World War I
On April 6, 1917, the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany and officially entered World War I. At the time, soldiers and sailors with Spanish surnames or Spanish accents were sometimes the objects of ridicule and relegated to menial jobs. However, Hispanics continued to join the military and serve their nation.
Captain Robert F. Lopez retired from the Navy in 1911. During World War I, he was recalled to active duty and given the rank of Commodore (equivalent to a one star admiral rank, typically used during war time) to command the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.
Luis de Florez graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1911 before joining the Navy. During World War I he became a Naval Aviator. Commander de Flores is credited with numerous inventions which made better flight simulators and equipment for flight safety.
Lieutenant Frederick Lois Riefkohl (1889–1969), a native of Maunabo, Puerto Rico, became the first Puerto Rican to graduate from the USNA, and served as Commander of the Armed Guard of the USS Philadelphia. On August 2, 1917, after engaging an enemy submarine, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the second highest medal that can be awarded by the U.S. Navy
George E. Fernandez a Water Tender ( a first-class petty officer in charge in a fireroom) aboard the USS Shaw was awarded the Navy Cross on October 9, 1918, after his actions aboard the USS Shaw on October 9, 1918, when the Shaw collided with the RMS Aquitania and was cut in two and set on fire. Fernandez threw the ammunition that was piled on the deck of the Shaw overboard, saving the lives of many of his fellow crewmen.
Read more about this topic: Hispanics In The United States Navy
Famous quotes containing the words war i, world and/or war:
““... But if you shrink from being scared,
What would you say to war if it should come?
That’s what for reasons I should like to know
If you can comfort me by any answer.”
“Oh, but war’s not for children it’s for men.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“... I was crying partly because I felt that this was expected of me, partly from genuine repentance, but partly also because of a deeper grief which is peculiar to childhood and not easy to convey: a sense of desolate loneliness and helplessness, of being locked up not only in a hostile world but in a world of good and evil where the rules were such that it was actually not possible for me to keep them.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“We are constantly thinking of the great war ... which saved the Union ... but it was a war that did a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union, it was the rebirth of the Union.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)