Take Note of Walter Stanley's Pants When You See Him Marching in Memorial Day Parade, May 29, 1921

Stanley’s Pants Trail Him Home. . . Charlotte Man Leaves Them in England, Then Discovers Them Here

The most surprised and astounded young man in Charlotte is Walter F. Stanley, connected with the Clark Publishing Company on South Church street. Friday afternoon he went to an army salvage store and bought the same pair of trousers he wore October 7, 1918 at Bellecourt, France, when he helped the Thirtieth (Old Hickory) Division of the A.E.F. to break through the far-famed Hindenburg line.

The tail of the strangest that ever befell him, and everybody to whom it was told agreed that it probably wouldn’t happen again in a thousand years.

Mr. Stanley was a member of the 119th Infantry (originally a part of the North Carolina national guard), and on the morning of October 7 went over the top with his regiment and other units of the Old Hickory division, smashing the supposedly impregnable Hindenburg line of the German defense.

Stanley was wounded in the face and about the hip, and gassed. He was taken back to a first-aid hospital and afterward to a British hospital (the Old Hickory division fought with the British Second Army, composed of Britons and Australians.)

There was a blood spot on the hop of the trousers when Stanley was taken to the hospital and a torn place on the side of the right knee. The most distinctive mark of all, though, was his own name, which he himself had written on the band of the trousers with indelible ink.

Arriving at the hospital, the American soldier was placed in a ward for treatment, his own uniform and other clothes being taken away and British hospital clothes put on him. When he recovered and was ready to rejoin his unit, new clothes were given him. In due time he came back to the United States and back to Charlotte.

Friday afternoon he went to the store on West Trade street, at Graham,where he sought a khaki uniform to wear Monday in the Memorial Day parade. He was shown a pair of khaki trousers and found that a patch, cleverly inserted, adorned the right knee. There was also a dull brown spot on the hip.

“By George, that looks like my pair of trousers,” exclaimed Mr. Stanley.

He turned the garment about to have a look at the waistband and was astonished to find still plainly written his own name. Then he uttered a full-fledged, lusty-lunged exclamation of good old army surprise such as he and his buddies used in camp and on the battlefield. He was not long in acquiring that particular pair of trousers. He will wear them in the Memorial Day parade Monday with his former buddies of Hornets Nest Post No. 9 of the American Legion, which is staging Memorial Day exercises here.

It was nearly two years and nine months from the time he parted with the trousers at the Rouen hospital until he picked them up here again. He says he will keep them as long as they hold together.

From the front page of The Charlotte News, Saturday evening, May 28, 1921