Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-06-22
PENN STUDENT TELLS
OF WAR FRONT HORROR
Merrill Denison Back on Visit
After Eight Months on
Ambulance

Word was received here this afternoon
Of the arrival from the French front Of
Merrill Denison, a University Of Pennsyl'
vania student at Auburn, NJ y. Denison,
student Of the Architectural School, served
eight months with the fourth section Of
the American ambulance corps He went
to Auburn to visit his mother, Mrs. Flora
VI. Denison, a suffrage worker. He said
there was need Of American men on the
fghting front at the earliest possible mo-
ment.
It was a weird tale Of adventure Denison
told the EVENING LEDGER correspondent
In an exclusive interview. In all. the Penn
sylvania student, who Is in his twenties
carried 2400 wounded soldiers from the
battlefield.
INJURED BY FALL
Denison was injured by thirty-foot fall
over an embankment when. with fellow am
bulance drivers he was hunting around In
the dead OF night He is expected to re-
port again for service July rs and join the
ambulance unit sent out by the University
Of Pennsylvania. The Denisons reside in
Bonecho, Canada.
One Of the greatest hardships through
which he passed last winter, Denison de
cares. was the severe cold. II was hard
10 get coal for heating the barracks, he
said with the result that the suffering
that at Valley Forge.
The devastation behind the evacuated
lines OF the Germans, as well as behind
those Of the French, the driver described as
terrific. The very atmosphere is pervaded
with an oppressive sense of desolation and
the thought Of the wayfarer is constantly
on the subject Of death. Everything appears
dead, from human and animal life to the
very trees and plants which once hourshed
luxurantly in the region.
The territory in which Denison worked
extended from Rheims TO Verdun and II was
in the Verdun sector that he saw most
active service. He was under fire many
times.
There is a strange feeling of exhlln-
ration felt when one hears tho guns roar
about him." said Denison today.
when a man has to change an auto tire
in a hot, dusty road in the quiet Of n Sun
day afternoon In this country the job Is
bore but let the same man go to France
as a volunteer ambulance driver and be
forced to change a tire in the dead Of night
In n road two feet deep with mud and with
shells screaming overhead, and there is a
peculiar pleasure and az the same time
loathIng and dread which cannot be de-
scribed.
But today, after Uncle Sam has taken
a hand In tho war, Ia poor time for
young red-bIooded Americans TO go into
the ambulance service" Denison con-
tlnued at Is time now for them tn show
their colors in real service to their nag
and their country.
Driving an ambulance at night without
lights may seem adventure enough, but to-
day the time has come when sturdy Ameri-
can youths should leaN, the ambulance
work to broken down F;snchmen, who are
less able to shoulder a gun in the trenches
than are they"
Speaking Of the present situation
Denson said:
THE sooner America gets men to the
fighting front, the better. France and
Britain, too for that matter, are fast be-
coming exhausted and every ounce Of fight
ing strength that Uncle Sam can muster
should be rushed in to flll the gaps in the
Allied ranks"