American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1919-03-14
ITra

Bellevue INIT. was established at Jouy-sur-Morin,
south of Chateau-Thlerry. A bomb, dropped upon
1t from a German plane, killed several of its pa
tients. Whether any of its personnel were In
jured L have not yet learned. Undeterreu' II
moved up into Ch~ateau-Thierry, as the tide OF
battle started north, and occupied a schoolhouse
in the city.
About the anne time another Red Cross evacu-
ating hospital, No. 10, under charge OF Major
Moorhead, whose wife is superintendent In charge
of the Red Cross work of making surgical dress
ings, moved north and set up a tent at Colhcy,
Just above Chateau-Thierry.
The record made by these two hospital units
during the counter-attack should always be ac-
counted Il bright page in the annals OF the Amer
lean Red Cross. They, with army units, served
at the fighting front. Their presence there was
made necessary by reason Of the emergency ana
because in the new trench warfare the old am
buIance corps stations and field hospitals had
been eliminated, thus bringing the evacuating
hospitals up Just beyond reach of the enemys
long-range guns.
As the counter-attack developed there streaIned
back upon these evacuating hospitals a tide OF
American wounded that kept the workers busy
day and night. Each unit had about eight or
ten operating teams, each team being composed
of n surgeon, assistant surgeon, anesthetist and
nurse. They worked in shifts. One shift oper-
nted from eight in the morning until seven in the
evening; then, after an hour for cleaning up, the
other began at eight and worked until seven in
the morning. The full tragedy of the casualties
from gas, shells and machine bullets will not be
understood until the workers and soldiers return,
each to tell his tale.
From this time on, Major McCoy's and Major
MoorheaGs units we're regularly numbered among
the evacuutlng hospitals of the army medical
corps and were operated as such. The facility
with which they were fused into the army or
ganization is itself an indication of the fine har-
mony existing among army and Red Cross
leaders.
Both these Red Cross units were thereafter
moved swiftly into those places where the fight
ing was thickest. They served at the drive across
the st. Mihiel salient and later with the advance
made from Toul to the west of the Mouse river,
As to the future work of the American Red
Cross in France 1t will not be ended until the
work of our army Is ended, and perhaps not even
then.
Although there is to be no further expansion
of the Red Cross work in France, its work will
70 ON. 1t will bring comfort to our boys not only
as they lie sick in hospitals and as they keeI
guard on German soil, but to the thousands o.
repntriated French people who are returning Il
pick out from the bleak devastation of war thu
ruins of what was once their ancestral homes
Without the Red Cross army of mercy TO follow
in the tragic burrows made by the engines o
war. the aftermath of suffering in France thi
winter would be a greater desolation than we cal
conceive.
Fighting with mortal weapons may cease, bu
the campaign of mercy of the Red Cross wi
never cease as long as the need of cleansing an
healing is present among the races of the earti
Red Cross Magazine.