Conference site? Marines are no strangers in Hampton history
Don Knight left active duty as a sergeant in the public affairs field in 1952. Since then he has worked as a reporter, editor, feature writer for many newspapers and is currently a rotating reporter/editor for the National Press Club weekly newsletter.
By Don Knight, USMCCCA vice president
Come September, U.S. Marine combat correspondents, past and present, will land in strength at Hampton, VA, site of the next annual conference of the USMCCCA. The city, on the shore of Hampton Roads, lies at the tip of a peninsula boasting some of the most historic acreage in the United States: Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown and the neighboring port city of Newport News.Many in Yorktown, just 10 miles north of Hampton, may remember the last time a contingent of Marines showed up in strength. Oct. 19 is celebrated annually as Yorktown Day, the anniversary of the day in 1781 when British General Lord Cornwallis surrendered to American General George Washington, ending the long and hard-fought battle for independence: the American Revolution.
Nearly 55 years ago, on Oct. 19, 1954, the town celebrated as usual, but this time it was something special. More than 1,000 dignitaries from across the U.S. and abroad crowded the small village and the nearby Colonial National Historical Park to commemorate the role of France in helping the colonies win their independence. The special event was sponsored by the Interstate Rochambeau Commission.
Representing the United States during ceremonies held on the vast, windswept battlefield was General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Marine Commandant. He was joined by the 35-member Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps, a Marine detachment from the nearby Naval Mine Depot and an 8-man Marine color guard in both modern and French and Colonial period uniforms.
There were placements of commemorative wreaths, dedication of a plaque, a 19-gun salute from the USS Roanoke anchored in the nearby York River, a speech by French Ambassador Henri Bonnet, a parade and a corn bread and bean dinner on the site where French General Rochambeau’s 4,000-man army dined on Surrender Day 173 years earlier.
Gen. Shepherd said he was proud to speak, not only as representative of the armed forces of the United States but as a native Virginian “whose ancestors came to this tidewater country 300 years ago…today we pay tribute to Rochambeau, to France, a friend at our country’s birth and a friend today.”
“France and America,” he said, “will continue to produce men who value freedom above life itself, from Rochambeau and Lafayette to the indomitable DeCastries at Dien Bien Phu, France has been the mother of valiant fighting men.”
Later, Gen. Shepherd, standing in a noon chow line on the windswept battlefield and holding American field mess gear grumbled, with a smile, for “some of that cornbread.”
A long story on the event appeared on the front page of the next morning’s edition of the Newport News-Hampton-Warwick Daily Press. There was an equally long sidebar item with a headline: “Marine Corps Musicians Steal Show in 3-Hour Ceremony.”
Both items, at the behest of U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, wound up in The Congressional Record.
The writer of both articles confesses that a bit of bias might have trickled into his stories. He was a reporter covering that Yorktown Day event for the Newport News-Hampton-Warwick Daily Press. He was a former Marine combat correspondent, having been honorably discharged two years earlier. Don Knight is currently the vice president of the USMCCCA.
He has this to say about Hampton and nearby Yorktown: “Be at the USMCCCA conference in September. And take time to visit the Surrender Battlefield at Yorktown and stand on the spot where Cornwallis’ sword passed into the hands of George Washington.”