Hardy, who as a lieutenant had been Hankey’s platoon commander.

Hankey’s two tours of combat duty were separated by about a year and by a change in rank from corporal in the Rifle Brigade to second lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The first culminated in his being wounded near Ypres on 30 July 1915. Since crossing the Channel in May, Hankey had begun to write about the war, more in the form of reflective essays than in personal narrative; but his wounding was the basis for an impressionistic and somewhat disguised account of that particular experience, later published as The Honour of the Brigade. During his protracted convalescence, Hankey was prompted to apply for a commission. Various considerations were involved in this decision, especially the urging of his older brother Maurice, himself a former captain in the Royal Marine Artillery who was already well along in what would become a distinguished career as Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defense and eventually Cabinet Secretary.

At length, and not without misgivings, Donald was commissioned, finally joining the “Warwicks” infantry regiment, and returned to action. In the meantime Hankey was becoming an acclaimed, though as yet anonymous, author of a series of essays appearing in The Spectator under the nom de plume “A Student in Arms.”

In essence, Hankey’s increasingly popular essays were a comprehensive meditation on how Britain’s citizen army was meeting the unprecedented challenge of war. In general, they fell somewhere between the jingoistic enthusiasm with which the Great War tended to be greeted at its outset and the bleak disillusionment so strikingly evident in the work of those writers who survived it. Modestly and thoughtfully, Hankey spoke of the ordinary soldiers’ common ordeal in terms that his readers at home found sobering but reassuring. In their day, collected in two volumes published in the spring of 1916 by Andrew Melrose and (posthumously) in 1917, the pieces that comprise A Student in Arms were received with what must be called gratitude; today they provide valuable insight into how the 1914-18 war appeared to many who, both as civilians and in the military, actually experienced it whether facing combat or waiting anxiously at home.

It is not surprising that the later essays written by the “Student in Arms” during his second close-up view of war are significantly more sombre. Some, in fact, were rejected by the Spectator owing to their “change in tone.” The battle-tested Hankey’s sympathies for the increasingly younger officers and men become ever more acute; his confidence that their sacrifice will be sufficiently honoured grows less certain. His brief first-hand participation in the cataclysmic opening day of the Battle of the Somme and its sickening aftermath mark some of Hankey’s final letters with unmistakable signs of shock. After a short respite at an Army School behind the lines, Hankey was back in the trenches near Le Transloy. On 6 October, he wrote in calm resignation to his sister Hilda that heavy fighting was just ahead. It is part of the Hankey legend that as he and his men waited to go “over the top” at 1:30 on the afternoon of 12 October 1916, Lt Hankey was heard to tell them, “If you are wounded, ‘Blighty’; if killed, the Resurrection!” Hankey died in that attack and was buried near where he fell. That grave was never located, and his name appears on the huge Thiepval memorial to the 70,000 missing and unidentified dead who fought on the Somme.

Works[edit]
Australian Life (six articles in the Westminster Gazette, 26 July to 29 August 1913)
The Lord of All Good Life (Longmans: 1914)
Faith or Fear? An Appeal to the Church of England (D. Hankey et al.) (Macmillan: 1916)
A Student in Arms (Andrew Melrose: 1916)
A Student in Arms, Second Series (Andrew Melrose: 1917)
The Cross (Andrew Melrose: 1919)
Letters of “A Student in Arms” (Donald Hankey) (Andrew Melrose: 1921)
References[edit]
Spectator, 1916. Review titled “‘A Student in Arms’—How It Strikes a Transatlantic ‘Tommy’” by “J.N.H.” (Reviewer is the American James Norman Hall, author of Kitchener’s Mob 16 September 1916); Editor’s tribute to D. Hankey upon his death (21 October); “The ‘Student in Arms’ in Elstead” (Hankey’s landlady Mrs. Coppin’s recollections of him, 9 Dec.).
Oxford and Bermondsey Mission Annual Report (eulogy for D. Hankey, 1916).
E. B. Osborn. “The Student in Arms, Donald Hankey” in The New Elizabethans (John Lane: 1919).
K. G. Budd. The Story of Donald Hankey (Student Christian Movement Press: 1931).
Barclay Barron. The Doctor (discusses D. Hankey as among the notable “disciples” of the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission’s founder Dr. John Stansfeld,” Edward Arnold: 1952).
Stephen Roskill. Hankey, Man of Secrets (biography of Maurice Hankey, Donald’s brother, which contains family information, Collins:1970-71).
James Kissane. Without Parade: the Life and Work of Donald Hankey, “A Student in Arms” (critical biography with emphasis on Hankey’s writings, Book Guild: 2003).

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