Grover Cleveland Bergdoll

Grover Cleveland Bergdoll (October 18, 1893 – January 27, 1966) was an American socialite, early aviator, and amateur racing driver, who became notorious as a draft dodger in World War I. He was imprisoned for this in 1920 but soon escaped to Germany, not returning to serve his sentence until 1939. and in 1912 he purchased a Wright Model B biplane for $5,000. Bergdoll made several public flights from an airfield on family-owned land outside Philadelphia, and was the first person to fly an airplane between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey. After 748 flights the plane was placed in storage.

Bergdoll attempted to qualify for the 1915 Indianapolis 500 and also raced between 1911 and 1916, almost exclusively in his brother Erwin Bergdoll's cars.

Although Bergdoll registered for the draft, he skipped a physical and failed to turn in a questionnaire on his fitness for duty. He was declared a deserter in 1918 (as he never enlisted, he was actually guilty of evading Article 58 of the Selective Service Act of 1917), eluded police for two years, and was arrested at his home in January 1920. After he was found guilty of desertion at a court-martial at Fort Jay on Governors Island in New York City, he was sentenced to five years in prison. During a stop at his Philadelphia home, he escaped with his chauffeur. Despite a nationwide manhunt, the duo managed to cross the border into Canada and sail to Germany, ultimately finding refuge in Eberbach at a hotel owned by Bergdoll's uncle. Warren G. Harding ordered the seizure of Bergdoll's assets, worth $535,000, under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. The four surviving conspirators were seized and sentenced to prison terms. Griffis was widely considered a hero in the United States, and was also released early after a petition effort to free him collected more than two million signatures.

Bergdoll later moved to Weinsberg, Germany. In 1926, he entered a German sanitarium, where he met his future wife, Berta Francks; the couple had five children while he lived in Germany. On two occasions he made secret trips back to Philadelphia. He arrived in 1929 on the first trip and returned in 1933. The second time, he traveled to the U.S. in 1935 and returned to Germany in 1938.

Bergdoll was arrested in May 1939, upon his third return to the U.S.

Later developments

Frank C. Williams, the man drafted immediately after Bergdoll by his local draft board, served in World War I as an engineer and survived the conflict. However, the American Legion claimed that the man "drafted in Bergdoll's place" was Russell C. Gross of Philadelphia, the first man drafted after Bergdoll to die in the war. Gross became a private in Company B of the 328th Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Division. He was killed in action on October 24, 1918, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and posthumously cited for bravery by Brigadier General Julian Robert Lindsey.