Artillery in the Diamond: The Story of Bellefonte's Forgotten WWI Memorial

The Boche 77 at the Bellefonte Courthouse and W. Harrison Walker
Photo Retrieved From: Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

After four horrific years, the "war to end all wars" came to a close on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918. World War I as it became known, introduced the world to a level of death and destruction previously unseen. Approximately 16 million lives had been lost during the conflict, almost 2% of the world's population at that time. In the United States, who had only joined the conflict the year before, 205,690 service members returned home suffering from wounds of various degrees. Another 116,708 never made it back.

The following year, Armistice Day was established by President Woodrow Wilson as a day to remember those who had served and lost their lives in WWI. As part of this remembrance, monuments and statues were erected in communities large and small across the country. Some of these dedications were comprised of military equipment captured from the enemy on the battlefields of Europe. 

One man was determined to bring one of these weapons of war to Bellefonte, a mere four-thousand miles from the battlefields of France. His name was W. Harrison Walker, a public servant who put his community before anything else. Walker had served Bellefonte as a lawyer, notary, and later as mayor. 

 During the war, Walker had been the chairman for both the War Savings Committee of Centre County and the Third Federal district war savings division. Following the end of the war, three captured artillery pieces had been allotted by the War Department to be distributed as monuments within the Third Division, of which Bellefonte was within. After applying for one of the guns, Walker then persistently solicited the War Department for over six months until he was finally granted one.   

The journey of the captured artillery gun is just as interesting as the man who brought it to Centre County. According to an article published in Bellefonte's Democratic Watchman newspaper, the gun was a German 77mm. field artillery piece captured during the "Argonne drive." 

The same model artillery gun at the Bovington Tank Museum in the UK
Photo Retrieved From: By Cooper6 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60201194

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive would be the largest military operation that the American forces in Europe would participate in. Fought from September 26th to November 11th 1918, the battle would produce 120,000 American causalities, of which 26,000 had been killed. To put this in perspective, U.S. forces suffered approximately 6,000 casualties on D-Day during the Second World War.    

However a later article stated that an inscription on the gun noted that it had been captured on July 10, 1918 by the First Infantry Division in Sur-Inver, France. Research could not confirm this location, but the date could indicate that the gun was captured during the Second Battle of the Marne that was fought from July 15-August 6, 1918, of which the First Division did participate in.

Wherever the gun was seized from, it later made its way to the military proving ground in Aberdeen, Maryland. On October 2, 1919 it began the trip from Newark, New Jersey to Bellefonte, where it arrived on October 24. In the papers, the gun is often referred to as the "Boche 77." The word "boche" (pronounced bosh) was a French derogatory word for Germans during the war. 

The description of the gun when it arrived in town was as follows: "One of the wheels of the gun carriage still bears the camouflaged paint with which the gun was masked while in action. Two bullet holes are noticeable on one side of the metal guard. The only parts missing are the breech block and range finder."

Once unloaded, the gun was towed by a truck to the Diamond in front of the courthouse where it was gazed upon by hundreds of people. It was intended to have a concrete mount constructed to permanently affix the gun in time for a formal dedication on November 11th.  

The gun remained at the Diamond until June 1920 when it was towed to Milesburg to be repainted into as close as its original colors as possible. The article explained that upon restoration, the gun would be brought back to Bellefonte and mounted in the southwest corner of the courthouse yard, opposite the soldiers monument. 

A month later, the American Legion requested to have the gun moved in front of the Armory to help promote enlistment within the local troop. Council members approved the request and the gun was moved there for a unknown period of time. 

By May 1926, the gun was back in its original display location within the Diamond. The article noted that interest in the gun had waned and now had no permanent home. 

In June that same year, a Mr. Cunningham of the borough council pointed out that the old German gun was in a perilous position within the Diamond and suggested it be removed. The armory had expressed an interest in the gun and it was decided to move it there. This is the last mention of the gun in any period source material. 

What became of the gun remains unknown. At some point the gun was removed from the armory, as later photos show, but its exact fate could not be ascertained. Was the gun was sold off or donated somewhere? This is a best case scenario. There is a possibility that the gun was destroyed during the scrap drives of WWII, a common fate for these relics of war. This was the disposition of another captured German gun that sat on the campus of Penn State University from 1923 until 1942. 

While we may not have a captured German artillery gun sitting in the Diamond to remind us,  we should all take a moment to reflect and give thanks to the service men and women that protect and serve this great nation.