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Lloyd Thurman Achey was born 3 Nov 1887 in
Roann, Wabash
County, one of eight children of Orlando and Lydia Achey. When Lloyd
registered
for the draft on 5 June 1917, he listed Denver, Indiana, as his home,
but was
living in Akron, Ohio, and working for the B F Goodrich Rubber Company.
The
registrar described him as being of average height, average build, with
gray
eyes and light brown hair. His name was included in those men drafted
from
District 5 in Akron in mid-July. He left 21 Sept 1917 for Camp Sherman,
Chillicothe,
Ohio, for training. Lloyd was lucky enough to be sent home to Denver
for a
visit at Christmas prior to being sent overseas. Originally assigned to
Company
E, 332th Infantry, he was promoted to private first class 4 Feb 1918.
On 11
March, he was reassigned to Truck Company 5, 1st Corps Artillery Park
and
demoted to private 13 March, likely as part of the reorganization of
the unit. He
returned to private first class status 1 April. His unit was assigned
to the
American Expeditionary Force on 21 May and the following day departed
Hoboken,
New Jersey, on board the USS Great Northern, a 509 foot passenger
steamer
turned troop ship, arriving about 2 June. He was promoted to corporal 1
August
then sergeant 15 September. Upon arrival his in France, he wrote to his
parents noting
the local truck gardens appeared in fine shape but residents were
“wearing
wooden shoes and the children are not so very well dressed. If the
people back
home knew how well they could use their old clothes or wear new one
from them I
am sure they would send many more of them over.” By September, Achey
had been
promoted to corporal and by October, he reached the rank of sergeant. In an October 1918 letter, Sgt Achey wrote home
to his
parents in Denver about his assignment of hauling ammunition from the
rear to
position to the front lines. His unit had travelled through areas
devastated by
four years of war and he described the countryside as “a solid mass of
shell
holes, trenches and barbed wire entanglements…Towns are mostly all
laying on a
heap with hardly a wall left standing.” At that time, he believed the
war would
likely last until Spring. He mentions that permits were required to
receive
items from the state, and he would be making such request to allow his
mother
to send socks shortly. Much of his correspondence was mundane though,
talk of
weather, thinking of what he would like sent for Christmas, progress of
local
crops and commentary on brother Waldo’s new threshing machine. He spoke
little
about the battle raging around him as he was serving in one of the
hottest of
hotspots on the western front. Achey was involved in the
Champagne-Marne
Offensive 15-18 July 1918; Aisne-Marne Offensive 18 July-6 August 1918;
Oise-Aisne
Offensive 18 August-11 November 1918; Meuse-Argonne Offensive,
popularly known
as the Battle of the Argonne Forest, 26 September-11 November 1918. The following
January, Lloyd was back in Akron living with
his ‘cousin’, English-born George Nicholson and family, and working as
a
foreman for Goodrich. In about 1928, he had married Minnie (Sigfried)
Hawk, a
fellow rubber factory employee, and was raising her fifteen-year-old
son,
Howard Leroy, in Akron. By 1935, the couple had moved outside of town
to
Suffield Township. It was there the family lived when World War II
broke out.
Achey registered for the draft on 27 April 1942, but at the age of 44
and his with
position at Goodrich, he wasn’t a prime target for the draft board. In
his
later years, he was a member the Masonic Lodge 534, F & A M of
Peru,
Indiana; Yusef-Kahn Grotto of Akron, Ohio; and the Army and Navy
Garrison of
Akron. Lloyd Thurman Achey died 26 Nov 1951 in Greene County, Ohio, and
was
buried in Lakewood cemetery, Akron, Ohio. He was survived by wife,
Minnie of
Mogadore, Portage County, Ohio
http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/1217218704.jpg
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