The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1918-09-12
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DEFY iiUIl SHELLS
SERVE COFFEE AND FOOD TO
YANKEE 5OIo DURING
GREAT EATTLE
RISK LIVES WITH SOLDIERS
Stick to Work Until Ordered to Re-
tire Account Of Terrific Gas and
Shell Bombardment
BY Robert S. DOMAIN
international News Service Staff
Correspondent.

international News Service Staff
Correspondent.
Paris, June 5 (By MaiD .-Shelled
by day and by ght, living in water
filed dugouts in the American first
lines. eight American women, Saliva
ton Army workers, went through the
German attack on the American for.
ces near Montdidier April 80. Smear
ed from head to foot with mud
which chung in clods to their rubber
boots. the women finally staggered
back to a little village behind the
American lines on May l.
They were the same women VINO
rode $50 miles on army trucks and
ca'ssons from the Toul front to the
Montdidier front, which the Amari
can troops took over at the height
Of the German attack upon Amiels.
American army officers speak with
tears in their eyes of the work these
Salvation Army women have done
and are doing.
When our boys came back through
the German barrage, which played
night and day upon the roads near
Grivesnes,'' said an American Off
Ger, they were met by these fear
less women who served them hot
cocoa and coffee and handed out
American-made doughnuts and pies
to the lads.
"At 9 a. M each morning In a
week when the rain poured down
and soaked both troops and women,
these Salvation Army workers stuck
to their posts near the front line
trenches. They met every a,2ruuni-
ton train going up to the trenches
and every company of men coming
out. They met the bandaged walk
ing wounded along the roads swept
by shell fire and ministered to their
needs.
They built fires in dugouts in the
battle zone and warmed the rain
soaked troopers; they kept their
cauldrons of cocoa constantly we'll
filled and they baked doughnuts and
pies in re.iefs, day and night. No
wonder the Buddies, the Sammies,
the Yanks, the Jacks swear by the
Salvation Army from one end of
France to the other"
For five days preceding the attack
the eight Salvation Army women
were not able to come up out Of their
dugout except at brief intervals dur
ing the day. During most OF the
day they slept or worked in relays
In the cary morning hours all came
up to do their work before the dawn
made them and the American troops
and truck trains visible to the enc
my.
An American Army officer who
went through the Montdidier fight
ing recommends that these eight
women be mentioned. They are
Miss Cora Van Nordea and Miss
Geneva Ladd of New York City, thu
sisters Irene and Gladys Mcintyre O
Mount Vernon. N. y, Myrtle Turk
| ington of South Manchester, Conn;
Miss Gertrude Simonds and Darma1
Williams OF Chicago, and the famou.
Mother (Mrs. Minnie) Burdick o
Dallas, Texas, of apple. pie fame.
Recently Mother" Burdick wheed
led big batch of dough out of TIL,
army cooks on the Toul front an,
baked several thousand doughnuts
which were put aboard one of tn
few Salvation Army trucks. Ere,
Stillwell, II years Old, of Chicago
and Capt. Charles Marks of Ba,
City, Mich, attempted to drive tn
truck in daylight up to the trenches
A boche battery Immediately got o.
the truck target when the latter, II
avoiding shell hole, went into tn
! ditch. Stillwell and Marks wer
obliged to take to the ditch whel
sixty shells fell around the truck an
steel fragments riddled it in hur
dred places. From the ditch the
cfawled to communication trench
carrying several sacks of doughnut
with them. Finally. they reache
the American trenches. That AFT
ernoon, Col. William s. Barker, i