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Chapter 3:
Earthquake in Old 'Frisco
"Not in history
has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San
Francisco is gone! Nothing remains of it but memories ..." -- Jack
London
After eight years of soldiering in the Philippines, Sergeant
Holmdahl walked down the gangplank onto the San
Francisco Embarcadero on March 6, 1906. Tall, rawboned,
tanned, and muscular, he bore little resemblance to the apple-
cheeked farm boy who first shipped out to the Orient with dreams
of adventure. The biggest change, perhaps, was about the eyes; no
longer the wide-eyed innocent, his cold blue irises looked out with a
perpetual squint caused by exposure to the tropical sun. When
Holmdahl faced danger, those eyes contained all the warmth of a
pair of blue ice cubes.
His mouth reflected a sardonic smile. For all this, he radiated a
cool charm, was engaging to women, and slightly frightening to
men. The noted American soldier and military historian Brigadier
General S.L.A. Marshall, wrote, "He was the most handsome man I
have ever seen."1 He was a spitting image of the movie star Clint
Eastwood, and if he was a man who had killed, he was not neces-
sarily a man who enjoyed killing, as one accuser later described him.
But he certainly had no compunction about taking a life if it was
necessary or even convenient. Years of service under the likes of
General Jake "Hell Roarin"' Smith had removed those inhibitions.
After disembarking in San Francisco, the 20th was transported
to their new post at the Presidio at Monterey. With a long leave
accumulated over his years of service, Holmdahl relaxed in the
sybaritic pleasures of San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast.
After "painting the town red" the night before, he lay stretched out
on his hotel bed the morning of April 18. [2] Perhaps the previous
night he had listened to the greatest tenor of his time, Enrico
Caruso, sing an impassioned Don Jose in Carmen at the Grand
Opera House. More likely, he had hob-nobbed at Barbary Coast
bars, frequented that evening by the young actor, John Barrymore.
But suddenly, there was a wrenching shudder and the walls of
the hotel began quivering like one of the Barbary's exotic dancers.
A picture flew off the wall and the ceramic pitcher slid off the
dresser, crashing to the floor. The lanky Holmdahl was flung out of
bed as the room turned topsy-turvy. Clutching his uniform,
Holmdahl dashed from the building clad only in his shorts, as the
hotel shook to pieces. His welcome back from the Orient was the
famed San Francisco earthquake, the greatest disaster ever to hit the
West Coast.
Staggering down the street that morning he saw flames shooting
high into the air. There was a deafening roar as 28,000 buildings col-
lapsed and burned, and hundreds of lives were lost, as more than
four square miles of the city were reduced to rubble. Perhaps it was
then that Holmdahl became convinced that he could survive any-
thing.
At the plush Palace Hotel, Caruso, "waked up, feeling my bed
rocking as though I am in a ship ... I run into the street. That night
I sleep on the hard ground." Never again, never, Caruso told his
friends, would he ever sing in San Francisco again. And he never
did. [3]
Writing to his sister, Barrymore reported he had been thrown
out of bed by the tremor and had wandered "dazedly" into the
street. How much was earthquake and how much was hangover is
unknown; he did not elaborate. Spotting the lurching actor, an
Army sergeant, impressing work details, put a shovel in Barrymore's
hands and ordered him to shovel debris for twenty-four hours.
When this was relayed to his uncle, the equally famous actor, John
Drew, he commented in wonderment, "It took an act of God to get
him out of bed, and the United States Army to put him to work." [4]
During the early hours of the disaster, the army was some\\That hard-
nosed about selecting "volunteers."
The Army News of April 26, 1906, recounted the experiences of
a young man who was strolling down an avenue seemingly uncon-
cerned about the ruins about him. He was fashionably dressed in "a
summer suit, straw hat and kid gloves." This "Adonis," the paper
reported, was
... grabbed and ordered to help clear the bricks and other debris from
the trolly car tracks. At first he hesitated; but the sharp point of a
bayo-
net convinced him ... for the next five hours he was doing a laborers
work
in spite of his handsome attire. [5]
In downtown San Francisco, Charles F Curry, Secretary of State
for California, was grabbed by a military detail cleaning up Market
Street below the site of the Palace Hotel. Suddenly he was spun
around and a shovel was thrust into his well-manicured hands,
although he protested he was an official on important state business.
A tough-looking corporal stuck his face up against the face of the
Secretary of State for California and snarled, "I don't give a damn
who you are. Start heaving those bricks." For the next hour and a
half, Secretary Curry shoveled bricks and other debris into carts,
until a ranking army officer recognized him and relieved him from
his "volunteer" work detail. [6]
Opposite the ruins of the city hall a husky sergeant had a squad
of fifty citizens pitching bricks out of the middle of the street.
"Ain't they doing fine?" said he with a grin:
I've got the chief of police from Milpitas or somewhere in there throw-
ing brick. He told me who he was but I persuaded him. He's doing well.
We'll have this street open clear to the ferry before night. See if we
don't. [7]
Picking through the debris, Holmdahl found transportation
down the coast to Monterey, where he reported for duty at the
Army post. All in all, it had been one hell of a leave. After
reporting in, Holmdahl and most of the army troops in California
were quickly transported to the stricken city where they faced scenes
of incredible desolation.
In the words of writer Jack London, "San Francisco is gone.
Nothing remains of it but memories. .."8 Hundreds died in col-
lapsing and burning homes, and more than 225,000 people who sur-
vived the quake and the fires were homeless. The streets were piled
high with the debris of proud buildings; telegraph and telephone
wires were strewn about like spilled spaghetti; there was no gas or
electric power. The city was in darkness except for the flames of
burning buildings which created a fire storm feeding on twisted piles
of wreckage. Destitute men, women, and children with ravaged
faces, carrying what possessions they could save" fled from the
flames.
Dedicated police, firemen, and soldiers finally brought order to
the panic-stricken population. The troops were commanded by
General Frederick Funston, the man who accompanied by only a
few volunteers had probed deep into insurgent territory in Luzon
and captured the Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo. After
water mains burst and pressure died, hard-worked fire engines
became useless. Setting backfires and dynamiting buildings to build
fire walls, Funston's men slowly brought the conflagration under
control. As usual, in the wake of such horrors, human hyenas began
prowling the streets pillaging and looting private homes of any valu-
ables spared by the fires.
But, Mayor E.E. Schmitz was made of sterner stuff than many
later mayors. He proclaimed:
The Federal troops, the members of the Regular Police Force, and all
Special Police Officers have been authorized to KILL any and all persons
found engaged in looting or in the commission of any other crime. [9]
Some of the wharf rats and other denizens of the notorious
Barbary Coast made a fatal mistake in not taking the warning seri-
ously. As the pillagers slunk down battered streets, Holmdahl and
other veteran soldiers, accustomed to hunting Filipino guerrillas in
the dark, picked looters off by the dozen. While some of the
fainthearted complained about the soldiers' "brutality," the looting
quickly stopped.
Holmdahl later wrote, "It [San Francisco] was worse than sol-
diering in the Philippine Islands. I was on guard at the United States
Sub Treasury Building for 125 hours with little sleep." [10] During that
time someone took a photograph of Sergeant Holmdahl at his post
showing smashed and burnt out buildings in the background. (see
page 28) After services were restored and the city was capable of
being controlled by civil authorities, the troops were withdrawn.
Holmdahl's unit, exhausted by nights of standing guard and dueling
with vandals, was ordered back to Monterey. Sadly, there was not
much left of the city, and Jack London reported, "San Francisco, at
the present time, is like the crater of a volcano, around which are
camped tens of thousands of refugees." [11]
At Monterey, Holmdahl performed routine and humdrum duty,
and much of his free time seemed to have been spent playing base-
ball. On Thanksgiving Day, the Army News reported, he played sec-
ond base on a team of enlisted men that defeated the officers 12-2
before all adjourned to the mess hall for a dinner of roast turkey.
The Army News of December 6, 1906, lists Holmdahl as the winning
pitcher on the company "I" baseball team which defeated rival
Company "H." On December 13, that newspaper reported he
pitched on a team that defeated Monterey High School. [12]
Holmdahl received his discharge on January 31, 1907.
Footloose, the ex-sergeant had a number of skills greatly in demand
during the first years of the twentieth century, for this was the hero-
ic time of the European and American mercenary soldier. In those
days the rugged military adventurer was romantically described in
prose and poetry by newspaper correspondent Richard Harding
Davis and other "yellow journalists" of the day.
During those years the natives were restless throughout the
banana republics of Central America. A man who not only knew
jungle fighting tactics, but also had the technical skills to fire and,
most important, maintain the new-fangled machine guns could
command a fine price with the sprouting revolutionaries of the day.
To the young ex-sergeant, the lands of the bananas seemed to offer
new opportunities for adventure and riches.
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