The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-12-04
BLINDED SOLDIER TRADES STRENGTH
OF BODY FOR WOUNDED MANS SIGHT
Canadian, Who Recovered Use Of His Eyes When the Hesperian
Sank, Tells Of Reaching Hospital Guided by Injured Comrade
He Carried on His Back-Unit Almost Completely
Wiped Out at Battle Of Ypres Canadian Valor.

st. John, N. BIT was stone blind.
] heard the moaning Of q wounded
man near by, and | CROPPED and STUN
bled along until found him. He had
been shot in the side. stuffed his
wound with b~andages. Then l told
him that If he would direct me on the
way l would carry him on my back to
the dressing station.
THE way was very long and ex-
tremely rough. / fell many times.
Often my guide became unconscious
through the shock of the fall. There
was always the danger that he would
not recover-that both of us might
fall for the last time on the shellswept
field. Without him l was alone and
helpless in a darkness blacker than l
had ever known. Without me his life
would ebb fast from the gaping hole
which Slapped his vitality in a Grim
son stream,
Family he whispered where the
way was safe and gasped encourage
ment as l staggered on. Then ], in
turn, encouraged him when l brought
him back to the world gone mad time
and again, after pain and shock of a
fall had given him release from suf-
fering in Inconsistencies. At last we
came to the end of the road of horrors
and gentle hands cared for us at the
dressing station"
In these words, Stanley Chambers,
who has already, been proclaimed a
hero of the fight at Ypres, told the
people of st. John, N. B., to which
he has Just returned, of his experience
on the field Of battle. How Mr.. Cham
bers was blinded by gases and did
not recover his sight until plunged
into the waters of the Atlantic by the
t~orpedoing of the Hesperian, already
has been told. But the detail of how
the Canadians SO CALAMITY accounted
for themselves was not told until the
people of st. John gathered to well
come their hero home.
Valor Of the Canadians.
No words can so wildly tell the
gripping story of the fighting as those
in which Mr.. Chambers described the
valor of the Canadian contingent to
the audience, so moved by the story
that the only applause was an occa-
sional sobbing by those who had
friends or relatives in the battle zone
of France. In telling the story. Mr..
Chambers said:
During the first nine weeks we
were on the firing line we did not see
a German. We were inspected by
Generals French and Smith, orien
and the latter complimented us on
our appearance. We were afterward
told that this mean we were soon to
see some excitement. We later were
sent to Ypres, where we relieved a
French unit and the Frenchmen, seven
hundred of them, with great courtesy,
shook hands, each in turn, with US
and wished us we'll. The farewell of
the French soldiers occupied one and
a half hours.
ION the morning following our ar
rival at our new position some of the
boys peeked over the parapet and saw
the bodies of one hundred and fifty
Germans lying beyond our trenches.
The dead had been on the field from
November TO April. After a survey
of our new position we decided there
was an excellent chance to secure
trophies and two hundred of us
climbed over the parapet and started
collecting. We were soon subjected
to machine gun fire, the Germans
probably thinking that a charge was
about to occur, but we returned to our
trenches without the loss of a man.
Smelling of our positions by the
Germans continued for five days. We
then were relieved. Some OF our
troops were quartered in a brewery.
and one of u number, son of a
Methodist clergyman, announced one
night when the firing was heavy that
he would have to leave the building,
as dad would never forgive him If he
were found dead In a brewery
"One afternoon the Tenth and Six
teenth battalions formed up at dusk
on the canal bank to make a stand