FIRST AID
ON FOUR FRONTS IN
WORLD WAR I
308th Medical Detachment
Letters written by,
Sgt. 1st
Class
William D. Conklin
MEDICAL
DETACHMENT, 308th INFANTRY - AT CAMP UPTON AND IN FRANCE
Interwoven as it is with the history of the Companies of
the 308th Infantry, the story of the Medical Detachment
of the Regiment can hardly be told as a connected
narrative In those far-away Camp Upton days, we were all
neatly packed together in that right-little (though
scarcely tight-little) Infirmary on 4th Avenue; but
almost from the day we marched off the Channel boat into
the A.E.F. at Calais, we became more and more a
Detachment of detachments, down to the last indivisible
personal unit.
First, near Zutkerque, we fell apart into Battalion
Detachments; next, in Lorraine, each Medical Officer took
unto himself a little outfit of his own; and finally, on
the Vesle, it became imperative to distribute at least
half the men among the Companies., for first aid
purposes., the rest remaining on duty in the various Aid
Posts. Consequently, the "history" of the
Medical Detachment is a thing of shreds and patches as
inevitably as were its personnel during some of the
exigencies of the service. And if it were not for the
fact that in these latter days we can foregather
occasionally, and tell each his own story, of what
happened to him when he was with Co. A on the Vesle, Co.
F in the Argonne, Co. M on the advance toward Grand pre,
or perhaps in those sizzling Aid Posts at Les Pres Farm
and Ville Savoye, hardly one of us would know that the
rest of us had been through the war.
Yet it is curious to note how unifying the fact of an
Infirmary or a Battalion Aid Post can be. To return to it
after an absence is more than rejoining an
organization--it is like returning to a familiar
clubhouse. Perhaps this partly accounts for so many of
the old crowd drifting back to us from hospitals, one by
one, having had to fight to keep from being put on duty
in some, Convalescent Camp or Base Hospital, or sent back
to the States as casualties.
However that may be, 28 of the 48 enlisted men who came
across on the "Cretic" are together again
(scattered through nine towns of the Regimental area);
but only one officer is left who was with us
then--Capt.,Allie D. Morgan, who has not missed a day of
duty since he was assigned to the Regiment March 4. 1918.
Associated indissolubly with the Infirmary bond is the
peculiarly intimate relation that may exist between a
Medical Officer and the enlisted personnel under his
command. It is primarily a military relation, but it
becomes far more than that, after months of service side
by side, provided officer and men have worked together in
true cooperation. It will be among the unpriced souvenirs
of the war for us of the Medical Detachment that some of
our officers have been more like elder brothers to us
than C.O.'s--this in an army organization, without
detracting from discipline.
Since Sept. 9, 1917, when 17 enlisted men, commanded by
Lt. Noss D. Brant, arrived at Camp Upton from the Medical
Training Camp at Ft. Oglethorpe., Ga., and were assigned
as the nucleus of the 308th Infantry Medical Detachment,
the changes in personnel of both officers and men have
been so many that it is impossible to mention any but the
outstanding names. Even in the days before we took
possession
of the Infirmary,, when we bunked in odd corners of
barracks, and our medical supplies., housed in two
cracker boxes, were carried into a company mess hall at
sick-call time, even then Lt. Brant was Regimental
Surgeon, and Lts. Edgar S. Everhart., Lawrence D. Floyd,
and Stanley L. Freeman were his associates. (Lts.
Everhart and Floyd, and Lts. John J. O'Donnell and
Richard B. Whittaker, were transferred before the
Regiment sailed, Lt. Beamon S. Cooley went to France but
was gassed on the Vesle.)
. Those were weeks crowded full of preparation for us, as
they were for the Companies. In December., when we had
gained our full quota of officers and men, Capt. Brant
(as he had become) was suddenly ordered to join a Red
Cross Hospital unit with which he had long before
affiliated himself, and although every effort was made to
keep him, the nullifying order from Washington arrived
too late. He had shown himself a tireless worker,, with
large executive ability, and personally very likeable.
His successor was Capt. William J. Condon., who was with
the Regiment from Jan. 4. 1918, without interruption
until he was wounded on the Lorraine Front on July 14th.
Capt. Condon held a special place in the regard of men
who came to him with their physical troubles, for he was
as considerate of them as if they had been his private
patients. After arrival in France, he was best known in
the lst Battalion, of which he became Surgeon, in
addition to serving as Regimental Surgeon. He was with
the lst; Battalion at Badonviller at the time of the
initial barrage and raid, the morning of June 24th, and
because it was impracticable to bring the wounded down to
the town,, he went out to a position constantly exposed
to enemy fire
in order to administer first aid, His coolness and
indifference to personal danger at this time won him a
citation in the first Division list of officers, and men
commended for gallantry. Three weeks after the
Badonviller episode, While on a round of visits to his
Aid Posts, he encountered heavy shelling on the road
between Pexonne and Badonviller . One shell burst at the
entrance of a house where he had taken refuge and he
sustained a compound fracture of the right leg.
The evacuation of Capt. Condon necessitated an immediate
shifting of officers. Capt. James F. Wagner, who had been
3d Battalion Surgeon since May 25th, when Capt. Henry
Pleasants left Mondicourt to become Division Sanitary
Inspector, was appointed Regimental Surgeon. Lt. Walter
G. Trow had been Surgeon of the 2d Battalion since the
evacuation to hospital, from Warluzel, of Capt. Stanley
L. Freeman, Lt. Trow was promoted to Captain in July and
shortly afterward transferred as Surgeon of the 306th
Infantry. During his nine months with the Regiment, he
had gained the esteem and affection of all who knew him.
Lt. Charles C. Rose had already joined us, in June, and
Lt. Harry Feldman, in July.
Before we left the Baccarat Sector, Major Gerald G.
Burns, Dental Surgeon, had taken charge of the Division
Dental Laboratory., leaving his former associates, Capt,
George A. Hewey and Lt. Harold J. Loomis, who remained
with us until October. Capt. Hewey, who found it
impracticable on the Vesle and in the Argonne to do much
dental work., was often of the greatest assistance to the
Regimental Surgeon. During one trip to investigate
conditions in an Advanced Aid Post, he was with Lt.
Feldman and Lt. Powless when the latter was fatally
wounded.
Lt. Josiah A. Powless, who was proud of being a
full-blooded Indian, joined us in the middle of August at
Chery-Chartreuve. He made friends instantly among men and
officers wherever he went, and would delightedly hail
them from afar at each now meeting. His was a picturesque
figure, with no heroic pretensions., yet when, on Oct.
14th, near Chevieres, word came that Capt. James M.
McKibbin, while dressing the wounds of a line officer and
sergeant, had been severely wounded, he left his Aid Post
and hurried to the side of his colleague. On the return,
after he had arranged for the evacuation of Capt.
McKibbin (who had been with the Regiment but tan days),
Lt. Powless himself was seriously wounded. Both died in
Base Hospitals, Capt. McKibbin on Oct. 24th and Lt.
Powless on Nov. 6th, and both were posthumously awarded
the Distinguished Service Cross.
Our Detachment casualties on the Vesle had first brought
us to a realization of how much the war was likely to
change our personnel. From that Front, Lt. Gooley and six
enlisted men--Weekley, Huttner, Shapiro, Chester, Mager,
and DuBois--were all evacuated, gassed. Lester Umstot
died in an ambulance Aug. 18th from a shell wound in the
lung, received at Les Pres Farm when he was leading a
sick man to the Battalion Aid Post. Capt. John A.
Winstead, who had joined us three weeks before, was
evacuated sick Aug, 27th, and on the same date Lt.
William A. Lieser reported for duty. Lt. Lieser was
wounded in the Argonne and died Oct. 4th in hospital,
largely as the result of shock,
In the advance near Blanzy, on Sept. 5th, Lt. Carl F.
Koenig was fatally wounded. His encouragement of the
troops and his personal bravery had been of the greatest
aid to Capt. Harrington, the 3d Battalion Commander. He
was later cited in Division Orders, as was Sgt. Charles
Matelusch of the Medical Detachment, who found the
Surgeon lying in a shell crater, dressed his wounds under
heavy enemy fire, and personally attended to his
evacuation--by litter across an open field to the
ambulance. At this time Stowie Fisher was capture
following another Medical man, Benton Baker, to the
American Prisoners Camp at Rastatt; and on Sept. 6th one
of the officers whom we shall longest remember, Lt. (now
Capt.) William McIlwain, reported for duty.
The Argonne Offensive, also, took a heavy toll of the
enlisted personnel and officers of the Detachment.
"Abie" Shapiro was killed instantly Sept. 29th
on his first night after joining Co. H to give aid to the
wounded, A day earlier, big Bill Baxter had been wounded
and evacuated after a series of deeds on the Vesle and in
the Argonne that won him the D.S.C. Otreba also was
wounded on the 28th and Hinman on the 30th. On Oct. 5th,
when his little first-aid shack was blown to bits by a
shell, with two men killed and five wounded, Jack Gehris
was among the latter. But he waited until he had cared
for the others and arranged to get them to the Battalion
Aid Post before bothering about himself. This and other
work while with Co. F earned him the D.S.C. And Co. F men
do not forget, either, the work of Staroselsky who is
just plain "Starr" to most of us, and who is
going to leave off the Russian ending himself when he
gets back to his dear sweet Anna and his watch-making.
The third day of the famous pocket, "Seagoing".
George Walker was wounded while with Co. G and lay for
three days with some 50 holes in his back till he could
be evacuated, Bragg (with Co. G) and "Baron"
Sirota (with Co. D) were left effective in the pocket,
and night and day they answered the agonized "First
Aid'!" call, running through the woods to dress the
wounded, besides enduring all the privations, dangers,
and apprehensions of those critical six days. Both were
sent to the hospital Oct. 8th, completely exhausted, and
the "Baron" was finally reclassified unfit for
duty. Since then, on the personal recommendation of
Lt.-Col. Whittlesey, they have been awarded the D.S.C.
When the pocket was opened up, Saul Marshallcowitz, our
own "Bozo," who had been with Co. H and had
done much to Justify his oft-repeated claim that he was
the "best worker from the bunch." was missing.
The rumor was that he had been wounded and taken
prisoner, and this was later confirmed. In the Argonne,
Capt. William A. Morgan., Capt. August G. Hinrichs, Lt.
Charles W. Sellers, and Lt. Clanton R. Athey were with us
for comparatively short periods. Lt. Feldman, after three
months of exacting duty at the front, went to the
hospital sick at the end of October.
At Angecourt, our farthest point of advance on the last
great drive, where we took care of men from at least five
divisions besides our own., Capt. Wagner was notified of
his promotion to Major. Great was the rejoicing that
reward had arrived at last for his months of unflagging
effort to overcome obstacles that to another might have
looked insurmountable. That the net result was of
incalculable value to the Regiment will be generally
acknowledged; but only the other Medical Officers and
those others who were close to him realize in how steady
a hand he held the multitude of minute and confusing
details of his work, how eager he was to be constantly in
touch with every Aid Post, so far as practicable, and how
instant was his re-sponse to every demand for a workable
plan in a crisis.
Take, for instance, the problem presented when, 60 hours
after the Argonne drive started, troops had advanced into
the heart of the Forest and the farthest point that an
ambulance could reach was the crossroads at La Harazee.
Five kilometers up in that worse-than- jungle were
wounded men urgently in need of evacuation. The men of
the Band of the 308th Infantry were pressed into service
as litter bearers, supplemented by men from the 306th and
307th Ambulance Companies and volunteer riflemen from our
own Regiment, and for 36 hours the wounded were brought
down by long litter carries, each trip requiring 12
hours. The stretcher bearers, some of them of slender
physique and unprepared for the strain., often arrived at
La Harazee faint and exhausted, but after a short rest
they returned with empty litters, and carrying medical
supplies. It was heroic work they did for us in those
days. In the midst of French artillery, at the crossroads
ambulance stand, and afterward up in the Forest, the YMCA
and Knights of Columbus were thoroughly on the job with
their cigarettes and chocolate for the wounded.
When the narrow gauge was opened up, and later when the road from Le
Four-de-Paris became usable by day, the situation was relieved, But even then, if it had not
been for the constant watchful-ness of the Regimental
Surgeon, supplemented by the co-operative effort of the
Ambulance Companies, and the faithful and courageous work
of the S.S.U. drivers--who did such a magnificent job on
four fronts., evacuating upward of 2,000 men for us--the
Regiment's story would have been even more tragic.
The day the Companies were rescued from the pocket, the
wounded were dressed by teams, each under a Medical
Officer, who left the German hospital camp early in the
morning; the ambulances came up to within a few yards of
the point where the wounded had been collected; and all
were evacuated by early afternoon. Major Wagner's
carefully laid plans and energetic execution of measures
to coordinate the first-aid work of the Detachment helped
to bring us through the Vesle and the Argonne. He never
spared himself nor considered his own convenience or
safety at the Front., constantly endangering his life for
the sake of assuring himself that all was going well; and
through it all he remained confident, self-possessed, and
ready, with the least easing of the strain., for a hearty
laugh over some amusing incident of the day.
In one instance his bravery won him a Division
Citation--when on Oct. 5th he faced machine-gun fire in
the Argonne north of the Aid Post at L'Homme Mort to
minister to a man who had been deserted by his bearers
and lay bleeding to death 100 yards from the firing line.
It is one of the ironies of fate that he should have come
unscathed through service on four fronts and long
afterward should have sustained injuries that
necessitated his evacuation to a Base Hospital and
severed his connection with the Regiment, On March 31.,
1919., at Vire-en-Champagne, a government truck crashed
into the ambulance in which he was riding (visiting units
of the Regiment) and he sustained a fractured collar
bone.
The 1st Battalion was happy when it saw Lt. Morgan don
his Captain's bars, after the Armistice was signed, and
the 2d Battalion equally rejoiced in Lt. McIlwain,
promotion, in March, 1919. Just how much the men of the
Regiment owe to Capt, Morgan, Capt. McIlwain, and Lt.
Feldman (rejoined February), who were all with us during
the storm, -and-stress period of the Regiment's
existence; how much these officers are admired by those
who know them; and with what particular affection they
are regarded by the Medical Detachment personnel--all
this can only be hinted at. Each of them was cited in
Division orders for bravery,
Capt, Morgan, as Regimental Surgeon while Major Wagner
was on duty at Camp Hospital #9 at Chateau-Villain., from
Christmas, 1918, till the end of January., 1919.,
demonstrated his ability as an executive and greatly
widened his circle of friends, After the Major was
injured, he was again appointed Regimental Surgeon.
It would be unfair not to mention, also, for their
faithful work certain officers who have been with us
altogether or chiefly since the end of the war: Capt,
Robert R. Cutler (Surgeon successively of 1st, 3d, and
again 1st Battalion), Capt. Robert H. Lott, and Lt.
Arthur H. Hauber, all M.C, Capt. Joseph J. Millard, D.C.,
and the following, now transferred: Lts. William P.
Sammons, Alexander W. Fordyce, and Joseph Price, M.C.,
and Frank P. McCarthy, D.C.
If you ask a rifleman ten years from now whom he
remembers best from the Medical Detachment, it would
quite likely not be an officer., but some man who was
with his company in a very tight place and gave him first
aid, sandwiched between shellfire and machine-gun
bullets, Perhaps he would recall Howard Tilton, who did
such fine work with the 3d Battalion; or Phil
Kiningstein, with Co. A; Ed Hughes, with to. B; Chester,
for whom Co. E put in a citation; or DuBois, who came
back after weeks in hospital and got a D,S.C. for
continuing on duty for several days after he had been
badly gassed near- Ville Savoye-- to mention only a few
names at random, which it is hardly fair to do. As a
group., these men who have been with the Companies
constitute the strongest tie binding us to the rest of
the Regiment.
If you ask a Battalion Surgeon who was of most aid to him
at the Front. the answer is likely to be "my
Sergeant." "Ernie" Meyer., with the lst
Battalion., Jacque Fournier with the 2d, and
"Charlie" Matelusch with the 3d--all of them
with the outfit since the beginning--have seen veteran
service in Aid Posts and in the open, the tried and
trusted assistants of the officers under whom they
worked, Fournier and Matelusch, and Conklin, also., were
with the original group that came up from Oglethorpe to
Upton in September, 1917. We do not forget how this group
was broken when "Jimmie" Boynton, our Supply
Sergeant back in camp, had to be left behind in the
hospital suffering with an organic disease that prevented
him from ever coning across, when his one big desire was
to see service at the Front. And some of us remember
"Sammy" Mintzer, who used to sit faithfully in
the Infirmary pounding out memorandums day and night, and
who got over here only to be reclassified and sent to
duty far from the lines.
We are proud to recall that one member of the Detachment,
William F. Lindorff, attained a commission. He attended
the O.T.S. at Camp Upton., and while we were at
Neuf--Maisons was made a Sergeant of Field Artillery,
like other successful candidates. It was our good luck,
that he was not immediately transferred, and he saw some
lively service with Co. A on the :Vesle before his
commission finally came through, He left us in September
near Florent for further training at Saumur.
Of the men who have remained, Tilton, Hughes,
KIningstein, and Henry Thompson have been Acting
Sergeants at, various times, in Aid Posts and
Infirmaries, They are four of the twelve who have never
missed a day of duty since their arrival in France with
the Detachment, April 21, 1918; the others.,
alphabetically listed., are Bishop., Conklin,, Hastedt.,
Jobes., Masters., McCurdy., Peterson., and Richking.
There are many stories that could and should be told that
will circulate only as unwritten legends. Shall we ever
forget the day, for instance, that we carried our entire
medical combat equipment, besides our own packs, to the
top of the chalk cliffs of Dover, and down again? Or the
night the "Medical" held the line at
Badonviller and Village Negre-the Infantry, both American
and French, and even the ambulances, having all
withdrawn? Or our flyer in ward management., when we
undertook to run the transport hospital on the
"Cretic.,11 under the eyes and nose of a Field
Hospital outfit?
And while there are many men., too., who should be mentioned if space
were not limited, there must be a word for the Medical Department
replacements who came to buck up our depleted personnel and who so
quickly fell in line for the job on hand-with a minimum of training but with
all the good will and resolution in the world. One group
of five B's--Bankroff, Berry, Bolsinger, Breckenridge,
and Bunckley-- arrived fresh from the States the morning
the 78th relieved us. With no previous experience in
hiking, laden with the heaviest of full packs and soaked
with rain., they marched that day from Lancon to
Malassise Farm, back to Lancon, up through the Argonne to
Chene Tondu and on to Abri du Crochet, slept that night
in pup tents planted in mud'. and were as good as new the
next morning. To them and to all the others who in the
same spirit have contributed, each according.- to his
ability., toward the sum total of the work that we came
over- here to do, the Medical Detachment as, an
organization owes unmeasured gratitude.
I