Norwich bulletin., 1917-01-18

Locating Lost Soldiers.

1
I% Pope Benedict XIV. through the De-
pertinent of Lost Soldiers Established
at the Vatican has aided in learning
| the whereabouts of more than 10000
lost soldiers about whom heart-brok-
en- relatives lind inquired through per-
1 sonal appeals to His Holiness. He Il
| receiving, and has received since the
war began, some 200 letters a dag
from distracted parents, wives ano
| Sweethearts in all of the belliegereni
nations, pleading that he use his good
Offices to learn whether their loved
ones, about whom they have been I'M
! able to hear anything, are dead,wound-
/ ed, sick or prisoners.
The Pope has found this one of the
saddest phases of the war. Notwith-
standing the size of his daily mail, he
reads all such letters himself. In the
| beginning of the war he attempted
! task became so formidable that it was
necessary to establish a separate de-
partment at the Vatican, now in
charge of Father Huisfnarn, under
the Pope's direction. His Holiness.
after reading one of the appeals, makes
some notations it's on envelope and
sends it to the Department of Lost
Soldiers, which has it's offices on the
fourth floor of the Vatican near the
Papal Secretary of State. Here are
some thirty priests and civilians en-
gagged in clerical work.
The department has access to official
records Transmitted by the Prussian
minister of war to the Holy See at
Lugano, Switzerland, and has offices
at Paris, Constantinople, Vienna, Fret
burg, Brussels and Padeborn, West
phalia, Germany, with several minor
branches in other countries.
The department has become one of
the most highly organized of any in
the Vatican 1t writes several hun
bred letters a day, and to date such
letters have run up to a total of more
than 100000. AS the department re-
turns all money enclosed in letters OF
appeal and as person writing from
England cannot well enclose Italian
stamps for international correspond
ence, the stamp bill alone of the de-
partment has been upwards of $780,
600.
After making an official demand on
the government of the country where
the lost soldier is supposed to be, the
department causes each new name to
be posted up in the military prison
camps, by the aid of a Catholic chap
lain always present, in the hope that
some of the lost soldiers comrades
may see the name and offer some
clue that will lead to his Location. Sew
eral thousands of such lists have
been printed. There are 10 lists,
each. containing 200 names, for the
Italian army alone, making thus a
total of $4,000 lost Italian soldiers.
Aside from this, the department has
copies of official army prisoner lists,
arranged by nations, and it immedi-
ately searches these lists carefully
for the name of the lost soldier.
Despite the difficulties of the task,
the department has so far been able
to find more than 10000 lost soldiers,
and the Pope has received a treas
ured collection of letters of thanks
from families, often from little chill
dren, who address him as Mister,
or who give him the title names of
popes dead many hundred of years.
The correspondent of The Associ-
ated Press on a visit to the depart
ment saw a bundle of letters that had
just been sent by the Pope, possibly
rs in number. and on the envelope of
each one i'll his own handwriting was
written directions concerning it's dis
position. Among the heap was a let
ter from his sister, the Countess Per-
sico della Chiesa, of Genoa, the Pope's
home city, asking that a search be
made for a certain soldier of Genoa.
sThe Countess begs attention again."
the Pope had written on the letter.
Another one of the letters was one
Of thanks from a French family whose
son, Jean IsSorgHe had been for two
years in the Orient without being
able to send news to his family of
himself, but the Pope had been able to
discover this lost son at Samsam, in
distant Turkey.
Another letter was one of thanks
from the family of Count Hugo de
Rochefort, lieutenant in the aeronau-
.ic corps, who, during the Somme of |
ersive, fell in the German lines. BY |