Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1918-03-11
VETERAN AT FOURTEEN.
LAD LAUGHS AT BATTLE
Sydney Jae New York Boy, Spent Many Months in the
Ypres Region-Shows Scars of Many Exct-
ing Clashes With Huns.

NEW YORK, March 1O.-CountinS
two months In the hospital. he was in
the British army five months. He was
OF those who held Il front line trench
ut Ypres five weeks without relief.
with rife or bomb lie went over the
top so many times that he lost count
-four times In one boiling summer
week. A spcck of shrapnel pierced
his right hend. A German dubbed
muskct smashed his shoulder in a
ruined house at st. julien. and his
chum snuffed out the German. lie did
a mans work: claims no more and no
less. lie was honorably discharged
for reasons which will appear.
Nothing extraordinary about this?
All right: then let him tell why he
especially remembers his fourteenth
birthday. July "a, 1917:
You know the country around
Yprcs is pretty watcry anyway. and it
had rained for seven days and nights.
was walking along duck board.
You know duck boards are the planks
that they sink into the goo In tho
trenches. one plank on top Of another.
until there is sort OF solid path.
stepped on loose one. the other
end flew UP and / spilled into four
feet Of mud that was mostly water.
Sympathy? jeff sings out my chum,
Tiny Bradford, you been kickin' four
weeks about not havin' bawth, and
here's hopin' you're satisfied now. I
swabbed the mud out Of my eyes. went
to the G. O.'s Office, where there was a
| fire, and they let me hang up my
clothes and get them dry for the FIRST
time in an awful while. That's why I
remember the day was fourteen"
sydney Janc. a New York boy now
back in New York. was perhaps the
youngest soldier in the war. He en-
listed and was accepted at thirteen
and was a British rifeman for 165 days.
There Is no question of that. Oficial
records prove 1t. The rest of the
story is his own. British officers here
call It incredible, but the boy sticks
TO 1t. lie says the drearicst of all
lighting fronts. the Ypres salient. was
AN old story to him before he was
fourteen. Here is his story:
BORN NEAR LONDON. HE CAME
TO UNITED STATES IN 1914
II was born near London and when
was seven my father died Of sick
ness brought on by the Boer War
wounds. have two brothers. and in
1914 my mother moved us all to New
i VI went 70 fuUllC SCNOOl no.
li7. in East Broadway. and then
started in Morris High School. was
pretty we'll satisfied until I took two
days OF to visit two friends-they
were big lads-who were going to
join the American army. They didn't
say anything. but from all their talk
i got TO thinking. 1t looked funny
/, that / had come away from England
just when the war started. when
everybody that could ought TO be going
the ether way Well, the next morning
after I saw my two friends off 1 went
to British recruiting Office here and
enlisted. 1t was on June Z last year
and l was thirteen and a half years
old. but fairly big and my voice had
changed tJafe is about five feet SIX
inches tall now.
II told EN- I was eighteen and they
took me. My mother was going to
kick. but as thought would be train
ing in Canada for seven months. told
her so, and that the war would be over
by then. But a week after I got to
Canada I was grabbed for n draft they
were Just sending over, and was sent