It has been a trait of human beings for at least thousands of years to commemorate important events during their lifetimes by creating lasting monuments made of stone or steel.
Archaeologists depend on those monuments to decipher history. We know of ancient Babylon and Egypt because of kings and pharoahs bragging to future generations about their exploits. We would know nothing about some former peoples of Central and South America without stories told on rocks.
It is still true today. We build monuments to ourselves so our grandchildren will remember who we were and what we did.
Monuments are built not only for the good times, but also for the bad. Reminders at Pearl Harbor, New York City, and Oklahoma City are examples.
An almost-forgotten event
Another monument erected recently bears mentioning. It is the Oil Patch Warrior statue, and it was created to commemorate a small group of American oil-field workers who went to England during World War II. Their job was to boost the meager production in a few small fields in the Duke's Wood area of Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest. Yes, that's the same place that is famous for Robin Hood and his merry men.
By 1941, Great Britain was running out of fuel because German submarines were sinking too many oil tankers. The country's small oil industry was not able to increase production from Sherwood Forest; it had neither the equipment nor the expertise for large-scale projects. But they knew the Americans did.
British representatives looking for help approached Lloyd Noble of Noble Drilling Corp. and Frank Porter of Fain-Porter Drilling Co. This led eventually to the creation of a 44-man workforce, headed by Eugene Preston Rosser.
The group crossed the Atlantic in 1942 on the HMS Queen Elizabeth with a handful of drilling rigs and equipment. The drillers, mostly from Texas and Oklahoma, took up residence in an Anglican monastery in Kelham, a village near the fields. (That had to be an education for all concerned!)
Secret project
Of course everything concerning the project was top secret. The crew members did not even know where they were going beforehand. And once in England they were kept strictly segregated. If the Germans had discovered the drilling project, they would have bombed the fields and destroyed the equipment.
Bringing in the American drillers turned out to be a wise move. The Americans drilled and completed about one well per week. It sometimes took the British crews as much as 8 weeks to drill and complete one well.
Hidden beneath the massive old forest trees, the Americans drilled more than 100 wells. Production from Sherwood Forest jumped from about 300 b/d to about 3,000 b/d. The increase helped fuel Britain until the Atlantic was safer for tankers.
The Germans never found out about the oil production in Sherwood Forest, and the fields never came under attack. One of the workers, however, was killed when he fell from a rig. Herman Douthit, from Texas, is now buried in the American Military Cemetery and Memorial near Cambridge.
When the work was done, the Americans sailed back to the US and quietly went back to work in US fields.
All but forgotten
Few people knew of the project until a book by Guy H. Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward, The Secret Of Sherwood Forest, was published in 1973. And it was another 15 years before plans were made to create a lasting memorial to the American oilmen.
In 1991, a 7-ft bronze statue, created by Oklahoma sculptor Jay O'Meilia, was dedicated in Duke's Wood. A museum near the site commemorates the World War II project.
Memorials don't have to be about battles, natural catastrophes, or political upheavals. Memorials can be made for other reasons, such as technological achievements and humanitarian efforts. That's why the Oil Patch Warriors statue is important. It helps keep that spirit alive.
Now we have our own version of the Oil Patch Warriors working today in Iraq. I hope someone is taking notes because there have to be many good stories to tell about how a group of western oilmen went into a hostile environment and helped put an industry back together. I hope someone is planning a book. And we're sure someone over there knows how to make statues.