Evening star., 1918-04-04
RECEIVES CROSS OF HONOR
BEFORE 1900 COMRADES
Richard B. English Of Wash
ington Decorated in France
for Bravery.
Writes of Thrills While Driving
Ambulance With Shells
Falling About Him.

Marching out before 1900 Of your
comrades to receive the cross OF honor
is feat to make shaky the bravest SOL
dier. thinks Richard Belts English.
Washington ambulance driver in
France, who recently was decorated for
bravery. He is the son of Samuel Eng
lish, formerly with the government
printing office for twenty-five years.
Writing to his mother under date OF
February young English describes
the "ordeal" of decoration for bravery
as follows:
81 suppose you received my cable last
week. and I do hope you and the girls
feel as honored as 1 do at my being
decorated with the Croix de Guerre. 1t
was quite a ceremony, l being the only
one out Of forty in the section to be
decorated. although many others de-
served it as well as /.
II was told two days before to pre-
pare for the ordeal. 1t takes quite
some control to march out before the
1900 men in our division to be deco
rated.
Procedure Is Described.
'sThe procedure is this: The orders
A certain town, and date and hour is
named. The infantry line up by regi-
ments and march on to the field. the
cavalry following, the engineers next
and the artillery last. This alone takes
four hours. The stretcher bearers.
clerks. ambulance men, doctors, etc,
follow in order. Each regiment has a
band, SO when all are consolidated 1t
makes some music
"The generals arrive with much pomp
and pass before each unit, after which
they take their places in front. The
marches forth as an escort to the men
to be honored. They reach the ambu-
lance section and announce. .Allez
soldat anglais" and l go forth across
the field with the rest. There We're
eleven out of the 17,00o-three officers.
seven soldiers and ]. We get before
1.-THE general. he commands the 1900
soldiers to kneel. the bands play, then
stop and the general reads aloud in
French: English, Richard Belts, vol
funteer. American, an energetic cour-
ageous and very devoted driver, who
voluntarily remained in the sector as
chief mechanic. He particularly dis
himself on several occasions
by going to repair ambulances of his
section loaded with wounded on the
road of the Houdromont quarries, in
full sight of the enemy and violently
bonn barded.' The bands play again. the
1000 arise and salute you and the gem
eral decorates the next, after having
kissed you on both cheeks In the name
of the President of France. After they
are all decorated we march behind the
general and he takes position to re-
view the division. They march past
turn around and march back, passing
with eyes right.
$50 much over, but next comes the
fetes the section gives you. That night
a dinner by the officers and the next
day lunch by the Frenchmen in the
'section and that night a banquet by
the whole section.
In Dugouts Five Miles Behind Lines.
A letter from English to friend in
this city follows:
Your cherry letter reached me some
few days ago, but writing hours and
accommodations for same are go few
and far between l find this, is the first
opportunity to answer.
Probably you are interested in our
routine of life, so 1 will write briefly
most of the time about five miles be-
hind the first lines. Our division holds
the lines from Y to y, and we handle
the wounded and sick from Just that
line is treated on the field by the
stretcher bearers and then carried to
the second line. where he is doped and
dressed. From there he comes to our
post, Where ne is treated by an expert
and doped and placed in one of our
cars, there being FIVE wounded to a car.
Then we start out from this point.
which is about a mile behind the lines.
for our division hospital. generally
about six miles back. This run is al
ways made under shell fire and quite
frequently our cars are shelled inten-
tionally. When the wounded arrive al
division hospital they are doped and
transferred to other cars to be carried
to sector hospital, or in other words,
the rail head 'Triage.'
Arrival at Division Hospital.