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Gov­er­nors Island Fun Fact: What’s a ​“Sois­sons”?

Jul 18, 2013 4:16 pm

Pic­tured: Sec­re­tary of War George Dern arrives at Sois­sons Dock, Gov­er­nors Island in 1934. Pho­to via the 16^th Infantry Association

Gov­er­nors Island fans know Sois­sons Land­ing as the place where the Coursen and Water­ways Fer­ries drop off their vis­i­tors every week­end. And while Island his­to­ry afi­ciona­dos may know of its orig­i­nal use as a mil­i­tary base for over two cen­turies, very few know the sto­ry behind the name ​“Sois­sons”. So who, what, or where, is a Soissons? 

As it turns out, Sois­sons is a city in North­ern France that was the site of a WWI bat­tle where a com­bi­na­tion of French, British and Amer­i­can forces opposed Ger­man troops. Sois­sons held strate­gic impor­tance due to its close prox­im­i­ty to Paris, which made it a last line of defense before reach­ing the cap­i­tal. Over the five day peri­od in 1918, Allied forces lost 125,000 sol­diers, com­pared to 168,000 Ger­man casu­al­ties. The Allied troops were also able to regain much of the ground lost dur­ing the Ger­man Spring offen­sive, which reversed the deep­est advance of the War into Allied territory. 

Just after the war, the 16^th Reg­i­ment was post­ed to Gov­er­nors Island, and the fer­ry land­ing was named in com­mem­o­ra­tion of that unit’s role in a vic­to­ry at Soissons.