Editor’s note: Our apologies to the Whitewater Historical Society. This #FlashbackFriday should have been posted on Memorial Day but was misplaced.

It’s time once again for #FlashbackFriday with the Whitewater Historical Society. In honor of Memorial Day, we feature a photo of Ernest Magoon, a young, Whitewater area man who was killed in World War I.

Ernest Magoon was drafted into the Army in May of 1918 around the same time Arthur Ardelt, a Whitewater man, was also drafted. They ended up in the same division, but different companies, and found each other in France. They met up almost every day to share letters and stories of home. In September, 1918, they were sent to fight in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Ardelt was lucky; a machine gun bullet grazed his helmet before killing the man in front of him (see Ardelt’s dented helmet in the depot museum). But Ernest Magoon was killed in action.

When Ardelt returned from the front, he went in search of the fate of Magoon and encountered some soldiers who had helped bury Magoon in the field. They said that another soldier took Magoon’s small Bible and Ardelt went to find that soldier. He confronted him and demanded Magoon’s Bible, which had Magoon’s name and address in it, intending to take it back to Magoon’s family.

The Meuse-Argonne battle had many casualties and news was slow. By March of 1919, Magoon’s family still had no word of his fate. Someone wrote Ardelt (still in France) to see if he knew something and Ardelt wrote this story in a letter home. It was the first news the family received of Magoon’s death. Later, Magoon was honored in Whitewater for making the ultimate sacrifice for his country.

Join us next week for more from the Whitewater Historical Society.

(2048PC, Whitewater Historical Society)