Private, Btry A, 7th Field Artillery, 1st Division.
Killed in action near Véry, France, October 5, 1918. Age 24.
Town: Alabama (also Jefferson County; see text)
Burial: Alabama Cemetery, Alabama, Genesee County, New York
George Franklin Buchner, Jr., was born on August 29, 1894 in Ontario, Canada, and according to the 1910 US Census came with his family to the United States in 1904. That census shows George Jr. at age 15 living with his parents (farmer George Buchner, Sr. and wife, Emma) and five siblings in Lorraine (Jefferson County), New York. According to the December 3, 1918 Batavia Daily News, he had four brothers and three sisters at the time of his death. A 1921 document in Buchner’s Burial Case file lists three brothers (William, Roy, and Marshall) and three sisters (Carrie, Nellie, and Emma).
By 1915, mentions of the Buchners living in Alabama (Genesee County), New York appear in Batavia-area newspapers. The 1915 NY State Census shows them living in Alabama on Judge Road. Basom, NY (a hamlet within Alabama township) is listed as George’s residence on his NYSS and his draft registration card. At the time he registered, George Jr. gave his occupation as farming, and was employed by Frank Thompson in Lyndonville (Orleans County).
Buchner left for Camp Dix, New Jersey, with Genesee County’s second draft contingent on September 26, 1917. Like most other members of the county’s first two contingents, he was initially assigned to Battery D of the 78th Division’s 307th Field Artillery. In November, 1917, he was assigned to the Cooks and Bakers school at Camp Dix. On January 12, 1918, he was sent overseas with a detachment from Camp Dix, and in early February was transferred to a field artillery replacement regiment. On February 18 he was assigned as a cook to Battery A of the 1st Division’s 7th Field Artillery.
Only a few days prior, the 1st Division had been ordered to its first active front position, in the Ansauville Sector, with Battery A located near Rambucourt. From that point on until the Armistice, except for its movements from one front to another, the 1st Division was in almost constant combat. The division, including Buchner’s 7th Field Artillery, participated in fierce battles at Picardy (Cantigny), Soissons, and St. Mihiel before Buchner was killed during the second phase of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, a little more than a month before the war was over.
On October 5, 1918, the day Private Buchner was killed, the 1st Division was continuing an attack launched the previous day through Montrebeau Wood and Exermont Ravine towards Fléville. The 7th Field Artillery was southeast of Exermont in support of the 26th Infantry Regiment’s assigned assault on Hill 212 and the western edge of the Bois de Moncy, both enemy strong points.
Buchner was working in the 7th Field Artillery’s headquarters kitchen at the time he was killed. Though it doesn’t mention Buchner specifically, an account in History of the Seventh Field Artillery (page 96) matches the approximate time, place, and circumstances of his death and if nothing else demonstrates the enemy’s practice of shelling kitchen and supply positions: “The regimental P.C. moved to the cellar of Serieux Farm [southeast of Exermont, northwest of Véry] with the Second Infantry Brigade. The enemy had Serieux Farm under direct observation for the first two or three days and made things rather warm for the Headquarters detachment whose kitchen was in the corner of the two remaining walls of the old building. The first day here, as Colonel Ruggles and his staff were eating lunch, the Boche artillery opened up. The first shell was short, the second an ‘over’ and the third broke about fifteen or twenty yards away, killing the two horses of the fourgeon wagon and seriously wounding one of the men of the Headquarters Detachment.”
A searcher’s report in Buchner’s Burial Case File, signed by Lt. John A Redfern of the 7th Field Artillery, gives two eyewitness accounts. The first, by Pvt. Sam Wishnvitz, HQ Co., 7th Field Artillery, reads, “Pvt. Buchner was killed in action while working in Headquarters kitchen in the Argonne Forest, by a German shell, October 5th 1918. He was buried in the grave yard at Very, France.” The second, by Pvt. Harry Kandell, HQ Co., 7th Field Artillery, reads, “I was present at Headquarters kitchen when this soldier was killed as he was serving coffee. This occurred in the Argonne on October 5th 1918.”
In September, 1921, Private Buchner’s remains were returned to his parents at Basom under military escort and interred at Alabama Cemetery.
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September 17, 1921 Batavia Daily News p2 c3
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September 20, 1921 Batavia Daily News p5 c4
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Source: New York Service Summary from Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, NY State Archives, Albany, New York
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Identity Tag in George F Buchner Burial Case File, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives – St. Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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George F Buchner headstone, Alabama Cemetery, Alabama, Genesee County, New York
GPS Coordinates: Lat 43° 6’ 11.609” N; Long 78° 23’ 28.53” W (DD: 43.103225, -78.391258)
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George F Buchner Sources:
– All County Lists
– Feb 20, 1915 BD p4 c5
– Sep 25, 1917 BD p1 c6-7
– Feb 14, 1918 BD p2 c3
– Dec 3, 1918 BD p1 c6*
– Sept 17, 1921 BD p2 c3
– Sept 20, 1921 BD p5 c4
– “United States Census, 1910.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for George Buchner (head) and George F Buchner (son, age 15), citing Census Records, Lorraine, Jefferson, New York; sheet number 6, line numbers 25 and 28, microfilm series T624, Roll 953, page 285.
– “New York State Census, 1915.” Online index and images, Ancestry.com. Entry for George Buchner Jr., age 20, citing Census Records, Alabama, A.D. 01, E.D. 01, Genesee, New York; page number 9, line 26.
– NYSS
– Roll of Honor (NY State), p 64
– World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (Ancestry.com)
– “Buchner, George F,” notation, Nov 11 1917 assignment to Cooks and Bakers School, “Muster Roll, Battery D, 307th Field Artillery, Camp Dix, NJ, from last bimonthly muster on October 31 1917 to the muster on December 31, 1917,” Army Morning Reports and Unit Rosters 1912-1959, National Personnel Records Center, National Archives, St. Louis, Missouri.
– History of the Seventh Field Artillery, pp 26-48, 89-97, 122; accessed online (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000401762)
– History of the First Division During the World War 1917-1919, pp 42-47, 72-73, 181-202, 329
– 1st Division, Summary of Operations in the World War, pp 60-70
– Correspondence with Joseph Cassidy, Town of Alabama (Genesee County, New York) historian, information and photo provided; also “Historian’s Page, Alabama, NY” website (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nycalaba/)
– BCF
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