“Finally, after all the firing, got a French soldier who had the good
portion of his head left to take to the hospital, and as it was getting
near daybreak we were ordered to ‘beat it’ under cover of darkness,
or the little that was left of it. Got out all right, except that we
darn near rode on top of a French battery, just as it was firing,
only 100 feet in front of us, and, believe me, we hit only the high
spots for about five miles. Got to hospital at ... O. K. and returned
to ..., taking up our order of relief and settled down to enjoy some
rest. Nothing doing for a couple of hours until just about 8 a.m.,
when our tour of duty (twenty-four hours) was finished, when a lot of
machine-gun fire attracted our attention to the sky.
“There we saw—in my opinion—the most wonderful and yet most horrible
duel between two airplanes, French and German. Saw every move they
made, until finally the German—or Boche, we call them—machine broke
into flames and immediately the observer of the German machine jumped
7,000 feet to his death, leaving his pilot to finish the struggle; but
although the poor wretch made a grand effort to right his plane after a
fall like a rocket for 1,000 feet, the tail of his machine and one wing
broke off and just dropped.
“While dropping, the flames must have got to him, for he finally
jumped, too, and his machine fell one way and he, all in flames, a
little farther away. All the while the Frenchman in his victorious
machine was flying—really dropping—and followed him down, making a
spiral dive, and landed almost as quick. We jumped into our ambulance
and hurried to the spot, and the sight which greeted us was horrible.
I had my camera with me, but just couldn’t snap the picture. The
victorious aviator then reached the spot and stood smilingly over the
body while various ones took the picture.
“The German balloon observers took it all in and when the crowd of us
gathered they had their artillery just drop some shells among us, so we
‘beat it,’ and that was the end of my first twenty-four hours on the
front. Some baptism.
“A chap who came over with me—Osborn, of Dartmouth College—was only
four days in active service with Section 28, and in going to the aid of
one of his section ambulances got stalled himself and while repairing
his car the Germans located him by a star shell which illuminates
everything, and in this way they got a line on him and his ambulance.
They paid no heed to red cross on ambulance, but let him have a shell,
with the result that one leg was shattered and a piece of a shell went
through his body and lung. The poor chap didn’t realize how seriously
he was hurt or that he lost his leg later by amputation, but was
apparently O. K., for on the morning of the day he died he was chatting
merrily with every one, shaved himself and had a smoke. He even wrote a
most wonderful and pathetic letter to his parents, and yet that night
he died. Some say, or try to say, we don’t get under fire. I at least
know what shell-fire is.”
At the date of the signing of the Armistice over 25 per cent. of the
entire male population of the United States, between the ages of 18
and 31, were in military service. This represents a growth in the size
of the American Army in 19 months of nearly twenty-fold, namely, from
189,674 in March, 1917, to 3,664,000 in November, 1918.
“A VALIANT GENTLEMAN”