Weekly journal-miner., 1918-09-11
TIN HAT PROVES ITS WORTH IN
 BATTLE
FIELD HELMET USED BY AMERICAN FORCES INV FRANCE PROVES TO BE A RELIABLE ARTICLE WHEN PUT TO TEST.
By Associated Press.

PARIS, Sept. 4.-The case of one American Marine who went through a hail of shrapnel and machine gun fire at Cantigny and is now con valescing from wound in the great American military hospital at Neu- lilly, in the Paris suburbs, seems to have demonstrated that the American field helmet, commonly called by soldiers. the tin hat is a thoroughly reliable article when put to the su- premc test.
 This marine owed his life to his "tin hat" and the peculiar qualities of its steel in giving slightly with out shattering. In the midst of the action he went down with ball strik ing the top of his helmet and press ing down to the skull. He was brought back, along with the helmet which showed a deep indentation about the size of half baseball. It was this indentation which had press ed down to the scalp, making a wound which required trepaning. But there it stopped, and the metal of the tin hat after giving to the missile un- til its force was spent. had stopped it in its deadly flight straight to- ward the brain. The trepaning opera ton was only slight and the marine was we'll on the way to recovery.
 The indcnted helmet was preserv- cd. not as a souvenir, but to be for warded to the ordnance experts at Washington. to show them the good qualities of their helmets. It 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- ton 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 observation. prob ably the only case of the kind on record. 4 bullet has struck the sol dier in the left side of the neck and had gone through to the gullet, where it 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 opera ton 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 the surgeons remarked that the chances Of such . thing happening were less than one in a million. but a colleague added that the chances were far less than that as he could not recall any like case Tn 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 well-known south ern figures, such as Stonewall Jack son. Senator Zebulon Vance. General Joseph Wheeler of Alabama.
 When the big dietary kitchen was inspected later there was a savery smell of American dishes and dainties being prepared for the wounded men, and one of the surgeons cheered the cooks with the remark "Your dishes do more good than all our medi- cines" 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 de- tail the Americanism of the big mili- tary hospital is proving blessing to the American maimed and wounded who have come back from the front. D1rr1 nErNTEDC XIyADM