The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-12
ANACONDA news.
HE DIED LIKE A SOLDIER
Brave Will Mitschke's Tragic
Fate in the Philippines.
ut Is A DRAMATIC STORY
1 a Comrade Writes OF the Heroic Boys
End-New York Herald Pays a
Deserved Tribute to
His Memory.
ut is A DRAMATIC STORY

A tribute is paid to Anaconda's young
hero, William Mitschke, who was
killed at Caloocan March 25, in the New
York Herald of last Sunday. That pa
/ per prints an excellent portrait of the
young man with the article.
\ sMitschke had been a resident of Ana
conda for two years prior to his enlist
4 ment in Company M, and had been en-
1 ployed at the converter at Carroll.
4 Prior to departing for the war, Mitsch-
Ike said:
u L have been told that I would get
4 my position back again on my return,
and I go to the war because it is duty
Il that calls me. I may die on the battle
u field, but if do, my friends will know
I that it was for a good cause"
Mitschke, it is said, then wrote let
ter to his father, telling him of the de-
cision he had made. It is not known
whether he ever received a reply. Be
fore departing he babe his friends
goodbye, and told them that if he
q never came back, to always remember
5that he fought and died for his coun-
( try"
!, The New York Herald article fol-
lows:
! How brave young soldier, whom
many New Workers knew, met his
death in the Philippines in the battle
of Caloocan on March %, is dramati-
cally told in letter from one of his
comrades. William Mitschke. although
I his father is a resident of New York
for three years has been living in Mon
Itana, and enlisted in Company NJ of
the Montana volunteers. To brother
one of his comrades writes:
4 willie seemed to have a PRESENT.
.ment that he would never come out of
that battle alive, and told me in jok-
ing sort of way that in case he got
KILLED he wanted me to send his body
home. He was apparently cheerful at
1.-THE time, and told me, as he had often
done before, that he was not afraid to
die and that when his time came he
could meet death like a man. We
,.parted from each other shortly after,
and l never saw him again.
4 THAT night-th movement of troops
into position for an attack upon the Fill
Pine intrenchments at sunrise the next
day began, and Willie's company and
battalion We're taken down to the right
of the Iglesia de la Iona. My own
company was on the left of the line
occupied by the Montana regiment
The attack began at sunrise on the
right, at the same time my own COM
pany got the order to advance
1T was while my company was .af !
vancing through the woods that I
heard for the first time that Billie had
fallen in the fight. Early in the en-
gagement he received a bullet in the
left side of the abdomen which ranged
downward and inecessa rily proved IA
tai. Two of thesboys. incur company
were with him at the time he was
brought into the hospital, and from
them | learn that the wounded soldier
displayed the most heroic nerve, and
was at first disposed to make light of
the hole through which his life blood
was ebbing away. He joked with the
doctor and stewards of the hospital.
and when offered whiskey told the doc
tor in Spanish that he did not want
whiskey, but water. He also said to the
hospital steward, I'm hit pretty hard,
amt ~ and then curiously examined
the wound.
"There was tag attached to his
body, with the word urgent upon it,
and when Billy saw this he knew that
his days We're numbered He began to
sink rapidly, called for the doctor and
the chaplain, and in less than half an
hour after he was carried off the field,
death had released his spirits. Thus
ended the life of one of the bravest
boys that ever wore a soldiers uni
form"