Connecticut western news., 1919-06-05
"GEE, B0YS,= AN
 AMERICAN .W0MAN!P'
How Officers of Rainbow Divis. ion Found 'Y" Worker witf 18th, in Deserted French Town Under Fire

gress. Over in Belleau Woods tn, Marines of the End Division werc fighting savagely; while in and about La Ferte was a large portion of the 18th. resting up from heavy work in the Foul sector.
 One afternoon French plane was noticed circling high over the town. About bedtime the same plane re- turned and to the terrible dismay of the townspeople 1t dropped a BOMB! The plane had been captured by the Germans and was being used by them to locate the hospital, railroad head and other important landmarks.
 So terrified was the local popula- ton by the bombardment which fol lowed that they could not get out of the town quick enough. In a few hours every house was deserted.
 Twenty-four hours later the pelt- ing tempest of shells ceased and some regiments of the Rainbow Dfvisio, entered the place and occupied fl Four officers looking for q compara lively whole house to make regimenta headquarters came across one which the lower part was an old dar little wineshop- Up the stairs the, ramped to the living rooms. The. opened door. Out of the bed camt . weah but cheery voice:
 Hello, boys. I am sorry I canno get up to welcome you But I an going to be better now. And if yo should como back in an nour I vii hxve some hot coffee for you"
 'EEi" said one Of the ofncers to his comrades as he closed the door. -an AMERICAN WOMAN!"
 If the ofdcers had had presence Of mind to look about the room before they retired they would have seen hanging on a hook the dark green coat with the blue collar of a Red Fri angle canteen worker. The woman was Mrs. Louise W. Fleming of Vol. laston, Mass, who was one of over SO "Y' secretaries attached to tn, Yankee Division The "Y" canteen in La Ferte, her first assignment, had run short of supplies. and to be useful Mrs- Fleming had been working night and day in the hospitals only a few kflometers back of the front lines un- til she had to take to her bed from exhaustion Thus of the entire pop ulation of La Ferte she had been the only one unable to scuttle when the bombardment opened. And through those hideous lonely hours she had convalesced.
 Mrs. Fleming returned home a few weeks before the I'D began sailing home. She had been with her divi- sion, close to the front lines, all through the heavy bloody work of 1918. Shortly after General Edwards arrival in Boston ,one of his first off, cial acts was the rendering to Mrs. Fleming of his military citation. She and Miss Alice Carey of Manchester, Conn, private secretary to Dr. Hessel- grave of the same town, who was Di- visional Secretary of the "Y" with the 26th, were the only women workers to be thus honored by the General.
 While we were at Verdun in Oc- tober," relates Mrs. Fleming, "we were shelled every hour of the day and night for six weeks. Miss Carey was the only other woman with me, The shells fell around our hut as near as the width of a city street. The boys would come in with their gas masks on.
 For a couple of weeks we were the only people in Verdun-menl or wo- men-who slept above ground. We were living in a cunning little house that stood up alone among wide spread ruins. There were no win dows left, of course, and hardly a wall remaining. The cathedral, the Bishops palace, the town ball,-ev- erything was razed but this one little house. How it escaped after four years of bombardment was an un- solvable mystery.
 Somehow we could not make up our minds to leave the little houses there seemed to be holy spell sur rounding it,-and go down in the cit adel' which was 50 feet under ground ana WHICH SIuSuco 1lhC IuS subway, although 1t was as we'll ven tilated as possible. We preferred talk ing chance and having the fresh air.
 But finally the Colonel got after US and told us we would have to leave Verdun if we didn't change to safer quarters. When the boys heard of that they raised walls of protest and appeal And we had to succumb. Some of the officers Led the way to a dugout, and one of them warned us, You had better hug the walls as you go. The others laughed, and one of them remarked: Its come to B pretty pass when an American girl has noth- ing to hug but wall"
 Since the boats bringing in the be- roes of the I'D have stirred the blood of old Boston, Mrs. Fleming has vol unteered for duty at Commonwealth