New Britain herald., 1921-07-12
JACK MUNS0N, HERO,
 DEAD IN M0RGUE
Savior of Host Battalion Dies
 Poor and Alone

New York, July 12.-The body of
 Jack Munson, liason runner, who pfoke through the German lines in the Afgohne forest on October 6, 1918,
 ana carried the message that saved
 the lost hattalion,'' lay last night on s1ao In the city morgue. Attached
 10 IL was this label: John Munson, ol years old, boatman. Died July Ill Bellevue Hospital of Tuberculosis'' the epltaph of a hero!
 Less than three years ago Major ChSrles W. Whittlesey, returned from
 trance, was telling how his command, the third battalion of the 3O7th In- lantfy, Seventy seventh Division, was surrounded for five days without food
 or water until their relief came up We used to send out runners twice cay regularly to see if they could 1 get through to headquarters, he said. but they were all killed or wounded, l and after several days of that sort of thing asked another boy if he would take a chance. | Why, sure,' he replied. That was | Jack Munson
 l The Official Citation. This is how Munson's feat was told
 Tn the official citation given Munson 1 when Marshal Petain, commander of
 the French armies, pinned the Med- l allie Mllitaire on his breast:
 l To obtain ammunition and rations, Private Nunson, with another private | and an officer ventured to establish l communication between his battalion l and regimental headquarters. They
 were attacked by a small party of l Germans, and one of them was killed. l They succeeded in reaching cover
 and remained there until nightfall,
 when they crawled by error into a l German camp, and lay there for three
 hours before they were discovered. | Pr.vate MunsOn then deliberately 1 drew the fire of the Germans to him. 1 Self in an effort to save the officer, and he succeeded the next morning
 in reaching the American lines and 1 destination with the message entrust- ed to him.
 | Besides the Metallic Militaire, which only four American doughboys l won, Munson received the Croix de Guerre with palm, and from General | PershIng the Distinguished Service Cross.
 After his return and discharge from 1 service Munson returned to his old l job as a stevedore and boatman on
 the East Side waterfront. But the
 deadly germ of the white plague was | undermining his health and he found 1 it difficult to find steady employment. He moved into cheap lodging l house in Park Row. All his posses l! sions were pawned or sold except one
 suit of clothes and the framed cita- 1 tions in French and English that l hung on the wall of his room. On l June 15 he had just strength to drag | himself to the gates of Bellevue hos | pital. s He was putin the ward for tubercular patients and he never told
 the nurses of his record in the war. To Have Military Funeral.
 Last Friday he died. There were none of his friends or buddies at his
 bedside. He had told the hospital at 1 tendants to notify Mrs. Peter Peter son of 1J7 South street, with whom he had once lodged, and they sent his
 medals tp her. His body was taken l to the Morgue, for there was no one l to claim it.
 Yesterday some of Munson's friends l on tho docks heard of his death. They 1 telephoned Capt. Groves c. Graham, now adiutant of the army post on l Governors Island, once an officer of 1 the 3O7th. He telephoned to the l Morgue last night and asked that
 nothing be done with Munson's body l until he could arrange a military fu-
 neral with proper burial in the Nation
 al cemetery at Arlington, Va.
 l And so Jack Munson, who saved battalion, will not be buried in Pot ter's Field.