26th Ordnance Casual Company,
4th Ordnance Evacuation Battalion

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In the Record of events for the 26 Ordnance Casual Company for March 1919 this is what is written:

"This Company left Atelier de Mehun sur Yevre APO 741 at 11 o'clock a.m. March 5th, 1919 per S. O. 152 par Hq. Atelier de Mehun sur Yevre APO 741 and arrived at Guitres (Gironde) APO 911 12:00 noon March 6th 1919, becomming one unit of the 4th Ordnance Evacuation Battalion.This Company was formed Feb. 15th 1919 per S.O. 135 par 4 Hq. Atelier de Mehun sur Yevre APO 741 dated February 13th 1919.Sgt. Breslin, Clarence E. 208153 died of stab wound about 3:30 p.m. March 26th received at La Guirande (Gironde) on the night of March 25th 1919, not in the line of duty."

Signed
1st Lt. C.G. Hurd, Ord. Dept., Commanding

The Company Return for March 1919 accounts for Sgt Breslin death as Murder or Homicide. Sgt. Breslin listed his mother, Mrs. Mary Breslin of 3005 Hackberry Street Cincinnati, Ohio as who to notify in case of emergency on the passenger manifest of the Radnor. He never made the trip and was stricked from the manifest. Two other names were stricken from the manifest. They were Capt. Rufus I. Newell Medical Department of Washington State and 1st Lt. Eugene Williams Ord. Dept. of Grand Ridge, Illinois. Both Officers were left in France due to not sufficient room on the transport ship USS Radnor.

Of the 1,889 troops loaded the night of 10 May, 1919 at Pauillac, France on the Gironde River below are the names of the men of the 26th Ordnance Casual Company, 4th Ordnance Evacuation Battalion. They are as they appear on the Troop manifest of the USS Radnor sailing from Bordeaux, France to Brooklyn, New York with troops bound for Camp Merritt New Jersey. All these men were stationed at the Ordnance Repair Shops in Mehun, France and were being returned to the States in these Casual Companies as shipping space became available. The doucument on the right is Cpl. Edington's copy of General Order No. 38-A from G.H.Q. American Expeditionary Forces France February 28, 1919 Signed by John J. Pershing, Commander in Chief AEF. It is signed by Cpl. Edington Ordnance Department, and his commanding Officer Capt. Allen J. Robinson Ordnance Department, USA of the 26th Ord. Casual Co., 4th Ord. Evacuation Battalion. Below is the Roster of the men in the 26th Ordnance Casual Company Commanded by Captain Allen J. Robinson. The names listed in Bold type have profiles found at the bottom of this page.

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Captain Allen J. Robinson
Commanding Officer of the 26th Ordnance Casual Company

At the end of the First World War all the men of the United States Army Ordnance Department were routed through the Ordnance Repair Shops then located in Mehun-sur-Yevre, France. This was the location of the main Army Ordnance Repair shops, and by wars end had grown into quite a large complex with rail lines feeding the shops from all directions. The Ordnance men were formed into Casual Detachments for eventual transportation back to the United States when ships were available to take these Casual units back home.

These units were then known as Ordnance Evacuation Battalions, with each Evacuation Battalion being made up of several Casual Companies of around 75-100 men. On February 13, 1919, orders were given to Captain Allen J. Robinson to form a Casual Company at the Repair Shops in Mehun for men who were due to return back to the States. On February 15, Captain Robinson formed the 26th Ordnance Casual Company consisting of 92 enlisted men.

On March 5 Robinson’s Company left the Repair Shops in Mehun and started a journey toward Bordeaux, France where they would eventually board a ship and head back across the Atlantic. They left Mehun at 11:00 in the morning of March 5, and arrived at noon in Guitres, France, which was near Bordeaux along the Gironde River, the next day. There they would await a ship for transportation back home. The 26th Company was reduced by one man on the night of March 26, 1919, when Sgt. Clarence E. Breslin died at 3:30 in the afternoon from stab wounds he had received the night before likely from a fight, in La Guirande, France.

Robinson’s Company had to wait until nearly mid-May before sufficient shipping space became available. On May 10, 1919, Robinson and his men went aboard the USS Radnor, the ship that would take them home. The Radnor was tied to the dock in the Gironde River at Pauillac, France waiting for her load of troops. Once the Radnor had aboard all the 1,889 troops she was to carry she swung out into the current of the river and they were off, home bound at last.

Captain Allen Jay Robinson was born on March 1, 1881 in East Cleveland, Ohio to Mary Ida O’Dell (1853-1931) and James Adams Robinson (1851-1913). There is another source that states Robinson was born in Balderson, West Virginia. Balderson is a small unincorporated community located in Wood County, West Virginia and is very near the Ohio River. Being this was just across the Ohio-West Virginia State line he could likely have been born there. The James Robinson family consisted of two sons, Allen Jay being the eldest son, and Claire Wilson who was born in November of 1882. At the turn of the Century the James Robinson family lived in Cleveland. The family may have been of some means as James worked as a treasurer at a bank or for a company. The family did employ in the home one female servant named Maggie Grere who was born in Ireland and was then 38-years old.

In the summer of 1902 Allen J. Robinson was 21-years old and had been working as a laborer and wanted something more in his life. For Robinson that something was the United States Army. And so, on September 6, 1902 he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and enlisted into the United States Army. Robinson who stood 5-feet, 8 ½-inches tall, and had blue eyes and black hair, was inducted into the Army by Captain Griffith.

Robinson first served in an enlisted rank with the 8th Cavalry, Troop F, and later with the 11th Cavalry, Troop C. Robinson would serve a three-year term and was honorably discharged at the end of his term at Ft. Riley, Kansas with Excellent Character.

Shortly before his discharge in September, 1905, Robinson had fell in love with Lillie Belle Krider and on June 29, 1905 they were married in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Most likely after his discharge from the Army in 1905, Lillie and Allen went to Cleveland to live. It is known that in April of 1910 Allen and Lillie were living on Anton Road in Cleveland, Ohio, where Allen worked as a clerk in a Hardware store. Two years prior in 1908 Lillie and Allen would have their first child, a daughter named Eleanor.

During his time serving on active duty in the Army, Allen Robinson grew attached to military life and he would serve with the Ohio National Guard from 1906 and past 1912. In 1911, he was serving with the Black Horse Troop of the Ohio National Guard. This was Troop A, also known as the 1st City Troop, the 1st Cleveland Cavalry, and the Black Horse Troop, and was an independent military organization established after the Railroad Strike of 1877. During the time that Robinson was with the Black Horse Troop he would have participated with the tobacco wars in southern Ohio in 1908; and a streetcar strike in Columbus in 1910; and after the floods in Fremont, Ohio in 1913. During this time with the Black Horse Troop he was an officer.

By the time, America had entered the First World War in 1917, Robinson who likely was still serving with the Ohio National Guard was probably brought into Federal service. During 1917, Captain Robinson served in the Army Ordnance Department in Washington DC, and at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. In Early 1918, he was sent to Camp Hancock, Georgia where he was under orders to form and take to France a Provisional Ordnance Depot Company.

In July of 1918 Captain Robinson was the commanding officer of the 37th Provisional Ordnance Depot Company, and in July 1918, had orders to take the 37th P. O. D. to Newport News, Virginia where they would await transportation to France.

On July 31, 1918, Captain Allen J. Robinson had his men board the SS America then at Newport News. The America was built by the Cantieri Navale Riuniti Company, of Muggiano, Italy, in 1908. The America was 8,996 gross tons, and 476-feet in length. She was 55-feet wide, and was powered by steam triple expansion engines, with twin screws that gave her a service speed of just over16-knots. The America carried in peace time 2,650 passengers (30 first class, 220 second class, 2,400 third class). She was built for La Veloce Line, in 1908 for the Italy to New York route. But during the First World War she was under contract of the United States Shipping Board and was used as a troopship serving with the Newport News Division of the U. S. Cruiser and Transport Force.

It would have been about 9 days later around August 8th or so that Captain Robinson would have landed in France. What his exact duties were from the time he arrived in France until he was known to have formed the 26th Ordnance Casual Company on February 13, 1919 is not known for sure. Likely he and his men went to work at one of the several Ordnance depots then in France, and it may have been at the main Ordnance Repair Shops located in Mehun, France. Captain Robinson and some of his men may have been attached to an Artillery Regiment and may have seen action on the front lines. Many of the Ordnance Men were used as an attachment to the Artillery Regiments serving to handle ordnance and ordnance related tasks while with these units. Still they could have served as an ordnance depot back from the front lines moving and handling the vast amounts of ordnance used by the American Army.

The USS Radnor on May 24, 1919 made fast her lines at the dock in Hoboken, New Jersey and Captain Robinson and his men set foot on the good old American soil again. Captain Robinson remained in the Ohio National Guard until he was Honorably Discharged on June 14, 1920.

There is some question on if he was disabled for some reason during the war as on the records of the Ohio Soldiers in WWI, 1917-19 there is a notation that he was 100% disabled. There was no other explanation of this disablement, and there does not seem to be any other records that would prove or disprove this statement so at this point little can be said about it.

After the war, Allen Robinson would have returned back to his home in Ohio. The Robinson home was located at 1884 Page Ave. in East Cleveland, Ohio. The home was a two-story wood frame home with stucco on the front and a large porch across the front of the home. The house still stands today and in 1919 when Captain Robinson walked through his front door of his home that he had left some months before he was greeted by his wife Lillie, daughter Eleanor, and his mother Ida who was living with them at the time. Within a short time, Allen Robinson had purchased a local hardware store and was the proprietor. This was likely the same hardware store he had worked at back in 1910 as a clerk.

Ten years later in the spring of 1930 the Robinson family was still living on Page Avenue in East Cleveland, but by then Allen had sold the hardware store and was now working in the insurance business as an underwriter. By then his daughter Eleanor was 22-years old and was then married to Bruce P. Henderson. Bruce and Eleanor lived with Allen and Lillie in the home on Page Ave. Allen’s mother Ida who was at the time a 76-year old widower was still with the family. Eleanor was at the time studying to be a stenographer at a local college.

On January 31 1931 Allen’s mother Ida passed away. Allen and Lillie, along with Eleanor and her husband Bruce Henderson would continue to live in the home on Page Ave. past 1935. Sometime after 1935 Bruce and Eleanor Henderson moved to Warren, Ohio in Trumbull, County. Bruce and Eleanor had bought a large home at 306 Central Parkway in Warren because Bruce had taken a job as the city Solicitor General. Allen and Lillie also moved with them and lived in the home on Central Parkway.

The home on Central Parkway was a two-story craftsman style home on a corner lot. There were several large Catalpa trees in the front yard that in the spring would cover the lawn with the distinctive white flowers that made it look like snow had covered the lawn. This home made a great place for Bruce and Eleanor to raise a family on. They would have two daughters Suzanna and Phoebe.

Allen by now had begun working as a Mechanical Engineer for himself. But by 1942 Allen was working for the Ferro Enamel Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio. Now America was again in a war and on April 25, 1942 Allen J. Robinson registered for the draft as he was required to do. At the time, Allen was 5’ 7” tall and weighed 160 pounds with blue eyes, and blonde hair. He was 61-years old. Towards the end of the war in 1945 Allen and Lillie had moved away from the Central Parkway home and went to live in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Again, Allen took work as a mechanical engineer.

On January 29, 1946, Allen Jay Robinson filled out paper work for acceptance into the Sons of the American Revolution where he stated he was the 4th and 5th generation descendant of Captain Jacob Allen and Sergeant Jacob Allen, Jr.

Allen Robinson wrote that Jacob Allen Jr. served, at age 14-years old playing the fife with his father Captain Jacob Allen at Saratoga. When Jacob Allen Jr. turned 18-years and 5-months old on February 20, 1782 he enlisted into the Revolutionary Army at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Jacob Allen Jr. was discharged from the Army at the close of the war in 1783 with the rank of Sergeant, serving in Captain Nathaniel G. Allen’s company of the Fourth Regiment. Captain Jacob Allen, the father of Jacob Allen Jr., served as a Lieutenant in 1775. He commanded a company of Continental infantry when he was killed at the Battle of Bemis Heights on September 19, 1777. His son Jacob Allen Jr., was with him when he was mortally wounded.

Allen and Lillie Robinson would live in Cleveland Heights until Lillie passed away on July 5, 1954. Sometime there after Allen moved back to Warren, Ohio and lived again with his daughter Eleanor Henderson. Captain Allen Jay Robinson was buried in the Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio in section 3, Lot 47-0.

Captain Allen J. Robinson's grave stone.

Undated photo of Allen J. Robinson taken later in his life.

This is a photo of the 26th Ordnance Casual Company taken on May 24, 1919 the same day they left the USS Radnor in Hoboken, NJ. Captain Allen J. Robinson stands smartly with his men.