The Battle of Belleau Wood, in the villages and fields east of Paris, was the first in the Great War that involved the United States Marine Corps and the U.S. Army.  England and France had lost almost an entire generation of their young men at the previous battles of Verdun, the Somme, and Ypres.  These conflicts lasted for months, with each incurring at least a million casualties – and hundreds of thousands of deaths.  The Battle of Belleau Wood, lasting through most of the month of June in 1918, tested the mettle of the green American troops.  It was also the first sight of terrible battle and its resulting casualties for a nurse named Esther Tipton. ¹

At age 39, Esther Tipton had wanted to serve these troops.  She had learned all about the horrors of war from stories her father had told her about the Battle of Gettysburg. 

Esther Fredericka Tipton was born in Gettysburg on June 21, 1879, the youngest daughter of William H. and Elizabeth Little Tipton.  Her elder siblings were sisters Beulah and Elizabeth (Bessie) and brother Charles Tyson Tipton.²  

William Tipton was a man of some renown in Adams County, Pennsylvania.  Apprenticed as a photographer in early 1863 to the Tyson brothers in Gettysburg, William took part in taking multiple pictures of the battlefield, including those of the dead.  He purchased the photography studio from the Tysons in the years after the war.  He was the noted photographer of many post-war historic events in Gettysburg, and multiple reunions – including the Grand Reunion in 1913.  Tipton also served as a statesman and was a prominent businessman.³

Esther, who never married like her siblings, sought a profession in nursing.  In those days, women who worked as nurses or teachers were expected not to marry.  Esther moved to Philadelphia, embarking on a career at the Methodist hospital there.  In 1917, she was the night superintendent of nurses.  Then America entered the Great War.⁴

Esther volunteered to join the U.S. Army and transfer overseas to aid the American soldiers and Marines at the front.⁵

She enlisted at the U.S. Army Hospital in Lakewood, New Jersey on April 2, 1918.  She sailed shortly afterward from New York to Liverpool, and from there traveled to France.⁶

When she reached Paris, she wrote to her father in Gettysburg.  “Dear Dad,” she penned, “In gay Parii [sic] a wonderful voyage or in spite of the fact.  I sprained my ankel [sic] on the Boat and am hobbling around with a cane.  Love to all.”⁷

Correspondence and records are silent as so how long it took Esther to heal, but within the month, by the end of May, she was at the front in a village near Belleau Wood.

Because the German army had successfully destroyed so many English and French soldiers as they made their push toward Paris, they expected at Belleau Wood to run over any defenders of France.  They were proved disastrously wrong when they met the U.S. Marine Corps and portions of the U.S. Army.  Belleau Wood, like Gettysburg, was the turning point, and the beginning of the end for any hopes of victory for the Kaiser’s forces.⁸

The Germans were a powerful force, with determined troops armed with a plethora of machine guns and heavy artillery.  They were surprised on June 1, 1918, when they met stiff resistance from the Americans.⁹

The casualties were so numerous by June 6 that wounded Americans were taken to various public buildings in nearby villages.  Esther Tipton was at one of these facilities called Evacuation Hospital Seven. She passed her fortieth birthday taking care of the wounded from the wilderness at Belleau Wood. A few days later, the American forces held, and the German army would not reach Paris.¹⁰ 

Belleau Wood had been a pivotal contest; the ensuing battles pushed the Kaiser’s army farther back toward Germany.  There were other significant battles at Chateau Thierry in July, St. Mihiel in September, and finally the Argonne Forest Offensive from late September until the war’s end on November 11, 1918.  All were hard-hitting offensives, headed by the United States and their allies against the German army, mostly led by General Pershing.  Esther was at the Argonne when the armistice was declared on November 11 of that year.  Still a member of the Army Nurse Corps, she was not discharged until June 1919, fourteen months of service in all.   For the holidays, however, she was granted a short leave.  She visited her parents in Gettysburg.  Before her honorable discharge, Esther visited Italy, as a postcard survives of her travels.  She described Genoa as “a beautiful place…the floors in our hotel are all mosaic and some of the sidewalks.”  She also visited Milan.  It was a significant change for her after serving at the front.¹¹

After her discharge, Esther Tipton returned to Philadelphia to continue with her nursing career as a municipal court nurse.  She visited Gettysburg that September to participate in a Welcome Home celebration for veterans of the war.  Her mother passed away in 1921, her father in 1929.¹²

Esther served the final years of her career as the head of the dispensary at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.  She retired at age 65, in 1944 – while America was in the midst of yet another world war.  No letter or writing is known of her feelings about another great war against Germany, or of the boys sent overseas to be sacrificed and slain.

Esther died at age 81 at the veterans’ hospital in Roanoke, Virginia.  Having been in weak health for a few years, she suffered a fatal heart attack.  She is buried near her parents in Evergreen Cemetery.¹³  

While little is documented about Esther Tipton, what is known is that she was resolute, determined, fearless and compassionate.  She understood the terrible atrocity of war – for she had seen it up close – as her father had at Gettysburg.