Omaha daily bee., 1918-10-07
Finest War Stories inHospitals
Stars and Stripes, Published in France.

UnQertOneQ IN the MOL Oh Udttie, sdspSu III
last words where the trenches cross, mumbled
in half-delirium from stretchers being borne to
the first aid dugouts, whispered to the surgeon
holding the knife in the shell-shaken dressing
stations, spoken and confded on the motor am
balances and trains and talked of conversation
ally at the base hospitals, the personal, living
history of America at war is being told every
day by the doughboys who have gone into the
mill of death.
1t is the words of the wounded fighting man,
spoken while he is still under the spell of battle,
that give the measure Of the spirit of the Amer
lean army in France. 1t is these words which
preserve the glory of individual heroism and
wholesale bravery. And added to the spoken
word is the fortitude of wounded men--the little
things they do and do not do, which carry more
conviction of the unbreakable spirit of the new
armies than all the oratory yet Embossed on
pleasantly lighted platforms.
Every stretcher bearer can tell you story
of herosm with uncounted details. So can
every surgeon who has gone over the top with
the doughboys. So can the medical officers and
nurses and orderlies in the base hospitals where
wounded men come to beds and operating tables
marvelling at the things they have, seen and
heard. And about these mel there is growing
a vast, many-chaptered tradition that is being
preserved wherever American soldiers meet, and
is being transmitted back home in letters.
In certain American hospital, whose Off
GERS, nurses and men landed in France in May
last year, they have many of these stories to
tell-stories that they tell you at the same time
they tell you of the night when Gothas flying
under harvest moon deliberately dropped five
bombs down on wards whose metal roofs shone
like mirrors in the moonlight, three of the
bombs rending the frail woodwork that shell
tered scores of wounded men helpless on cots,
two of the bombs killing five of the hospital men
and wounding 20 others.
They tell you of the doughboy from middle
west town who came down to the hospital with
the healing stump of leg and could not be
comforted. The first day he lay there gloomily
looking out into the steady drizzle of the rain,
and they thought he must be thinking of home.
He wasn't He revived hopefully
Elk me up in hurry, doc!" he said to the
ward surgeon. Il don't care how you do it.
Get me an artificial leg-a plain peg will do if
it's quicker. | want to 60 back up to the old
bunch. They're the best gang in the world, and
Pm damned sure therell be work up there for
me to do-in the mess, the headquarters, any,
where. They can't count me out while got
one good PIN
They remember him, just as they remember
the other doughboy who had stopped piece
of shrapnel at close range. When he came in
he had been fixed up at the casualty clearing
station. The surgeons had taken dozens of big
stitches in line down the inner side of his leg
the part Of his leg where the n-seam of his
pants would come was stitched like the cover
of base ball.
They found out his spirit first when he rolled
off the stretcher, trying to reject the aid of the
men who had carried him in. Then he showed
dissatisfaction because the orderly had to lift
him when he handed him bed pan. Three days
he tried to "help himself" as he put it, but the
orderly always came to the rescue. The fourth
day, however, he was independent
Then there was the case during the push up
Amiens way-the doughboy with the wound in
the thigh This doughboy, taking the anes-
thetic, didn't go "clear under" before the sur
geon started in So the operation of sewing up
his wound was delayed until the nurse and med
ical officer thought he was completely under the
influence of the gas"
All through the operation of sewing the pa
tent did not stir. But almost on the last stitch
he wriggled on the table and began to speak
That was pretty tough go, lieutenant" he
said. II felt every stitch you made. There
were five of them. And on the fourth one you
jabs."
Always it's the same story-wounded dough-
boys trying to make light of wounds Always
the frightened lips-maybe they hide gritting
teeth-but never word of complaint 1t is the
spirit that requires watchfulness, too, lest a
doughboy weary of lying on stretcher with a
fractured leg bound in splints should swing off
the side of the stretcher and 60 hopping around
on one leg holding onto his splints with his
hands. That's what one of them did.
Going back to hospital traditions and that
night the Gothas came over under the harvest
moon. There are at least two nurses in that
hospital whose names will always be remem-
bered with that raid. incidentally both are
wearing medals.
The arrival Of the boche was just at the cru
cial moment in the fight for life of pneumonia
the pneumonia patients ward did not move from
his bedside. Twenty-Five minutes after the
alerte the five bombs rained down on the hos
ptal In an instant the quiet, dark camp be-
came place of horror-fumes of explosives
settling down over buildings where wounded
men were crawling out of burning wreckage.
Through it all nurse stood at the bedside of
man whose lungs and heart seemed at the last
gasp and stroke of life.
At the same time in ward of the surgical
division fragment of bomb had found mark
seriously wounded list. The bomb fragment
tore its way past one of the partly-heaed
wounds and opened an artery. The nurse who
had stayed by her post after the alerte rushed
to the aid of the bleeding man, and in the dark
ness, smoke and noise checked the hemorrhage |
Scotland Forever!
From American Daily Mail, Published in Paris.
Gan American officer told me that ne had
never dreamed of troops facing such fire and