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Show AMERICANS TELL VERDUN HORRORS College Students Who Drove Ambulances Am-bulances Won Honors Before Enlisted Men Came. BATTERED VETERANS RETURN One Volunteer Describes Havoc Wrought by Shell Dropped Among Stretcher Bearers. Two Hit , While Helping Wounded. New York. Some of the American college boys who went over to France last May as ambulance drivers for the excitement of the work behind the firing fir-ing lines are returning home because the ambulance work has been taken over by the United States army and will be done by regular enlisted men. The following Is an extract from a letter let-ter written by a Williams boy two weeks ago, who went over with his college col-lege unit to drive an ambulance at the front: The last six weeks we have been serving in the Verdun sector with ojir base at Blercourt, which is eight miles from the town of Verdun. There are two front posts for the ambulances Mort Homme hill and Hill 304, which have figured In the news of the new battle of Verdun. For two weeks the French were preparing for the attack, Kf . lance has two drivers had no time to get masks and were very sick after It was over, but they were going so fast that there were no fatal results from the gas. " 'Mac,' one of our fraternity, hag been wounded In eight places. He I DSt his right leg and two fingers, while Yiis companion, 'Vet,' will have a stiff leg all his life from the effects of hl wounds. They have both got the War Cross and military medals. "The worst experience of all happened hap-pened to two of our college boys Jim Alexander and Taffy Young. While they were driving along a road lined with batteries, which the Germans were trying to locate, with a wounded man lying in the ambulance, a shell burst right beside them. "Just before that the wounded man sat up and asked for a cigarette, and the shrapnel passed through the car where his head hud been resting a few seconds before ar.d struck the stretcher stretch-er bearer, who was looking out to see where we were. He died that afternoon. after-noon. Had Jim not ducked he would have lost a leg, and If Taffy had ducked he would have been badly wounded. The ambulance was shot to pieces by the shell, and they had to hold up the dying man for three hours until assistance came. During the attack at-tack we had about twenty-four hours sleep out of 184 hours, which was a fair average for all the ambulance drivers in our sector. Dnrinir n, n,.- and the roads were only passable at night. The communication trenches were awful to get through, and were made worse by the heavy rains. One night last week two of the boys got lost in the darkness and could not find their way with their ambulance to the post. Finally they sighted two dark objects, which resembled French soldiers sol-diers walking along with their big overcoats on. After jabbering their peculiar brand of French for 15 minutes min-utes without receiving any reply the lost ambulance drivers discovered that the dark moving objects were two American army mules, unable to speak or understand a word of French. Hit While Helping Wounded. "Two of our chaps were badly wounded at one of the first-aid stations while helping to load wounded men into the ambulance. One was blown right through the door of the shelter hut and was discovered lying unconscious uncon-scious beside three dead French soldiers. sol-diers. The boys who got them out had to go through a gas attack and a barrage bar-rage fire. Two of them each ambu- man air raids one shell burst within twenty-five feet of our camp at Blercourt Bler-court at midnight. The roads are nearly near-ly Impassable now for automobiles. Wo have been treated very nicely by the French colonel In command of tho branch depot, who feasted our unit with champagne, cakes and cigars, and lias given us seats for all the shows gotten up by the French soldiers. Volunteer Spirit Gone. "Several colonels and majors of (he American Red Cross have visited us (, see what we are going to do now. They all admitted that we could do more for our country by enlisting In the regular army In Paris. This Is, for all the able-bodied men in the ambulance am-bulance service. We were asked to enlist. If we preferred. In the ambulance ambu-lance service for the duration of th war, but it would not bo the same. Most of the boys declined, urn we ars-going ars-going to Paris to Join up, Including myself. my-self. The old volunteer spirit In the ambulance corps has gone forever so now for the United States artillery or air service in search of udveutur"." |