The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1919-08-29
SHE ESCAPED
| FIRING SQUAD
MILE. GOMBIER DECORATED FOR HERO
ISM IN GREAT WAR COMES HERE.

Mule. Marie Louise Gombier, who
arrived on the French liner La
Lorraine, wears the Croix de Guerre
with two palms in memory Of her
devotion in continuing to serve the
wounded in hospital back Of Ypres
after German shells had wrecked the
building, killed numerous patients
and nurses and wounded others, in
Guiding Mile. Gombier herself. But
when that happened in June, 1915,
the little Belgian girl, then but IL
years old, was already a veteran of
the great war, had already exhibited
the lndom1table spirit of Belgium and
evinced her willingness to sacrifice
her life in defending her country.
Almost with the first shots of the
war Mile. Gombier's adventures be-
gan. With two companions she fed
from the Brussels convent in which
she was a student to her fathers
home at Dickebush farm
+ Before many days the field gray
columns moving across Belgium with
the resistless force of a tidal wave
swallowed up the little farm in their
progress. At first officers were bill
leted on the family, but the place
was near Ypres and a wireless sta
ton was installed in the cellar of the
farm house, which became a station
for the German intelligence service.
The ease with which they had over
whelmed little Belgium made the
ovar-conf1dent Germans a trife care
less. and one day the sentries who
were guarding the wireless plant left
the cellar for a few moments. Be
fore they could return Mile. Gombier
had slipped into the cellar and
smashed the delicate apparatus with
her shoe The station was out of
4 service for a few days, critical days
they were for the Germans then, and
the guard was redoubled after re-
pairs had been effected. But it was
not long before the little convent
girl found another chance to wreck
the plant, this time using a heavy
wine bottle as a hammer. Unfor-
tunately the sentries returned before
! she finished work and the German
commandant ordered her shot with
out even the formality of a court
martial.
! But the first battle of Ypres had
begun and there were other and more
pressing tasks before the German
army than the execution of a 17-year-
old girl. An officer of higher rank
ordered her beaten and sent to the
rear for further punishment, and she
was placed in a cart with two wound
ed French prisoners. But every
road was choked with reinfOrcements
: supplies and ammunition for the
high command was exerting every
effort to crush the Canadians by sheer
weight of numbers and gun power
! The effort failed; the Canadians
were so far from being annihilated
! that they actually advanced their
lines little, and in the confusion the
cart with the Belgian girl and her
remaining companion Zone of the
,Frenchmen had died from his
wounds) was captured by Dominion
troops. She was sent to a hospital
for treatment and subsequently en-
listed as a nurse with her rescuers
and repaid with four years service
in the hospitals her debt to the men
from the other side of the Atlantic
The occasion behind Ypres, which
brought her the Croix de Guerre was
only one of number of instances in
which she exhibited bravely beyond
the line of nurses duty and she.has
half dozen citations from British
and French commanders.