Boleslaus Leo Dryja
Private
4th Company - 161st Depot Brigade
Spanish Flu
The vast sea of military buildings that sprawled across the relatively flat Illinois plain appeared to make up a city that rivaled even nearby Rockford in size and population. But it was no residential neighborhood, it was the recently established Camp Grant, which housed thousands of soldiers who drilled and trained there daily (1). Among the latest wide-eye recruits to be sent to the Camp was 22-year-old Boleslaus Dryja of Chicago, Illinois. He had just entered the service in June of 1918, after leaving his job as a machinist at a forging company. Alongside him were men of all backgrounds from across the Midwest, most having never traveled even remotely far from their homes, yet they now faced the prospect of sailing to an unfamiliar continent. Though Boleslaus had never been to Europe, he was overly familiar with Germany, both his parents having emigrated from the Kaiser controlled provinces in western Poland. If liberty wasn't justification enough for why he was here, the prospect of helping to free Poland perhaps was. He was posted to 4th Company of the 161st Depot Brigade and carried out his training in the makeshift trenches and combat courses at the camp.
As fate would have it, the enemy they would face would not be the Germans, in fact it was something not even human, it was the Spanish Flu. In September of 1918, the deadly virus arrived at the camp and quickly began spreading like wildfire among the blissfully unaware soldiers (2). The disease spared not even the healthiest of men and the hospitals at the camp were soon overwhelmed with victims (2). Soldiers began dying in droves and the camp was locked down, leaving Boleslaus and his fellow comrades praying for protection from such a potent virus (2). Yet the situation continued to spiral out of control and resulted in the commanding officer of the camp, Colonel Hagadorn, tragically taking his own life after being unable to stop the spread (2). Boleslaus spent his 23rd birthday in these conditions, watching helplessly as so many comrades were killed by an unseen enemy (2). By some miracle, he survived the outbreak, though some 1,400 others did not (2). The death toll was something akin to what should have been seen only at the front, yet the bodies were there on American soil, adding further tragedy to an already costly year of conflict.
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Boleslaus continued to serve with the army in the United States until his discharge in May of 1919. He returned to the Windy City, where he married Martha Fifelski, and began a family. Like many veterans of the service, he joined up with one of the organizations formed postwar, the Polish Legion. He would become very active in post 39 and eventually had the opportunity to attend an Illinois State Convention as a delegate in 1940. He would tragically pass away only a year later, at the age of 45.
Sources:
(1) “Camp Grant, IL - U.S. Army Center of Military History.” The WW1 Era, U.S. Army, history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/wwi/pt02/ch09/pt02-ch09-sec04.html#lg=1&slide=1.
(2) Kolkey, Jeff. “World War I Horror Revealed in 100-Year-Old Letters from Camp Grant in Rockford.” Rockford Register Star, 20 Oct. 2018, www.rrstar.com/news/20181020/world-war-i-horror-revealed-in-100-year-old-letters-from-camp-grant-in-rockford.
(1) “Camp Grant, IL - U.S. Army Center of Military History.” The WW1 Era, U.S. Army, history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/wwi/pt02/ch09/pt02-ch09-sec04.html#lg=1&slide=1.
(2) Kolkey, Jeff. “World War I Horror Revealed in 100-Year-Old Letters from Camp Grant in Rockford.” Rockford Register Star, 20 Oct. 2018, www.rrstar.com/news/20181020/world-war-i-horror-revealed-in-100-year-old-letters-from-camp-grant-in-rockford.