Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-03-03
CAMP At BREST
BAD, BUT COULD
NOT Be AVOIDED
Chaplain Writes of Terrible
DAYS When Men Died By
Hundreds and Were Buried
Without CoffinS,
10y MORNING IouHsAa SPECIAL LEASED wrFsl

Washington, March 2.-Denial of
many reports of bad conditions at
army debarkation camp at Brest,
France, coupled with q graphic de-
scription of the terrible days there
when, despite the ravages of the IN
fIuenza epidemic American troops
We're being rushed to France to help
hurl back the German army, is con-
tained in a letter from Chaplain w.
B. Ayers, of the navy. who served
eight months at Brest
Chaplain Ayers, who has just re-
turned from France, says Brest mas
proved a healthful camp in spite of
the mud and almost continuous rains
and that there has been no initial
epidemic there.
Approximately 1000 soldiers died
there from influenza but the chaplain
saws that lin practically all of the
cases these men were brought ashore
with the disease from transports.
Some folks seem to think that 1t
is terrible because our boys are living
in tents on the hills around Ponte-
nazen," the chaplin's letter said, yet
those of us who have had t. air we'll
being in mind have thanked God that
| the boys had the tents instead of the
wooden barracks. Influenza is a
crowd disease. We saved the lives of
thousands of boys by getting them
! into the tents.
Statements Inaccurate.
! an one of our American newspa-
pers recently | saw a bitter attack on
! Kerbaun hospital in an alleged inter-
view by a Red Cross worker Many
| of her statements We're utterly mac
curate.
"After accusing the surgeons OF
negect. heartlessness and Indifference,
| this Red Cross worker, who Is not a
nurse, asserts that our dead were
loaded onto trucks, carried out INTO
the country and buried without cere-
mony, without religious service of any
| kind, were dumped into the ground
and their collins taken back to the
| hosntal to be used again.
This is one thing | happened to
know something about AT the first
there was no chaplain at Kerbaun.
Naturally | offered to help
at is true that bodies were placed
on trucks, the only available means
of transportation. and az the time
when the influenza ragged most ter
ribly there was not a coffin to be hao
in that whole district, nor the lumber
ITO build them of. ...-
ut finally become necessary for the
army to face the prospect of burials
without baskets,
"The army had purchased a fielt
outside of Brest at LombeZelec, where
perhaps ! 1000 of our boys lie. two
hundred and fifty negroes We're de
tailed to dig graves.
The army chaplain was himsel
sick. I took his place and was in tn
cemetery all that day. all night ant
all the next day.
Best Funerals Possible.
"When the graves were dug tn
negroes lifted the baskets to thei
shoulders and marched to the indi
vidual graves. Then with hats Off
beside each grave two negroes stoo
at attention while friends and felloy
officers stood near, and the funera
; services were conducted.
"When night came the Baskets wer
exhausted, and by the light of a tore
stood at their graves as | locke
down at their shrouded figures an
asked Gods blessing upon their souls
Before the day came / had sal
prayers over approximately 300 thus
and ! can vouch that every man ha
what blessing and faith can bestow
Il have written 1000 letters t
. parents or wives whose boys died un
!, der these conditions and do not lik
to see war CRITICS whose mission an
. value ] have not been quite able {
determine, destroying what meagr
comfort our honest and sincere as
surance can bring"