Richard Nelville Hall, less than 21 years old when killed, was the
youngest son of Dr. and Mrs. Louis P. Hall, of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In June, 1915, he was a senior at Dartmouth College and with other
members of that class he enlisted with the American Ambulance Corps for
a period of three months, and was assigned to Section Three. When his
term was up there was such urgent need of men and the new enlistments
were so few that Dick volunteered to remain in service until he could
be spared more easily. About that time Louis P. Hall, Jr., his next
older brother, enlisted and surprised Dick by appearing in the yard of
the American Ambulance Corps in Paris. Dick had just driven in from
the firing line. The meeting can be appreciated only by those who know
what a bond of affectionate devotion united the brothers, and which is
expressed in the foregoing quotation from Louis’ letter to his parents
dated Decoration Day, 1916.
But even when recruits came the work of the Ambulance Corps was such
that the need of men was increased, and Dick continued to drive his
ambulance, postponing a little further his expected return home. There
was terribly fierce fighting in the Vosges in that period, it will
be remembered, and the demands upon the ambulance driver were almost
incessant, the peril of it constant, gathering up the wounded from the
battle front and hurrying them to a place of safety. For five months
he had made those hazardous trips from battle front to safety station,
unhesitatingly, devoted, inspired by the consciousness that he was
engaged in saving, not in destroying life, his work not for France
alone but for humanity.
[Illustration:
_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._