The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1918-09-04
AMERICAN "TlN HAT"

who went through hail Of shrapnel
! and machine gun fire at Cantigny and
! Is now convelescing from wound in
the ere1t American military hospital
at Neuiily, in the Paris suburbs,
seems TO ! ave demonstrated that the
American field helmet con
mononly called by soldier, the tin
hat" is thoroughly reliable article
when Dut to the supreme test.
This marine owed his life to his
nm hat" and the peculiar qualities
of its steel in giving slightly without
shatterng. In the midst of the &C
ton 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 helmet
which showed deep indentation
about the size of half base ball.
II was this indentation which had
pressed down to the scalp, making
wound which required trepaning
But there it stopped, and the metal
Of the tin hat after giving to the mis-
sic until its force was spent, had
stopped in its deadly flight straight
toward the brain The trepaning
operation was only slight and the ma
gine was well on the way to recovery.
The indented helmet was preserv
warded to the ordinance experts at
Washington to show them the good
qualities of their helmets. 1t is
said that a hard brittle steel, which
would have resisted without giving,
would have been shattered to bits
by the impact and the ball would
uave gone through the brain.
In an adjoining ward a stalwart
young marine who had been in the
same Cantingy fight stood at artery
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, and
probably the only case of the kind on
record A bullet had struck the sol
der in the left side of the neck and
had gone through to the gulIet, where
ii stopped, and had then assembled or
been swallowed into the stomach.
An Xray examination clearly show
ed the ball in the intestines. BH
instead of removing it by an opera
ion the surgeon decided to await
The course of nature and see if the sol
der would digest the rifle ball And
this he did One of the surgeons
remarked that the chances of such a
thing happening were less than one
IN million, but colleague added
that the chances we're far less than
that as 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-
.ederacy, with the beds marked with
The names of the well-known southern
figures, such as Stonewall Jackson,
N1nator 2abulon Vance, General
Joseph Wheeler of Alabama.
When the big dietary kitchen was
inspected later there was a savory
SmelI of American dishes and
tainties being prepared for the
wounded men and are of the surgeons
cheered the cooks with the remaks
Your dishes do more good than
all the our medicines" And this is
IS literally true, for these American
wounded do not want foreign foods
but long for the simple old-fashioned
lishesof home. the 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
Americanism of the big military hos
pital is proving a blessing to rAs
American manned and wounded who
have come back from the front.