Battles of the First World War Podcast · Mike Cunha

Searching for John DeWitt - A Discussion with John Chase, MD

·35 min·2 clips

John DeWitt wrote that he was “not a coward” and wanted his father to be proud.

1. Battles of the First World War Podcast talks with John Chase about Searching for John DeWitt and 80 forgotten trench letters from World War I. 2. John Chase is an orthopedic surgeon who retired in 2020, and he is the author of Searching for John DeWitt and You What?. 3. The episode asks what can be learned from John DeWitt’s letters, which Chase uses to reconstruct a young Iowa lawyer’s war experience. 4. Chase says he never intended to write a memoir until an x-ray tech told him, “Dr. Chase, with all these stories that you're telling me, I'm going to write a memoir.” 5. The memoir title You What? came from the way Chase asked patients how an injury happened. 6. John DeWitt died when Chase was a sophomore in college, so the letters later became the main way he got to know his grandfather. 7. Chase describes DeWitt as a quiet, cigar-smoking small-town attorney from Griswold, Iowa, who did not talk about the war. 8. The letters were found in a shoebox in an attic in Oklahoma City by John DeWitt’s son Jack. 9. Chase says the letters were written to DeWitt’s mother, which fit the family rule not to upset parents with war details. 10. He also says some letters show obvious censorship, including places where sections were cut out. 11. Chase concludes that publishing the letters alone would not have worked, so he used them as a starting point for research and explanation. 12. He identifies the 168th Infantry Regiment, the 42nd Rainbow Division, and the role of battalion runner as the military frame for the book. 13. He says DeWitt was gassed and injured in July 1918 and then spent three months in a base hospital. 14. Chase notes that DeWitt was sent to the orthopedic ward, which mattered to Chase because he later became an orthopedic surgeon. 15. The clearest emotional letter was written to DeWitt’s father after Armistice Day, and it said he was not “yellow.” 16. Chase says DeWitt wanted his father to know he was not a coward and that his father would be proud of him. 17. The interview is conversational, reflective, and heavily grounded in family detail, with Chase reading from letters and explaining his research choices. 18. The pace stays calm and anecdotal rather than technical, even when it touches on trench runners, censorship, Spanish flu, and German-American discrimination. 19. Listeners interested in World War I family history and personal letters. 20. Listeners wanting tactical battle analysis or fast-moving military debate.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Battles of the First World War Podcast