Carroll Dennis Paul
United States Army, World War I and II
Company C, 28 Infantry Regiment, First Division
November 7, 2024 - Carroll Dennis was born in the far East Texas town of Shelbyville, Shelby County, Texas, on Wednesday, March 11, 1896, just two months following Utah being admitted as the forty-fifth state. He was the oldest of three children brought into this world by Annie Delmar Carroll and John F. Paul, who had been married the year before in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. He and his two siblings, sister Willie (1901) and brother Wylie (1906), were raised on a farm in Shelby County that his father owned and worked.
On May 26, 1914, at the age of eighteen, he joined the United States Navy and served to honorable discharge on December 14, 1915. During this time, the Great War, also later known as World War I, began in Europe on July 28, 1914. Ten months following his naval discharge, Carroll voluntarily joined the US Army at Fort Sam Houston on October 29, 1916, six months before the United States would enter the war in Europe [April 6, 1917]. His prior naval service may have spared him from basic training as his Army record does not reflect “boot camp.” It does show that he was assigned to Company C, 28 Infantry Regiment, Second Infantry Brigade, First Division.
On June 14, 1917, Private Paul and his unit departed the Port of Hoboken, New Jersey, aboard the troopship SS Antilles and were among the first American troops to land in France. They disembarked at St. Nazaire on June 26 but did not participate at the front until October 23, when the First Division fired the first American shell of the war toward German Lines at 06:05 a.m. The First Division also took the first German prisoner by Americans and suffered the first losses on November 3 when three men were killed. Carroll and his Regiment saw combat with the division in the Sommerville Sector, the Ansauville Sector, the Cantigny Sector, the Montdidier-Noyon Defensive, the Cantigny Sector, the Aisne-Marne Offensive, the Saizerais Sector, the St. Mihiel Offensive and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that ended the war on November 11, 1918. During operations, the First Division took 6,661 prisoners and suffered 26,332 casualties. Private Paul’s military record shows that he was “severely wounded” on July 20, 1918; however, a Champion, Center, Texas Newspaper article of August 11, 1920, states, “he was never wounded but received burns from mustard gas.”
After fourteen months, the long-awaited day finally arrived. On August 22, 1919, Carroll and his comrades of the 28 Regiment boarded the troopship USS Orizaba and departed Brest, France, for the journey home to the United States. He named his father John of Neuville as the next of kin, and eight days later, the Orizaba, with forty officers and 1,292 enlisted men, docked at Hoboken, where it all began. The soldiers were then transported to a nearby Army camp for discharge processing. Carroll, however, was not discharged as he reenlisted on November 6, 1919, and served until August 15, 1921. During this time, he became a recruiting officer based in Houston, Texas.
Returning to Shelby County he joined Company E of the 144 Infantry, Texas National Guard that was located in Timpson. He served as a Second Lieutenant under Captain Thomas Kimbro when the regiment was mustered in February 1922. Carroll was then promoted to the grade of Captain and made Commander of the company in November 1923 when Captain Kimbro resigned. Also, at this time, according to the Champion Newspaper, he was employed as a county motorcycle officer to enforce motor vehicle laws that included speeding, overloading, failure to have proper lights, etc. In the new year of 1924, he would be required to see that all autos had secured new license plates and had them both in the front and rear of their vehicle.
The date he returned to active duty with the US Army is unknown, but he is believed to have been serving before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The El Paso Times, November 11, 1942, announced his marriage as “Miss Emily White Marshall, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pershing Maddin Marshall of Dallas, became the bride of Major Carroll Dennis Paul, Fort Bliss Intelligence Officer at a ceremony held Monday [November 9] afternoon in the home of the bride’s cousin, Mrs. R. T. Hoover and Mr. Hoover, 1100 Galloway Avenue. Major Paul and his bride are at home in Hotel Hilton”. They would later be blessed with a daughter, Emily, and a son, Marshall.
The 1956 Military Register noted that he retired from the US Army on June 14, 1947, in the grade of Lieutenant Colonel, and the last known address comes from the 1950 census, 185 Valley Mills, Bosque, Texas, where he lived with Emily and their children. Carroll died on March 27, 1990, at the age of 94, in Dallas County and is buried in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, San Antonio, Texas. His headstone reflects service in World War I and II along with the inscription “Silver Star,” for which there is no documentation. His wife, Emily, age 93, died in 2008 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Waco, Texas. Day is done, God is nigh.
Sources:
(1): Year: 1910; Census Place: Justice Precinct 2, Shelby, Texas; Roll: T624_1588; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0148; FHL microfilm: 1375601
(2): Ancestry.com. U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
(3): "Texas, World War I Records, 1917-1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9MN-Z33V-2?cc=2202707&wc=334P-7M9%3A1561327102%2C1561328601 : 26 March 2015), Enlisted men, wounded > Kington, Martin P-Riggins, James Monroe, 1917-1920 > image 2507 of 3348; Texas Military Forces Museum, Austin.
(4): Brief Histories of Divisions, US Army 1917-1918.Prepared by Historical Branch, War Plans Division, General Staff. June, 1921.
(5): The National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland; Record Group Title: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985; Record Group Number: 92; Roll or Box Number: 238
(6): United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: Valley Mills, Bosque, Texas; Roll: 2015; Sheet Number: 76; Enumeration District: 18-17
