Lt Burton Belcher and the pandemic of 1918

by Marilyn Short

It all started about August 27, 1918, the arrival of influenza in the United States, that is. Three cases of the illness were first discovered in Boston that day; within ten days, the base hospital and infirmaries at the Army's Camp Devens outside the city were overwhelmed with thousands of sick trainees. The country's best medical teams were brought in to assess the outbreak. They found the situation grave and recommended that all transfers in and out of Camp Devens be halted until the epidemic passed. Before the travel ban could be imposed, however, replacement troops departed Devens for Camp Upton, Long Island (the Army's debarkation point for France) ..... and took influenza with them. Camp Upton soon sent over 6,000 men to the hospital.

The United States entry into the war drew millions of civilians into military institutions. Military camps, arsenals, air fields and supply depots soon sprouted up in every state. The virus festered in the crowded conditions of the camps throughout the United States - traveling with military personnel from camp to camp, east to west, north to south, spreading the virus from the sick to the healthy. Soon millions of men would be sickened by the virus and 30,000 would die before they even got to France.

World War I was largely a ground war; most of the Navy's responsibilities involved patrolling for German U-boats, sweeping for mines, and escorting troop ships across the Atlantic. A year after the declaration of war, there were fewer than 400,000 American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in Europe. By May of 1918, thousands of soldiers were crossing the Atlantic each month building a combat force of two million by November. The "doughboys" traveled the ocean, but they did not travel alone. Influenza sailed with them!

Trench warfare and its crowded conditions enabled the deadly virus to gain footing in humans. By late August and September of 1918, Army and Navy medical officers soon found themselves fighting a new enemy - the epidemic. Many were among the most knowledgeable and skilled physicians in the country and many-- like Largo's Burton E. Belcher-had just recently entered military service. They did their best to save those stricken by influenza and pneumonia but lacked the tools to effectively fight them.

From September through November of 1918, at the height of the AEF involvement in the war, influenza and pneumonia sickened 40% of military personnel. Combat support now gave way to the caring of the sick and transporting the remains of the deceased.

Burton Elias Belcher was born on the Belcher family homestead (where St. Catherine's Church on Belcher Road is now situated) on 23 September 1885. He was one of four children born to William Alexander Belcher, and his second wife, Sarah Jane McMullen. As a youngster, Burton no doubt enjoyed climbing the majestic Live Oaks and playing in the sandy soil of his father's groves alongside his older brother, Irving, and sisters Florine and Frances.

Young Burton attended classes at the Midway school near his home and then high school in Tampa. By 1902, he was enrolled at Florida State College, graduating in 1905. He began a teaching career at a St. Petersburg high school and went on to become principal of Quincy, Florida schools. In 1912, he married Eleanor Baytop Wiatt of Gloucester, Virginia. They had one son, William Alexander, born 1913. Burton returned to John Hopkins University in Baltimore to further his education, graduating from the School of Medicine in May 1917.

The United States was now at war! Following graduation, Burton enlisted in the Navy and was commissioned Lt. (JG) Assistant Surgeon USN RF. He was assigned to duty at the Naval Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; six months later he was in Haiti with the Marine Expeditionary Forces. By July of 1918, Lt. Belcher was back in Washington for duty, once again, atthe medical school. On October 9, 1918, leaving his wife and young son behind in Virginia, he was aboard the U.5.5. Mercury bound for France. Just eleven days later, and with the end of the war less than one month away, Lt. Burton Elias Belcher, died aboard ship - not from wounds suffered on the battlefield but as a result of influenza, complicated by pneumonia.

Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during World War I than did enemy weapons. Of the more than 4.7 million men to serve in World War 1, 63,000 died from disease, largely due to the influenza epidemic. Burton E. Belcher was just one of those young men.

Source: The Wise Cracker, "The Sand Highway of Years Ago", December 2009; History of Pinellas County, Florida; Ancestry.com; findagrave.com; Virginia marriage records; floridamemory.com; U.S. National Library of Medicine; Report of Secretary of Navy

Editor's Note: Special "thank you" to Jim McGee for working his magic, once again, on our historical photograph collection'