The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1918-09-13
FIELD HELMET PROVES
IT'S VALUE AT CANTIGNY
f'Tin Hat" Saves a Marines Life nv
Bending Instead of Shat
tcring.

Paris, Sept. 9.-The case of one
American marine who went through
q hail OF shrapnel and machine gun
fire at Cantigny and is now conva-
}escing from wound in the great
American military hospital at Neu-
lilly. in the Paris suburb, seems to
have demonstrated that the Ameri-
can field helmet, commonly called
by soldiers, the Tin hat" is a
thoroughly reliable article when put
20 the supreme test
This marine owed his life to his
Tin hat" and the peculiar qualities
OF its steel in giving slightly without
sion he went down with, ball strik-
ing the top of the helmet and press
Ing down to the skull. He was
brought back, along with the he'll
met which showed a deep indenta-
tion about the size of half a base
ball 1t was this indentaton which
had pressed down to the scalp, MAX
ing a wound which required trepan-
ing, But there it stopped and the
metal Of the tin hat after giving to
the missile until it's force was spent,
hadastopped it in its deadly flight
straight toward the brain. The tre-
paning operation was only slight and
the marine was well on the way to
recovery
The indented helmet was pre-
served not as a souvenir, but to be
forwarded to the ordnance experts
at Washington to show them the
good qualities of their helmets. 1t
is said that hard and brittle steel,
which would have resisted without
giving, would have been shattered
to bits by the impact and the ball
would have gone straight through
the brain.
In an adjoining ward a stalwart
young marine who had been in the
same Cantigny fight stood at atten-
tlon with no apparent sign of
wound. But the surgeon, feeling
the boys throat, nodded approvingly
and then remarked that this was
one of the most remarkable cases
that had ever come under his OBJ
servation, and probably the only
case of the kind on record A bullet
had struck the soldier in the left
side of the neck and had gone
through to the gullet, where il
stopped, and had then descended or
,been swallowed into the stomach.
An X-ray examination clearly
showed the ball in the intestines
But instead Of removing it by an
operation the surgeons decided to
await the course OF nature and see
If the soldier would digest the rifle
Ball. And this he did One Of tho
surgeons remarked that the chances
of such a thing happening were less
than one in 100000, but a col
league added that the chances were
for less than that az he could not
recall any like case in the whole
range of military surgery
Many of the French Poilus under
American care were in the wards of
the Daughters of the American Con-
) federacy, with the beds marked
with the names Of the we'll known
= southern figures. such as Stonewau
Jackson, Senator Zebulon Vance.
( Gen. Joseph Wheeler, OF Alabama.
When the big dietary kitchen was
suspected later there was a savory
smell of American dishes and dain-
ties being prepared for the wounded
men, and one of the surgeons cheer
ed the cooks with the remark Your
dishes do more good than all our
medicines" And this is literally
true, for these American wounded do
not want foreign foods but long
for the simple old-fashioned dishes
of home, like boiled custard. matted
milk, egg-nog and bread and milk.
So that, even in the food American
cooks are doing their share. and
down to the last detail the Ameri-
'canism Of the big military hospital
is proving a blessing to the Ameri-
can manned and wounded who have
come back from the front.