Tabler, Kramer Core

Born April 2, 1893, in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Son of Professor Daniel C. and Ella Core Tabler. Educated Parkersburg High School and Marietta College, Ohio, Class of 1920. Joined American Field Service, May 26, 1917; attached Transport Section 184 to November 20, 1917. Enlisted U. S. Aviation, January, 1918. Trained French schools. Commissioned Second Lieutenant, May 8, 1918. Instructor, First Air Depot, Colombey-les-Belles. First Lieutenant, May 12, 1919. Killed in aeroplane accident, May 16, 1919, Colombey-les- Belles. Buried Colombey-les-Belles, Meurthe-et-Moselle.

ON the very eve of his departure from camp, having just received his commission as First Lieutenant and his sailing orders to return to America, Lieutenant Kramer Core Tabler met his tragic death.

On the 16th of May, 1919, while rendering his last service in instructing a fellow officer to fly, the plane carrying both men "crashed" from a distance of about one thousand feet, burst into flames, and the two officers were instantly killed. On the following day, the same on which he was to have left to go to a port of embarkation for America, he and his comrade were tenderly buried in a little cemetery in France, with forty-two other Americans, near the field where they fell.

Beloved by all who knew him, Lieutenant Tabler had, indeed, in his two years of service, "played his part and proved himself a man."

The grandson of Brigadier General Andrew S. Core, of the Civil War, he was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, April 2, 1895. He graduated from the Parkersburg High School in 1913. In the fall of 1916 he entered Marietta College with just ten dollars in his pocket and a lively determination to earn his way. Then the menace of war beckoned to us, and in the spring of 1917 young Tabler enlisted in the "Marietta Unit" for which his college equipped and sent twenty boys to France. They sailed from New York, May 26th, arriving in France, June 4th, where they drove camions for the American Field Service. Young Tabler served in this capacity until November 20th.

Instead of returning to America at the expiration of his enlistment with the American Field Service he remained in France and the following January he entered the American Aviation. He was immediately sent to a training school, from which he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and Pilot, May 8, 1918.

Instead of being sent to the front immediately, he was stationed at the First Air Depot in Colombey-les-Belles where he remained, as a flying instructor, during the rest -of the war, and until the spring of 1919, when he met his death.

All those who saw Lieutenant Tabler, testify to his being the most daring of all the officers at the First Air Depot, and one of the most loved. The day he was killed, according to his comrades in the camp, was the bluest of all their days over there.

Kramer Tabler was always happy, and glad just to be alive. The most companionable of boys, he naturally -made friends readily, and held them to him by bonds of deep affection. He was a great sportsman, loving activity, competition, good clean fun. His home he reverenced and idolized and loved beyond all else --- as he was loved in return there, and wherever he went.

Yet he renounced all this, like thousands of others, to do the task which lay unquestionably before him --- before all of his kind. With the precious gift of his life he contributed to the greatest moral victory of all history.

This poem by an ambulance man of Section Sixty-Five, might well have been his song:

"Where I shall fall upon my battleground
There may I rest --- nor carry me away.
What holier hills could in these days be found
Than hills of France to hold a soldier's clay?
Nor need ye place the cross of wooden stuff
Over my head to mark my age and name;
This very ground is monument enough!
'T is all I wish of show or outward fame.
Deep in the hearts of fellow countrymen
My first immortal sepulchre shall be,
Greater than all the tombs of ancient kings.
What matter where my dust shall scatter then?
I shall have served my country overseas
And loved her --- dying with a heart that sings."

R. W. G.

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921