Thomas P. Henderson was the first adjutant of Post 22 after the post had received its permanent charter in June 1924. Tom, as he was known by most, served Post 22 as a service officer and adjutant for 25 years with his role as adjutant from 1924 until 1946.
Captain Henderson, United States Army, had been joined by seven other Tennesseans during World War I in an attempt to kidnap the German Kaiser. Tom Henderson was another one of the brave soldiers from Franklin who helped to put a stamp of true patriotism on our community.
"The plot to kidnap the Kaiser" http://www.tn.gov/tsla/exhibits/veterans/ww1.htm
According to Lea, the idea to kidnap the Kaiser originated at a tea with the Duke of Connaught in June 1918. During the tea, the Duke boasted of being uncle to both King George V of England and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Lea would later write, "We realized that all of the force of the British crown . . . would be exerted to the utmost to protect the royal kinsman," but Lea believed ". . . that the Kaiser should be made to suffer in some small measure the orgy of torture he had inflicted upon more than half of mankind."
Shortly after the Armistice, the Kaiser abdicated his crown and went into exile in Holland, which had remained neutral throughout the war. With the aim of kidnapping the Kaiser and bringing him back to Paris to be tried for war crimes, Lea traveled to Amerongen Castle, where the Kaiser was living in exile, with several of his officers and men: Captain Leland S. MacPhail, Captain Thomas P. Henderson, 1st Lieutenant Ellsworth Brown, Corporal Marmaduke P. Clokey, Sergeant Dan Reilly, Sergeant Owen Johnston, and Sergeant Egbert O. Hail. They arrived at Amerongen Castle at 8 p.m. on January 4, 1919 and were able to talk their way inside the castle, but they were not able to meet the Kaiser and left when two companies of Dutch infantry arrived.
The U. S. Army would probably have preferred to ignore the incident had it not been for an official complaint filed by the Kaiser through the Dutch Government. The Kaiser wanted charges pressed against Lea for "appear[ing] uninvited at the castle of his host, Count Bentinck, and ma[king] him nervous." Then there was the issue of the bronze ashtray, monogrammed with the Kaiser’s initials, that Captain MacPhail had pocketed while at Amerongen Castle. While the Army was forced to conduct an investigation of the incident, none of those involved were court-martialed. General Pershing’s official position on the trip was to call it "amazingly indiscreet." Unofficially, he told General Bullard, commander of the U.S. 2nd Army, "I'd have given a year’s pay to have been able to have taken Lea's trip into Holland and entered the castle . . . without invitation."
Captain Leland S. MacPhail, thief of His Imperial German Majesty's ashtray, is better known to the world as Larry MacPhail, General Manager of the Cincinnati Reds (1933-1937), President of the Brooklyn Dodgers (1938-1942), and General Manager/President/Owner of the New York Yankees (1945-1947). MacPhail kept the ashtray and proudly displayed it on his desk for many years.
(Photo: The group that attempted to kidnap the Kaiser, ca. 1919, Luke Lea Papers; Front row: Capt. Leland S. MacPhail, Col. Luke Lea, Cap. Thomas P. Henderson, 1st Lt. Ellsworth Brown; Back row: Sgt. Dan Reilly, Sgt. Egbert O. Hail, Sgt. Owen Johnston, Cpl. Marmaduke P. Clokey)
