‘The men of the 131st will forever hold as their slogan the comment of their [Australian] comrades in arms … “You’ll do us, Yanks, but you’re a bit rough!”’
Colonel Joseph Sanborn, Commander, 131st US Infantry
COLONEL JOSEPH SANBORN returned to the US with his men in 1919, and went home to Chicago to reunite with his wife, Julie, and two daughters. He immediately started work on a book about the 131st Infantry’s war exploits, enlisting the aid of the regiment’s operations officer, Captain George N. Malstrom. The resultant work, The 131st US Infantry (First Illinois National Guard) in the World War: Narrative, Operations, Statistics, was published by Sanborn in Chicago later that year. In putting this work together, he clearly set out to gain the 131st recognition for its pioneering role in the US war effort on the Western Front, recognition which General Pershing had denied it and would continue to deny it.
In his book, Sanborn gave lucid accounts of all the regiment’s engagements, writing with particularly fond remembrance of the unit’s baptism of fire in the defining fight alongside the Australians at Hamel. He declared: ‘The men of the 131st will forever hold as their slogan the comment of their [Australian] comrades in arms in that Fourth of July battle: “You’ll do us, Yanks, but you’re a bit rough!”’292
Feted as a war hero in his home town, Sanborn was promptly offered the post of State Tax Commissioner for Illinois, which he accepted. The 131st Infantry Regiment now returned to National Guard status, with Sanborn still its CO. In March 1921, Sanborn was forced to step down as commander of his beloved 131st because the previous December he had exceeded the state government’s legislated retirement age of sixty-five. He would continue on the rolls of the National Guard and continue to receive promotions. Sanborn also resigned as Tax Commissioner that same year, one that had been trebly traumatic for him – Julie died in 1921, too.
To keep busy, Joe returned to his family company, J. C. Sanborn Co., which he presided over until 1925, when he finally gave up business. He continued with the National Guard until April 1931, when he retired, at the age of seventy-six, with the rank of lieutenant-general. Three years later, seventy-nine-year-old Joe Sanborn passed away in Chicago, survived by his second wife and two daughters.
Sanborn never revealed whether he knew that his regiment’s participation in the Battle of Hamel had come about because General Pershing had been blindsided by both the British and by his own corps commander, George Read. Sanborn was probably unaware of it at the time, but it’s likely Read or General Bell filled him in after the war.