Arizona republican., 1919-03-03
Chaplain Admits Frightful Necessity of
 Interring Dead Lack of Casket Ma
 terial Given as Reason All Honors Paid Religious Rites Observed Over 1000 Letters Written to Kin, Stating Facts Justification Claimed.

WASHINGTON, March 2.-Denial of many reports of bad conditions. at army debarkation camps at Brest, France, coupled with a graphic con dition of the terrible days there when despite the ravages of the influenza epidemic, Amreican troops were be- ing rushed to France to help hurl back the German army. is contained in a letter from Chaplain W. E. Ayers, of the navy, who served eight months at Brest
 Chaplain Ayers, who has just re- turned from France says Brest has proven 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 says that in practically all these cases these men were brought ashore with the disease from transports
 Tents Saved Many Lives
 "Some folks seem to think it is ter rible because our boys are living in i tents on the hills around Pontenazen, the chaplain's letter said, yet those of us who have had their wellbeing in mind have thanked. God that the boys had the tents instead of wooden barracks. Influenza is crowd dis ease. We saved the lives of thousands of boys by getting them into the tents.' Tn. one of our American newspapers 1 recently, I saw bitter attack on Ker. 1 baum hospital, in an alleged interview 1 by a Red Cross worker. Many of hel l statements were utterly inaccurate. i After accusing the surgeons of neg | lect, heartlessness and indifference this Red Cross worker, who is not ; nurse, asserts that our dead wer, loaded onto trucks, carried out int, the country and buried without cere mony, without religious ceremony 0 any kind, were dumped into the groun, and their collins taken back to tn hospital to be used again.
 Chaplain Offers Help
 This is. one thing I happened t know something about, At the firs there was no chaplain at Kerbaur Naturally I offered to help.
 Tt is true that bodies were place on trucks, the only available means C transportation, and at this time whe the influenza ragged most terribl, there was not coffin to be had in tha T them of.
 Tt became finally necessary for til army to face the prospect of burial without caskets. The army had pur chased a field outside of Brest g Lombezelec, where perhaps a thousan 1, of our boys lie. Two hundred an fifty negroes were detailed to al graves. The army chaplain was him self sick. I took his place and was the cemetery all day all night and a the next day.
 .''When the graves were dug tn
 negroes lifted the caskets to the shoulders and marched to the ind vidual graves. Then with hats of beside each grave, two negroes stoo at attention, while friends and fello officers stood near and the funer; services were conducted. When nigi came the caskets were exhausted, all , by the light of a torch I stood at the graves as. I looked down at the shrouded figures and asked God
 blessing upon their souls Before tf
 day came, had said prayers over al
 proXimately three hundred thus, and
 can vouch that every man had wh;
 blessing and faith can bestow.
 T have written a thousand lettel
 to parents or wives whose boys die :, under these conditions, and I do n,
 like to see war critics whose missic
 and value I have not been quite ab
 to determine, destroying what meagl
 comfort our honest and sincere a!
 surances can bring