New-York tribune., 1918-12-13
Fighting Men
OF Ea st Side
Home i'm Glory
Though SO Per Cent Are
SsCasualties'' They Are
Modest About Their Deeds

Three grimy boys from the Bowery
stopped short at the entrance to Pier 9
in River Street, Hoboken, yesterday
They told the sentry they wanted to
greet soldiers on the United States hos
pital ship Mercy, coming slowly up the
river. But Jney were without the
proper permits and were turned away
The same three, five minutes later
were hanging over the railing of q
Lackawanna Railroad ferryboat with
their fingers in their mouths whistline
shrilly to the wounded men who lined
the deck of the hospital ship. Suddenly
one of them bolted, his face turned as
white, as it could under the circum-
stances, and he waved furiously.
"Mickeyi" he screamed But the
sirens and the factory whistles swal-
lowed the word. The hospital ship
came closer and closer, and again he
yelled, and the others Joined him, for
it was the big brother of the first
Heroism Told by Others
"Mickey" was one of the many boys
from the East Side who went over with
the 77th Camp Upton) Division and
was coming back wounded What
heroic work they did over there they
would not tell themselves. but others
on the ship had plenty to say. The
Mercy brought the first of them home
yesterday.
Those men who early last summer
we're shining shoes, selling cheap
clothing or painting the tenements
made some of the most courageous
soldiers of the Allied armies.
"There are no finer nor more cour-
ageous soldiers in the world than the
boys who were drafted from New
York's East Side" said Captain Louis
W. Miles, of Company M, 308th Infant
~, wounded passenger who saw the
77th in action. Then he added: 81
believe that SO per cent of them were
casualties"
Fought as Demons
1t was the cosmopolitan division ol
the war, the 77th; there was almost
every nationality and every religion
And there were men who were born II
Germany. Over there priests admins
tered the last rites to dying Jews
rabbis carried wounded Christians or
their backs They fought as demons
together, side by side, grocery clerks
students, conductors and the rest.
Captain Hugo T. Wise, who helped
train these, same men at Camp Upton
came back on the ship. He went
through the fight at Cantgny with
them and was wounded in the foot
He was in the fight for six months ant
he bowed his head when he said tha
only a few of his fellow officers were
left.
81 was in an artillery unit, so
hand fighting" he said, "but the Ger
mans were always so active they KEEP
us ducking" But he wouldn't talk O,
himself
OlUuSy odlltCS OoAlt was d tllH mai
aboard the ship. He was in the clos
Battalion" in the Argonne Forest.
Got His Right Leg
"I got out of that all right, but OF
November 5, between Verdun and. thu
Argonne, in midnight drive Will
eighty of our men-all that was lef
of an original 250-they got my righ
Leg" and he pointed laughingly to tn
stump with his crutch. "The left on
is all shot up and I've got couple o
hip wounds" He said he worked il
many of the operations carried out b.
Colonel Whittlesey, hero of the "Los
Battalion" exploit. His home is at 49,
Ocean View Avenue, Woodhaven, Lonl
Island.
Another Long Island boy, Private 10
seph Stuhmuller, of 139 Lincoll
Street, Astoria, was with the 77th. Hi
left leg was amputated after it ha'
been peppcred by machine gun bullets
eve were speeding down a steep hill