The storied ship that almost sank — with the Unknown Soldier on it

The English and French had honored and laid to rest their unknown soldiers in 1920 — in Westminster Abbey and at the Arc de Triomphe, respectively. Then, in October 1921, it was the United States’ turn.

The task of selecting a body to represent the thousands of still-unknown dead from the Great War was daunting. The United States still had not identified 1,237 dead soldiers, and, according to the U.S. Naval Institute, extraordinary care had to be taken to select a body that would not be identified later.

Four bodies were exhumed from the U.S. cemeteries of Aisne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Somme and St. Mihiel. Arriving at the city hall of Chalons-sur-Marne on Oct. 23, French and American soldiers then rearranged the caskets to further obfuscate their origins.

The following day, Army Sgt. Edward Younger, an enlisted man, walked slowly towards the four flag-draped caskets. He had been given the honor of choosing the United States’ Unknown Soldier.

According to Arlington National Cemetery, Younger recalled that he thought of himself and his comrades as just “good, average soldiers,” and believed that “none of the men had been decorated, nor had performed signal feats.” Speaking to a Washington Post reporter in 1930, he recalled that the process seemed arbitrary — simply being told, ‘I guess you’re the one, Younger. … You select the Unknown.’”

Younger approached the caskets, carrying white roses in his hand given to him by a former member of the Chalons City Council who had lost two sons in the war.

Younger circled the caskets three times, awed by the honor and responsibility he was tasked with. He later recalled in, “I Chose the Unknown Soldier”:

“I took the flowers and advanced to the little temporary shrine through a line of French troops. I entered the door … and stood alone with the dead. … For a moment I hesitated, and said a prayer, inaudible, inarticulate, yet real. Then I looked around. That scene will remain with me forever. Each casket was draped with a beautiful American flag. … I began a slow march around the caskets. Which should it be? Thoughts poured like torrents through my mind. Maybe these buddies had once been my pals. Perhaps one of them had fought with me, had befriended me, had possibly shielded me from a bullet that might have put me in his place. Who would even know?”

When later asked why he had chosen that particular casket, according to the U.S. Naval Institute, Younger replied, “I don’t really know, but something drew me to it.”

Transported aboard a special funeral train, the Unknown Soldier was carried to Paris and then on to the port town of Le Havre the following day. Marine Capt. Graves Erskine and his 38 hand-picked Marines readied the steel gray casket for its sea voyage by placing it in a rough wooden box wrapped in waterproof canvas.

The casket, too large to be carried through the hatch of the USS Olympia and to relative safety below, had to be lashed to the bow of the ship.

A box, containing soil from the battlefields of France, accompanied the Unknown Soldier aboard the ship — intended to line the warrior’s grave back in the United States.

It would be the Olympia’s final major journey. Arguably the Navy’s most famous ship still afloat at the time, the Olympia had earned its laurels during the American’s lopsided victory at Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

However, the ship almost didn’t make it.

Two storms were roiling the ocean prior to the Olympia’s departure: The first, a tropical storm that became a hurricane, had cut across Florida then headed east into the Atlantic.

The second storm, according to the Independence Seaport Museum, cut through the Gulf of Mexico and slammed Tampa Bay, Florida, before crossing the state and heading in a weakened state on a course that would intercept the Olympia about Nov. 3.

According to Craig Bruns, the chief curator at the ISM, during a centennial dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 2021, the Olympia was known as a “roller,” and during the journey with the Unknown Soldier the ship had repeatedly rolled to the point of capsizing.

On Halloween morning, six days after leaving port, the Olympia was halfway across the Atlantic when, traveling alone, gale-force winds blustered about the ship.

Twenty-foot seas broke over the Olympia but despite this, one Marine, lashed to the ship’s stanchions so as to not be washed overboard, stood guard over the Unknown Soldier at all times.

Two others remained close by, ready to intercede should the casket begin to shift and pitch like the seas below.

According to the U.S. Naval institute, at the peak of the storm the vessel rolled 39 degrees, leading to anxiety that the ship would capsize. As the Olympia continued to roll and plunge, many of the crew feared the worst.

“The bridge itself was awash half the time,” Erskine later recalled. “And almost as often there was seawater in the wardroom.”

“The agonizing thought came to me: what if the Unknown Soldier — the hero all America awaits to honor — is washed overboard?” he remembered. “I knew that if such a thing happened, I might as well jump over with him.”

The commanding officer, Capt. Henry Lake Wyman, even sought divine intervention and asked Navy Chaplain Lt. Edward Duff to pray for the safety of the vessel as its crew clung helplessly to anything affixed to the ship, watching as the casket broke the waves on the top deck.

Whether divine intervention or a fleeting weather pattern, the Olympia and its crew battled through, arriving on time and to much fanfare as the ship and its crew made its way up the Potomac River.

Ultimately laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony attended by President Warren Harding, Vice President Calvin Coolidge, senior government representatives, Medal of Honor recipients and other military groups, the Unknown Soldier has been watched over and guarded — first by a civilian, then by the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment — since 1925.

Visited by Younger during Memorial Day in 1930, the former Army sergeant remarked how he might have “eaten, slept, and fought next to him” and that it was “real nice to get a chance to visit him again.”