The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1918-07-27
HOW CASUALTIES OF THE U. S.
FORCES ARE REPORTED.
War Department Explains the Steps
Taken to Notify Relatives of
Soldiers Whose Names Occur i
On Casualty Lists.

RELATIVES of soldiers named in
casualty lists forwarded from France
by General Pershing ordinarily are
notified by telegraph within "a hours
Most of the exceptions to this rule
are caused by circumstances over
which the Adjutant Generals Office
has no control. Delays are due to
these causes:
/. Clerical errors, issued by the
fact that names and addresses must
pass through so many hands in France
and America.
z. Incorrect street addresses turn
ed IN by soldiers as their emergency
addresses. These mistakes occur fire.
quently In cases where soldiers have
been away from home and do not re-
member street numbers or street
names.
3. Removal of families to ad-.
dresses other those listed by the SOL
diers.
4. The occasional necessity for
cabling back to General Pershing TO
verify a name or to obtain an ad-
dress.
Work of Statistical Division.
The Adjutant General maintains
a statistical division, with a staff of
oiHters and q corps Of stenograph-
ers and copyists, which gives all its
time Of the maintenance Of files. f
soldiers names and addresses THIS
division notifies relatives
zach continent sailing to join the
American Expeditionary Forces for
wards a copy Of it's roster to the Ad-
jutant General as it goes on ship
board. This roster is filed in card
index fashion, each card bearing the
name of one soldier, with his organ
ization, the name of parant or other
relative or friend designated by him
to be notified in emergency and the
address of the individual designated
for notification. The cards are fled
alphabetically. In addition, the snip
sailing lists are maintained on file.
Preparation of Lists.
When the Adjutant Generals of
fice receives casualty list from Gen.
Pershing it forwards the list imme-
diately to the statistical division.
Here each name cabled from Ameri-
can Expeditionary Forces is listed
with the emergency address on file in
the card index
AS rapidly as the new list with
emergency addresses is built up the
telegraph clerks get duplicates. The
clerks are already supplied with
blank kilograms which require only
the relatives address, the name of the
soldier, the nature of the casualty, !
and the date before they can be dis
patched. Filling in the blank spaces
they get the kilograms off as quickly |
as possible.
In addition to maintaining sets
of telegraph blanks for the sake of
speed the statistical division is sup
3lied with sets of form letters to be
illed in and mailed later, when fur
ther details as to the soldiers condi-l J
lion are available
Newspaper Publicity Held Up.
After the completed casualty list is
ready, with the emergency addresses,
it is withheld from publication in the |
newspapers for reasonable space.
out of respect for the feelings of re-
latives. The Adjutant Generals Of
fee allows time for the relatives to
receive the kilograms. so that they
may have the news before it is given
TO the general public.
Aside from the four causes of de-
lay already mentioned the only rea-
son for the failure of relatives to re-
ceive word at once is military consid-
Grafton. General Pershing may, at
ais discretion, withhold a casualty list |
until he is positive it will have no mi I
litary value to the enemy.