This Military Service Page was created/owned by
SSG Jerry Dennis
to remember
Hay, Merle, PVT USA(Ret).
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Casualty Info
Last Address Glidden
Casualty Date Nov 03, 1917
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Gun, Small Arms Fire
Location Germany
Conflict World War I
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Image
WWI Victory Medal - 1917
Name of Award WWI Victory Medal
Devices
Silver Star Gallantry Device
Worn on the Medal for Gallantry (predecessor of the Silver Star Medal)
Year Awarded 1917
Last Updated: Apr 5, 2016
This ribbon does not rate any devices for subsequent awards
Details Behind Award
Remarks: American Soldier. Private Hay was one of the first three servicemen (according to conflicting reports, possibly the actual first) to die in combat in World War I, along with Corporal James Bethel Gresham of Evansville, Indiana, and Private Thomas F. Enright of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In civilian life, Private Hay was a clerk in the Glidden farm implement store, and he enlisted in may 1918 not long after war declared. Hay, Gresham, and Enright were all serving Company F, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division ("The Big Red One") in trenches in or near the village of Bathelemont les Bauzemont, in Lorrain, east of Nancy, in what was supposed to be a quiet sector, to allow the division some seasoning before being sent to more active sectors. On the night of November 2-3, 1917, the Germans, suspecting that the Americans had moved in the area, conducted a trench raid on the 16th's position to capture prisoners for interrogation. Hay and Gresham were killed in the initial attack, not recognizing the German soldiers in the dark (one story has it that the gold watch Hay's mother had given him was found stopped at 0240 hrs), and Enright was killed as he resisted being taken. The Germans left with every piece of American equipment they could lay their hands on, as well as eleven prisoners. Hay, Enright, and Gresham were buried where they fell, the French government erecting a monument to their memory on the spot, but it was destroyed by the Germans in 1940. Hay's body was returned to the US in July 1921 and re-interred in his home town. In 1929, the Iowa legislature funded a special monument for Hay in Glidden as well as a cenotaph in Des Moines. The current monument near Bathelemont was erected after World War II. (Bio. by: Paul F. Wilson)
.png?ixlib=java-2.3.0&w=100&s=aa0bdea659a0ba01df12b41186ddda0b "World War I Victory Button (Wounded in Action)")
