The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-08-05
Why Delay Occurs
 In Casualty Lists

Hartford, Aug. 5-Questions which many Hartford parents have been asking as to the method pursued by military authorities in recording cas- ualties in France and then transmit ting them to Washington and as to the course adopted in Washington are an- swered by Captain ". J. Denny, M. P, M. C., formerly Attorney general for South Australia in an article in the New York Times yesterday.
 The great care that is necessary in censoring letters in order that nothing of military information may reach the enemy is explained by Captain Denny. Every letter written by the thousands of American soldiers in France must be carefully read by an officer before it is. passed from the military zone, he writes. Postal facilities at the front when a batta- lion is in the line are necessarily very limited and the task becomes no sine cure. Add to this the fact that the officers who must read the letters are busy with other details of war fare and the reason for some of the delays is more easily seen.
 One illustration of the care that is taken to prevent the enemy obtaining any information through captured mail bags that is cited was the order to the Y. M. c. A. to leave off from the stationery furnished to the men the name of country from which the men come. Now the Germans cannot tell whether American or British troops are opposing them in this way. The War Department has now or ganized a very efficient system of col lecting information concerning casual ties and reporting them to the parents and relatives of the men. Every coun- | try in the war has some sort of an in | formation bureau which gathers this information. Many people wonder at the delay of as much as two weeks in notifying parents in some cases not realizing the difficulty in compiling the | information. In some cases British casualties are not reported for three weeks and longer. Captain Denny | himslf was wounded and it was three weeks before the word reached Lon don. In this connection he writes:
 T was first treated at a regimenta1 aid post near the front line, where the wound was bound up and disin- l fected, but no record was taken. | Thence was sent to the advanced dressing station Gin a dugout about two miles behind the line), where the wound was redressed and again disin- fected, a record of the name and regi- ment taken, and a label attached to my clothing giving necessary particu- lars.
 %nT~ r f0 In ofT 1ocp station, where a closer examination of the wound was made, and more i detailed account taken of the nature of the injury. Finally I was taken to the casualty clearing station, several miles behind the line. where surgical operations are performed.
 Here, again, a complete record of the case is made - the soldier is marked slightly wounded severely wounded or dangerously wounded
 "On each occasion the reports are sent to medical headquarters to be compared, tabulated, and verified. All this naturally takes time, and some times two or three weeks must elapse
 before definite information can be supplied to the next of kin"
 When the casualty lists are receiv-
 ed in Washington, the addresses o1 the men are ascertained and the nearest of kin notified. When the
 telgraems are all on the wire the list
 is released to the news associations In Australia the nearest clergyman is
 notified instead of the parents and he
 is requested to "break the news" to
 the family.
 In cases where soldiers are not se-
 verely wounded it is often possible
 for them to cable to their parents ol
 relatives themselves. In all of the hospitals there are chapteins who willingly write letters for the men
 thus letting the parents know the ex t tent of the wounds. If man is taker
 prisoner it takes much longer to find out where he is and whether or not
 he has been wounded.