Walter Ernest Lambs

As a wounded soldier, Walter was eligible to posthumously receive the Purple Heart after the recognition program was launched in 1932. Unfortunately it required an application be submitted by a family member, and by then 14 years had passed since the war’s end. In many instances there was not as much interest or not as many family members willing to pursue it.

Sadly, Walter was killed less than a week before Armistice Day. The fighting stopped at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. His death could have been classified as “KIA” or killed in action except for the way the Army defined the term. Walter was “DOW” because he died of wounds received in action but survived long enough to reach a medical treatment facility.

He was survived by his mother and six siblings, all but one being older than him. Jacob Lambs had married Katharine, another German native, and all seven children were born within the first 13 years of marriage in Philadelphia. Jacob was a cabinet maker, living long enough to see his two daughters married before he died in 1914.

The five boys learned a trade in either woodworking or sheet metal work. Walter’s craft was building horse-drawn wagons, which wasn’t a job with a good future since the automobile would soon dominate the roads. All the boys registered for the draft but Walter was the only one inducted. That was on September 20, 1917 when he joined Company A of the 315th Infantry. He was promoted to Private 1st Class four months later and joined the Headquarters Company in May, 1918. 

They sailed to France in July as part of the 79th Division and engaged the Germans at Malancourt, Montfaucon Natillois, and the Valley of the Meuse. But it was in the Meuce-Argonne campaign, the deadliest in Army history, that Walter lost his life on November 5. 

(Another member of the 315th died before reaching a medical treatment facility, and was eventually brought home for burial here. The Notable life story of Pvt. Charles Warburton Smith, killed in action, is found here.)

Two days later a German delegation arrived in a train car at the front lines and played a loud bugle call through the Argonne forest. The Germans informed some very surprised French troops that they were there to discuss terms of surrender with the French commander.

The French and American officers, Field Marshall Ferdinand Fochs and General John Pershing, set stringent terms, however, delaying German acceptance until the 11th. Meanwhile, the fighting continued and thousands more men on both sides died.

 Walter was buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France beneath a wooden marker with his name stenciled on it, followed by the permanent white marble cross. Walter’s mother received a telegram about his death from the War Department, and the notice below appeared in the newspaper. She later applied for a Victory Medal, to which every service member in the war was entitled. She died before the Purple Heart program was started, so it would have been up to one of the siblings who were still alive in 1932 if they wanted to submit an application.

His name was also inscribed on his parents’ gravestone along with two of his brothers. One sister and another brother are buried elsewhere at Mount Moriah.