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1895–1919 · 1st Engineers Train, 1st Division
He is the only man of this town whose name is carried by an institution, and the institution is the town's veterans' hall. James W. Swanson was born at New Carlisle 19 January 1895, son of Clous and Lottie Swanson. He was an employee of the Studebaker Company in South Bend when he enlisted in the U.S. Regular Army, 21 May 1917 — among the first volunteers of the county's war, weeks after the declaration. He trained at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, embarked 7 August 1917, and was assigned to the 1st Engineers Train of the 1st Division, the first American division in France. He served through the division's war and into the occupation, and died at Coblenz, Germany, 8 March 1919, in the Army of Occupation — the state's roll gives no cause, and none is supplied here. His body was returned to the United States and buried at New Carlisle, in the ground of the town he was born in. When the town's veterans organized their American Legion post, they named it in his honor; the post, No. 297, still musters at 486 East Michigan Street under that honor. No decoration is recorded for him in the roll, and his heroism in this section is the kind the town itself chose to honor: the first war's local dead, carried by name for a century by the men who came home from the second.
Sources
- Indiana Gold Star Honor Roll, 1914–1918 (Indiana Historical Commission, 1921), St. Joseph County section, entry SWANSON, James W., read whole.
- The American Legion post locator (Post 297, New Carlisle — active).