Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1919-03-27
THURSDAY, MARCH p 1919.
II Maryland Men Missing.
Some May Be Lost in Hospitals:
Some May Never Be II card
From.
From.

cOHIt May NCNCi III 'iN"i"
From.
The following interesting article by
Raymond S. Tompkins appeared in the
Baltimore Sun Tuesday morning OF this
week:
Bourbonne- les Bains, France, March
II (By Mail)-The modern Port OF
Missing Men" is on the battlefelds OF
France. Most of them put in there fin
ally. after the weary voyages, for the
long, long rest But some of them may
never put IN.
Lieutenant Van Diver of the Three
Hundred and Thirteenth has, though
Colonel Sweeney found his port at
wooden cross on the Malancourt road
facing toward Montfaucon the day he
took me over the Baltimore regiment 5
route The Colonel had few lines in
his notebook to remind him to look for it.
The Philadelphia lieutenant had been
first reported missing in action, then
KILLED in action" Then came letter
from his folks in Philadelphia inqurng
about him. The adjutant of the Three
Hundred and Thirteenth, Capt. Thomas
Bradlee, wrote and told them Lieutenant
Van Diver had been killed in action. A
few weeks later he got back reply that
puzzled him.
"But he was first reported missing, y
the letter said, land since then his aunt
has received word that he is alive. Now
you indefinitely reported him killed.
What are we to believe?'
OF truth, what were they to believe?
Colonel Sweeney and Captain Bradlee
both set to work on the case of Lieuten-
ant Van Diver. Somebody had seen Van
Diver wounded. The Colonel himself had
seen him being carried back on litter.
But there was no hospital record of him,
nothing to show that he had been treated
at dressing station-theugh that really
meant little because hundreds of men had
been treated at the dressing stations
when there was no time to keep records.
But finally the Colonel ran across the
Chaplain of the Three Hundred and Fiji
teenth. The chaplain recalled having
buried Lieutenant Van Diver.
Yes, he was sure of it. He could al
most point out the spot on the map, if he
only had map. The Colonel furnished
4 bo man Eor covaroI p,;nntaS tha cbop
lain looked at then put his finger on
spot just below Montfaucon where two
of the lines that made a cheekerboard of
the map crossed each other 'Put pen
Gil mark here" he said, Il am sure that
is the place
So when Colonel Sweeney took me over
the Montfaucon battlefield in the wake of
the Three Thirteenth he had in his peck
ct marked with pencil dot where Lieu
tenant Van Divers grrve was supposed
to be, and note in his memorandum
book to remind him of it.
And he found it. 1t was in several
ranks of graves of Seventy-ninth Division
men, and there was no doubt about it
being the grave of Lieutenant Van Diver
of the Three Thirteenth Infantry, be-
cause the little aluminium dog tag" with
his name and number stamped on it was
tackled to the cross. They never removed
the dog tag from around soldiers neck
except to tack it on the cross over his |
grave, and there was never more than
one dog-tag with one name and number
in existence and that was around the
neck Of the man to whom it belonged.
So two things were virtually certain:
First. that a man wearing the dog-tag of
Lieutenant Van Diver. of the Three Thir-
teenth, had been killed and buried, and
second that the man was Lieutenant Van .
Diver. Thus came the Philadelph ia SOL
der into the Port of Missing Men,"
and the blank space opposite his account
with the world has been filled with a
credit to himself and an eternal debit of
the Huns.
But what of thousands of others who
nave not yet shown up in this port?
There is list of sixty Of them at
Three Thirteenth Regiment headquarters.
There is list of seventeen at One Hun
lred and Fifteenth Regiment headquar-
ers. Of the missing men of the One
Hundred and Fifteenth, however, there
S good reason to believe they were
killed. eleven of them never came back
rom the last raid in Alsace and were
lndoGbtly caught in the German counter
'arrage, and six strayed into oblivion
omewhere through the evil country east
# the River Meuse.
But in the Three Hundred and Thir-
There Is more Catarrh In this section
of the country than all other diseases