March 29, 2024

The Ira Five: Part I

Three brothers, their cousin and another Ira man joined the military right after the U.S. entered World War I

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Editor's Note: This is the first in a two-part series about a unique set of brothers and two other young men from the Ira area known as the Ira Five.

Tuesday was the 100th anniversary of the end of the Russian Brusilov Offensive — one of many campaigns that took many lives as part of World War I. Even though five men from Ira were still a few months away from joining the U.S. military, the eyes and ears of Jasper County were studying what was happening in Europe.

When the U.S. got involved in World War I the following spring, manpower was needed — quickly — from all across the country. That manpower included all sorts of family members and close friends and neighbors signing up together — including five young men from Ira, who enlisted in the U.S. Army within days.

Commemorated in a veterans memorial on the northeast side of the Jasper County Courthouse and in the Baxter Veterans Memorial are Seward V. Castor, Clifford C. Castor and William H. Castor — all brothers — along with their cousin, Russell Rippey, and longtime friend Zenas Jones. All five joined the U.S. Army and were able to serve together in the same infantry regiment.

Rippey was the only one of the quintet to not return alive. He was injured in combat Oct. 7, 1918 — only 34 days before the armistice that ended the war — and he died of his wounds three days after the injury. He was 19 years old.

Jones, who lived the longest of the five, passed away in 1968. He was the grandfather of Newton attorney and Jasper County native John Billingsley.

While World War II and subsequent conflicts were well-documented and its combat veterans’ experiences chronicled. World War I — known at the time as the “Great War” — the service records and battlefield experiences were not nearly as well-documented.

According to the Iowa Genealogical Society, more than 500,000 Iowans between the ages of 18 and 45 registered for the draft during World War I. Iowa sent 114,242 men and women to serve during this war.

One of the first U.S. soldiers killed in combat in World War I was Carroll County native Merle Hay — for whom the Des Moines-area street, neighborhood and shopping mall are named. The first U.S. woman to die of injuries in a World War I combat zone — Marion Crandell, formerly a French teacher at St. Katharine’s School in Davenport — was also an Iowan.

Billingsley said in the 1910s, there were man Iowa veterans around who had served in the Civil War, and they were highly regarded in their central Iowa communities.

“These guys grew up in a society where Civil War veterans were prominent in the community, and were honored regularly,” said Billingsley, a West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran. “World War I was something followed and talked about, as a distant problem, until the Germans started sinking too many ships and the French and British were losing the war. A few days after word made it to Iowa that Congress had declared war, these five guys from Ira were among the first guys anywhere to sign up for the cause by enlisting in the Army.”

In April 1916, Ray Echternacht of Ira organized the first and only Boy Scout Troop in Ira. He later became the first known man from the Ira area to enlist in the Army when he did so on July 6, 1916 — about nine months before the U.S. officially entered World War I. He ended up serving with the National Guard along the Mexican border and later overseas.

A large flag was flown in Ira daily on a tall, wooden flag pole during the day in Ira in the months leading up to the U.S. involvement in the war. Congress declared war on Germany in an nearly unanimous vote on April 6, 1917, and like many other American towns, Ira was able to soon get the news that the U.S, was going to war.

After getting the news by way of the telegraph housed in the Ira railroad depot, northwest Jasper County residents learned what millions of other Americans were realizing. The United States was going to war.

Some of the men got the patriotic urge and decided to run the American flag, with its 48 stars, up the pole that night. Later, a heavy wind came up, and in the morning, both the flag and the pole were found on the ground.

The pole was replaced with a shorter one. The Ira flag was no longer flown at night after that incident.

Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com