Private Amedee Deschenes / US Army

Amedee Deschenes was born in Nashua, February 14, 1895, to Canadian immigrants, Clement and Lydia Deschenes. The family lived on Morgan St. in the heart of Nashua’s French Hill. Deschenes was said to be a homebody, seeing little reason to travel beyond his immediate neighborhood. Little did his neighbors realize that this quiet, unassuming little boy would rise to national prominence for his acts of bravery and courage in the face of overwhelming odds.

President Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany on April 2, 1917. Congress passed the resolution on April 6, and Deschenes, just 22 years old, enlisted shortly after. Assigned to U.S. Infantry Co. 1, 103rd Regiment, Deschenes trained in Massachusetts and deployed overseas in June 1917 with the 26th Yankee Division.

A year later, on a misty, fog-shrouded battlefield in the Toul sector in France, close to the German border, Deschenes was assigned to what was called a “little outpost.” With Deschenes were two assistant gunners and two observers. They were “hunkered down” during a lull in the Battle of Xivray, when at just about 3 a.m,. a force of 600 Germans advanced on what one historic account calls “an important point in the thinly-held (Allied) line.”

Unaware that Deschenes and his little band were lying in wait, German soldiers began advancing on their position. One group moved down a road, the other across a field to their left. With hearts pounding and breath coming fast and short, the little band of American soldiers waited.

Germans had three entanglements of barbed wire to overcome. The intrepid group watched the Germans clear the first, then the second. As the Germans cleared the third barbed wire, it was time to go to work. Deschenes and his group opened fire. An old Nashua Telegraph article noted that Deschenes was “mowing the Huns down in swaths,” But the life-or-death ambush had just begun.

Apparently frustrated with his underperforming rifle, Deschenes took an extraordinary gamble. The report continues… “He climbed over the top of his protective breastwork, a makeshift safety barrier, and, using an automatic rifle like an ordinary service rifle, continued his deadly and effective work.” Deschenes and his backup not only held the enemy at bay, but they also denied repeated German efforts to rally and forced them to break up and retreat. During Deschenes’ engagement, the account states, Deschenes “fired 42 clips of 20 shots each.”

Tragically, it would not be bullets that would end Deschene’s life. Just weeks before the war ended, on October 1, 1918, Deschene succumbed to one of the most cruel and atrocious “new” weapons of WWI, poison gas. (His date of death is also given as September 27, 1918, but this may have been when he was subjected to the poison gas, with actual death occurring a few days later.)

Back home in Nashua, the French, Polish, Italian, Greek, and Armenian communities decided to put aside their long-standing distrust and come together to recognize one of Nashua’s own. Originally known as Union Square, then called Railroad Square with the advent of the railroad in Nashua in 1838, on November 11, 1920, two years to the day that WWI ended, the oval in the center of Railroad Square became known as Deschenes Oval in honor of Pvt Amedee Deschenes. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre – France’s highest military honor given for bravery.

The Telegraph article noted, “…though he sleeps in the soil of France, which he died defending … he is not dead, for his bravery and devotion to native country will live long in tradition, and in the printed word for the inspiration of those who follow him.”