FIRST AID
ON FOUR FRONTS IN
WORLD WAR I
308th Medical Detachment
Letters written by,
Sgt. 1st
Class
William D. Conklin
AUGUST
(Written
at Fere-en-Tardanois., Department of Aisne)
August 12, 1918
I realize that it is longer than usual since you have
heard from me, but this letter must nevertheless be
short. We have been making a big move, by hike, train,
and lorry, and have bean passing through territory that
has become historic lately (Chateau-Thierry and beyond).
About thirty miles of, this hike I covered on horseback,
with most of my pack on the horse instead of on me--a big
relief. (This march was from Neuf-Maisons in the Baccarat
Sector to Charmes on the Moselle, where we entrained.)
The railroad journey was made in good time, about twenty
hours; troop trains over here, made up of perhaps forty
box and flat cars, do well if they go at the rate of a
fast American freight. Ours was quite a sight. Five or
six man dangled their legs out of each car doorway, and
others stood behind them, all trying to make out from
maps and compasses where we were probably going. An
occasional flag, and of course our uniforms, showed our
identity and brought us a fine welcome all along the
line.
For a couple of days after detraining (at La
Ferte-sous-Jouarre) we rested in billets in a near-by
town (Jouy). They are likely to be our last billets for
some time. I was quartered in a high-basement room that
looked out on a very pretty private garden, at the end of
which was a stream--which signifies to us just one thing,
wash. We used to bring our meals back from the
kitchen-wagon and eat them in state in the summerhouse,
and in the evening a bottle of fine cider was brought out
by the lycee professor who lived above us. (He had had to
flee from Chateau-Thierry.) He and his wife were anxious
to talk about the war and their own experiences. My own
efforts to reciprocate were agonizing, but we managed to
transmit our ideas successfully by one means or another,
Now, after a long day's ride in French lorries as
improvised omnibuses, careening through the country
without stopping even at noon, we have arrived where pup
tents are the rule, where nothing is to be bought or
sold, and where, the supplies not having caught up with
us, we wait for all sorts of things, from ink to foods
less elemental than hardtack, coffee, and
"bully"--yet it is surprising how much one can
eat of such stuff when really hungry.
A Paris editorial writer said the other day., at the end
of an article, that there were two reasons in particular
why we should now be hopeful (he didn't name them), and
that there were other reasons which he was, not permitted
to divulge. In the same way, I have to be discreet like
the rest, and leave till later the most interesting parts
of the story. At any rate, I can say that instead of
being on our way to Egypt or Palestine or the
Philippines, or any of the other spots for which we were
destined by rumor, we have arrived in a most interesting
region of France. This moving about makes getting mail to
us difficult, The only letters I have had in several
weeks were two or three that dated back to June 20th. But
all of us live in hopes.
(Written at Sergy, Department of the Aisne)
August 30, 1918
I don't know what- to think of it that a letter was not
received from me for five weeks, except that possibly
some boat may have gone down, That is the only way,
perhaps, to account for such a delay. Over here, I did
not receive mail for four weeks, but that was due to our
change of station, and I knew that eventually it would
come in bunches. It had to be brought up over a shelled
road; but when it got to us I had a dozen letters at
once, then three, and a few days later three more, So I
know everything is all right on the other side--up to
July 30th. I appreciate all the time and care it takes to
keep me so closely in touch with home.
Don't let rumors or purported news worry you in any way
until verified by some reputable source of information. A
friend of mine in South Carolina wrote he had read of my
being "wounded in action." Perhaps the name was
similar. It certainly was not mine,, or if so, by error.
I think the New York Tines has the most reliable casualty
lists, giving name and also name and address of person to
be notified. Of course they can't say anything about
organizations. This Regiment has been having a taste of
real war lately, and I am afraid some rumor may already
have alarmed you, without good cause.
Our Medical Detachment boys have been doing themselves
proud. I believe that they and the Surgeons have the
hearty regard of the Regiment for their work during the
last two or three weeks. There is every reason to be
proud of the Regiment as a whole. I urged the Captain to
let me go up and relieve one of the sergeants in charge
of an advanced dressing station but he thought that no
one of them needed relief more than the others. I walked
over to the nearest aid post several times, on one errand
or another. (This was at Les Pre's Farm.) We ourselves
worked under, difficulties. The town where we were
stationed (Chery-Chartreuve) was a pet- object of enemy
shellfire for the week we occupied it, partly because it
was surrounded by our own artillery. There were often
half a dozen gas alarms at night, usually not false, but
hardly necessary. Gas does not spread far be-yond where a
gas shell lands, but the signal is passed on from one
post to another, far beyond the reach of the gas. We used
to duck down into our cellar dugout two or three times in
a night, and finally, to avoid being aroused, I moved
down with my blankets. Our office was in the more exposed
part of a building that was protected by a hill at the
rear--or supposed to be. When things became too lively
there was nothing to do but quit work while the choice
remained, and hop for the dugout between two shells.
Sometime I can tell you more details of our experiences.
Those days relieved me of any possible reproach as the
holder of a "bullet-proof" job, I consider this
good luck. I don't want to feel as if I were on a
daisy-picking expedition.
After a week it was decided best to move the Regimental
Headquarters from this unhealthy town. The Boches helped
to bring the matter to a head by registering a direct hit
on the Headquarters one noon when I happened to be out to
lunch. The shell passed through the Colonel's room, and
wracked the intelligence office and the main Regimental
office. A clerk sitting at his typewriter (where I had
planned to do some work immediately after lunch) was
fatally wounded, and a number of others were wounded or
gassed. Previously to this, shells had dropped within a
few yards of the building. One that landed in the road
outside the Surgeon's office sent a shower of splinters
in through the window. Another fell across the way in a
narrow space between two cottages without touching
either. One of these cottages was my billet. During the
periodic "strafing" we could look across the
valley and see the explosion of one shell after another
aimed at our batteries. Boche airplanes came over several
times a day, took all the observations they liked,
dropping so low we could almost see the pilot, and then
made off while a few half-hearted shots fired by (anti)
aircraft guns. It needed allied planes to drive Jerry
away, and there seemed to be none, either French or
American. The desire of certain officers to have their
bedding aired, and absurd attempts to beautify the
grounds, naturally attracted attention to the
Headquarters. Dozens of wires entered the building, and
activity was evident. We paid the penalty.
The Y.M.C.A. maintained a canteen in the center of this
town until one day a shell dropped on a crowd of men
Waiting to get into the building. Another shell smashed
our Band instruments--and some of the personnel. A
regiment of Engineers moved from one location to another
several times, but a hoodoo seemed to follow them. Of
course the Germans knew this town as well as they knew
their alphabet. The chief road through Chery-Chartreuve
was parallel to the front. Being exposed, was under
constant observation it was the most available highway
for supply trains, artillery, ambulances, and infantry,
and more than one outfit came to grief in that
neighborhood.
Down this road, at sundown on the day our Headquarters were wrecked, we
scuttled as inconspicuously as possible
to Chartreuve Farm. This had been considered a restful
place, but the night after our arrival was a warm one.
Most of us ended it bunched up in a Signal Corps dugout.
If there is one branch of the service where the strain is
heavier than in any other, it seems to me it is the
Signal Corps. I doubt if there is any other job in the
whole category of human occupations that requires so much
patience as that of operator at a telephone switchboard
at the front. Commanding officers frantically trying to
get in touch with one another, everything depending; and
the most heart-breaking failures to put the message
through, Weeping and cursing and gnashing of teeth going
on, and the code system complicating the whole matter.
Yet I never saw an operator get rattled or ruffled or
insolent. Their courtesy and persistence and self-
control were amazing. Several times in a night, perhaps,
something would "happen" to a wire; then one of
the men would start out alone unconcernedly to repair it,
as likely as not having to be carried back. They were a
sporting crowd.
It was hardly a mile from Chery-Chartreuve to Chartreuve
Farm, but the distance was only too long for some of the
Headquarters bunch. A shell landed a few yards from the
long-suffering mule who was responsible for all the
Regimental records. It was too much foil him. He bolted
and out of the cart tumbled a field desk which broke open
and Scattered papers to the four winds. There was no
stopping the mule or the Detachment just then, but later
two or three men went back and retrieved what they could.
At the Farm, some of us explored upper floors, where
there were cots and other comforts, but fortunately we
decided to stay nearer the earth. The fellow who was next
to me on the ground floor, till I went below, stuck it
out- there. The next morning he found a shell splinter
beside him. We traced its course down through the roof
and two floors. He said he had felt something
"tap" him in the night, but didn't pay any
attention to it.
The chief architectural feature of this farm was a ruined
chateau. Some of the great mirrors and other decorations
showed how handsome it had been. There were all the
evidences of a once lordly estate-a dancing pavilion,
gardens, conservatory, garage, and stables. Somewhat
removed was a large tenant house, or manager's residence,
facing a great courtyard surrounded on three sides by
barns and store-houses. As the bugler was likely to sound
"under cover" at any moment., on sighting an
airplane, we were supposed never to cross this yard, but
always to keep close to the walls, and make the circuit.
In the comfortable manager's house, still intact and well
furnished, not only our Regiment but an Artillery outfit
as well had a " P.C. "--Post of Command. It was
intensely interesting to hear the artillery officers
direct the -firing by telephone. One day I was told that
the first American gas shells were just going over; that
there had been much hesitation about using them, but that
it had been decided finally that the only way to fight
German gas shells was by retaliating in kind. A little
box of a room was assigned the Surgeon for an office.
There I sat trying to make out reports while squadrons of
Boche flies raided the place. Great big vicious monsters.
Between them and the plague of wasps we couldn't even eat
a meal in peace; they disputed every mouthful.
Our discomforts seemed trivial when we compared them with
conditions existing in Mont St. Martin and Ville Savoye,
only a few miles away. Near the latter village, in a big
cave facing an exposed road, an aid post had been
established., because wounded men had collected in it as
a refuge, The medical officers and men in the cave were
prisoners for several days, but., with the cooperation of
the Ambulance Company, which had several cars wrecked in
the effort, they evacuated a number of cases
successfully. Several Infantry officers, standing at the
mouth of this cave, were killed, among them Captain
Belvidere Brooks. After the road had become impassable
--it was pockmarked with shell holes--men were carried by
litter to Mont St. Martin. In this area the Regiment had
its worst experience with gas. A blazing sun beat down on
ground untouched by rain for weeks, and horses lay
unburied where they had fallen. Altogether it was an
unlovely region.
Just now we hear no war like sounds, except at night a
barrage of our own guns in the distance. But we are on
ground that will always be historic, in a town that they
say was taken and lost by the Americans seven or eight
times and finally won for good (Sergy), where the fields
are full of the biggest shell holes we have seen, and the
buildings, especially the church--topped by a fine
central tower--are battered from many a bombardment. This
church is one of those in which the altar has
miraculously escaped injury.
There is an old man who wanders about here, who was
caught, together with his family, perhaps not knowing
where to take refuge. It is said that his wife and eight
of his children died from exposure, and that the only
surviving, son is at the front and has been wounded
several times. That is what it means to have war brought
into a peaceful country. Yet the people begin to drift
back even when their homes are in ruins. There are a few
women already returned, usually busy at the central
"scrubbery," or whatever it may be called--
" Lavoir," they have it in French.
Most of us have taken to the small stream. near by and
have accomplished the first scrubbing possible in about a
month. There is also a crude shower bath hidden away in a
side street, in a shed. Although the water is cold, it is
worth its weight in francs. That would be cheap, at
present, for we have hard work to spend any money at all.
The Y.M.C.A. men are not afraid of shellfire, and their
supplies are often brought up under difficulties, but
there is absolutely no place here where one can leave a
franc on the counter. The Red Cross made us a present of
some sweet chocolate the other day, however, and we get
our share of the striped red-white-and-blue boxes
provided by the various tobacco funds.