October 16, 1918: The war claims four local boys

On this day in 1918, four young men from St. Louis County—Charles Daniels, Allen Lloud, Gilbert Nordman, and James Novak—died while serving their country in World War I. The Duluth News Tribune estimated some five thousand “Duluth sons” had enlisted by Memorial Day 1918, and these four were among the 55 who would not come home alive. Daniels, who was born in Berges, Belgium in 1894 and came to Buyck Township in 1910, was inducted into the U.S. Army on June 5, 1917, as an infantry private in the National Guard. He was assigned to Company I of the 127th Infantry and was killed in action in France on the Argonne front. Lloyd, a native of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, was a Chisholm resident before joining the 307th Engineers in September, 1918, and also perished in France. Nordman was killed in action at Cote de Chatillon France as a member of the 160th Depot Brigade’s 8th Battalion. Before his death he saw considerable fighting at Champagne, St. Mihiel, Aisne, Meuse, and Argonne. Virginia’s James Novak had enlisted in the Canadian army long before the U.S. entered the war and transferred to the U.S. Army in May, 1918. He was sent to Fort Brady, Michigan, where he contracted the Spanish flu and perished. His death was not uncommon. According to Stanford University, “an estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for World War I died of influenza.”