Friends of France

What Happened Early in the Last European War When Student Support Rallied to the Allied Cause

(From Dartmouth War Record)

THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE IN FRANCE is the name given to the group of volunteer organizations of American citizens which were attached to the French Army doing ambulance and transport service before the arrival of the American Army in France. The Field Service was for administrative purposes incorporated in the Automobile Service of the French Army. This close connection between ambulance work and transport work will explain the transfers that took place from one to the other among the Americans who went abroad in the first instance to drive motor ambulances.

The first active indication of interest in service abroad was created in the undergraduate body through the initiative of George B. McClary '14 who, early in the spring of 1915, urged among faculty and students that two ambulances should be purchased and four men from the student body sent abroad with them to join earlier established units of the Field Service. A committee composed of faculty, students and alumni was formed, a mass meeting held and popular subscription in the community started.

Within a short time $2155.72 had been obtained, sufficient for the purchase and maintenance of two Ford ambulances. Four men were selected to go abroad with them, namely, George B. McClary '14, Richard N. Hall '15, Philip D. H. Smith '15, and Lionel V. Tefft '17. By the time they reached France, early in June, 1915, three sections of the Field Service had been formed. Smith was assigned to Section Two and the other three to Section Three. The cars purchased by subscription in the College were inscribed "Dartmouth College" and were driven by these four undergraduates. So far as we know, they were the first Dartmouth men, whether alumni or undergraduates, to be connected with the Field Service. They contracted for a period of six months and their term expired in

FROM THE Dartmouth War Record, anaccount of the part taken by DartmouthCollege and by its officers, alumni and undergraduates in the World War, the follow-ing chapter is quoted describing the veryfirst support given by members of the College to the Allies nearly 25 years ago. As the171st year of the College opens, the queryis present in all minds: "What effect willthe European War have on the College?".The following account of what happenedwithin the undergraduate body early in theWorld War may be a key to what will bethe reaction of students and alumni andothers to the present conflict abroad; orthe temper of the College and older generations of today may be entirely different. November of that year. By this time Richard Hall's older brother, Louis P. Hall '11, was in the section with him and Richard remained beyond the period of his original service driving his ambulance until his brother's term of six months should have expired. He was killed by a chance shell Christmas Eve 1915, the first of all Americans in the Field Service to lose his life. Almost a year later Howard B. Lines '12 died of pneumonia at the front. In memory of these two men, the parents of Hall presented to the Field Service another car which bore the inscription, "The Dartmouth Car, in honor of Howard B. Lines and Richard N. Hall."

DARTMOUTH AMBULANCE UNITS

From the time that the first four made their way to the front among the "Friends of France," as those were called who joined the Field Service, graduates and undergraduates one by one crossed the ocean to take their places also in the Field Service. By the time the United States entered the war we had George Dock Jr. '16, Cortland J. Myers Jr. '17, Lyman T. Burgess '18, Arthur L. Howell '16, and Appleton T. Miles '16 in the Field Service. We find also that Carl E. Buck '14 was serving with the American Sanitary Commission in Serbia and later as driver for the American Red Cross in the same country, while Charles D. Horton '15 was driving an ambulance in the Norton-Harjes Motor Ambulance Service.

The next noteworthy and inspiring departure from Hanover for service with the "Friends of France" took place at the end of April, 1917, about three weeks after the declaration of war by the United States. A group of forty-four undergraduates, impatient of remaining on the campus slowly training for active service, determined to get abroad at the first opportunity and succeeded in making arrangements to become incorporated in the units of the Field Service as soon as they could reach France. They sailed from New York on May 5, 1917. This group is commonly known as the "First and Second Dartmouth Ambulance Units." When they arrived in France they discovered that they would have to wait two or three weeks before the detachment could be equipped with ambulances and supplies and sent forward. Growing restive under inaction twenty-four of them immediately volunteered for the Motor Transport section of the French Army in which some of them remained for several months, forming part of units 133, 184, 397 and 526. In due time the twenty who had stayed behind in Paris were incorporated in Field Service Section No. 28 and sent to the front. These twenty served together for several months, during which time Paul G. Osborn '17 and Stanley Hill '18 were killed while heroically performing difficult and dangerous duty.

The American Sections attached to the Field Service were militarized by the United States in November, 1917. By that time one hundred and eighteen Dartmouth men had volunteered in the various sections. When the American forces began to arrive in France, the members of the Motor Transport sections and the Field Service sections were given an opportunity of enlisting as individuals in any form of service in the French or American forces. Forty-two enlisted in the United States Army Ambulance Service or the United States Motor Transport Corps, thus continuing the kind of work they had been doing since they first reached France. Dartmouth men had been distributed among eighteen ambulance sections and five motor transport sections.

Both the ambulance sections and the motor transport sections had operated on almost all points of the western front from the level and muddy country near the British Channel to the mountain districts of Alsace. All were in equal danger from the shells of the enemy, but the most dangerous from the standpoint of the territory itself was the part of the front served by Section Three in the Vosges Mountains where the roads were poor or there were no roads at all. The snows of winter made operation here infinitely more difficult and dangerous. It was on a mountain side of this part of the front that Richard Hall met his death among the snows of late December driving his car down a mountain side in the darkness of early morning without lights to guide him. Later this section operated for a short time on the Lorraine Front and at Verdun. In the autumn of 1916 the French Government requested that they be sent with French troops into Serbia because they were the most experienced of all the Field Service in mountain work. They remained in the vicinity of Monastir until the autumn of 1917, except for a brief period in Greece. Their work was entirely in rough, hilly country for which they were so admirably fitted. In October, 1917 the section was disbanded and its members were recalled to France.

Apart from Section Three, we had more men in Sections Two, Twenty-eight and Sixty-six than in all others combined. Section Two served at Pont-A-Mousson on the Lorraine front for ten months and at Verdun for more than a year and a half. When they passed into United States Service they were known as Section 626 and were still attached to the 48th French Division of zouaves and Algerians. They took part in campaigns near Soissons, at Montdidier, and in the Champagne. They followed the Division into Germany after the armistice.

Section Twenty-eight had a larger representation of Dartmouth men than any other single section. They served with the 134 th French Division of Infantry in the shell-torn roads and fields of the Champagne sector almost continuously until they were enlisted in the United States Army Ambulance Service as Section 640. They continued with the same French Division after militarization, working to the northwest of Reims and in the city itself during its bombardment. The most difficult task in this sector was in connection with the retreat from Reims between May and July, 1918. The section saw its next active service with the 91st Division of the American Army during fifteen days of the terrific drive through the Argonne Forest. Finally they followed the Army of Occupation into Germany where they remained until they were disbanded in March, 1919.

Section Sixty-six was formed early in July, 1917, and worked on the front to the east of Soissons and later north of the Aisne near the Chemin des Dames. In September, 1917, it became U. S. A. A. S. Section 623. They were attached to the 61st French Division in May, 1918, and were in the retreat of the French westward from Soissons where the section was put to a most severe test. The next assignment was on the Lorraine sector in which the work was comparatively light. They were soon transferred to the Champagne sector when the final allied offensive began. At the time of the armistice they were at Mezieres. They proceeded with their troops as far as Luxembourg where their service came to an end.

Those who entered the Transport Service of the French Army, fifty-nine in number, formed part of three Groups in the Reserve Mallet. The Reserve was composed of a well organized system of sections to carry extraordinary supplies during emergencies. Each section was commanded by an American "chef." Between May and October, 1917, the Dartmouth sections served much of the front between Soissons and Reims and distinguished themselves particularly in the French drive along the Chemin des Dames. In October, 1917, the force was militarized, but some remained in the same service with the French Army while others entered the teaching staff of the American Transport School. Those who continued in this work assisted in the English drive on Cambrai, where tanks were first used. In 1918 they took French troops and artillery to the front during the German offensive of early spring and a little later along the Aisne hauled ammunition to the French forces and carried refugees back in the disastrous retreat. In June, at Chateau-Thierry, when the American offensive started, they took Americans of the 26th Division and Marines to the front. Thereafter they were engaged in carrying shells from railhead to battery. In August they transported French shock troops to the front along the Oise and Somme, while in October when the French were engaged in their attack upon the Plateau of Tahure, each five-ton Pierce Arrow truck carried a seven-ton tank through the mud and shell holes to the plateau to be used by the French forces in further attacks. Thereafter the work of the Reserve settled into the monotonous and routine conveying of supplies to the French forces in their more peaceful occupation after the armistice.

Nine enlisted in various sections of the French Army. All of the remainder, except seven, took service in the American Army or Navy. Of these seven one was rejected, one entered the American Red Cross, one returned to Dartmouth in the S. A. T. C., one was beyond the age of enlistment, while no information is available concerning the other three.

It is worthy of note that sixty Dartmouth members of the Field Service received commissions in the American or French Armies. This is a little more than fifty per cent, and shows both the high quality of the men and the value of the experience they had had during their months at the front. It is also remarkable that aviation in the Army and Navy, the most spectacular and dangerous of all forms of service, claimed twenty-five who received commissions.

Another evidence of the unusual qualities of these men is the fact that several of them received the Croix de Guerre for personal heroism or exceptional service. The men so honored were: C. M. Ashton Jr. '20, George Dock Jr. '16, Archie B. Gile '17, Ernest A. Giroux '19, Richard N. Hall '15, Stanley Hill '18 (also Medaille Militaire), C. W. Isbell '18, J. R. Milne '20, Howard B. Lines '12, Paul G. Osborn '17, and R. H. Potter Jr. '19. Where all were men of unusual merit those who attained to command should be exceptionally honored. Dartmouth had eleven of these: Attending Physician, E. H. Lines '82; Chiefs of Sections, F. J. Dusossoit '18, A. B. Gile '17, C. R. Hood '18, H. P. Kennedy '18, A. T. Miles '16, F. O. Robinson '11, W. C. Sisson '17; Sub-Chiefs, W. D. Carr '17, L. P. Hall Jr. '11, and E. M. Noyes '146.

Suggestions

HERE ARE recommendations of Prof. Harold J. Tobin, of the department of Political Science, for timely reading. These excellent recent books, which might be called "crisis literature," furnish a background for world politics here and abroad in this dark period. A vivid account of the rise and character of Nazi Germany's leaders is found in Abel's Why Hitler Came toPower. A simple but excellent short account of present conditions in Germany is found in the World Affairs Pamphlet called Building the Third Reich, by John deWilde. Buell's Poland, Key to Europe explains the difficult and dangerous situation of that country, and the attempts of its leaders to find a way out.

For a review of America's recent foreign policy, Documents on American ForeignRelations, 1938-1939, compiled by Shepard Jones and Denys P. Myers, includes not only high diplomacy but also our efforts at collaboration in the fields of refugee care, international trade and aviation. Griswold's Far Eastern Policy of the UnitedStates is really broad enough in treatment to give a picture of our whole foreign policy. Sprout's Rise of American Naval Power should be read as a companion volume on naval policy. Eliot's The Ramparts WeWatch is a clear outline of the present problems of national defense, and follows logically after the two previously mentioned works. Paxson's America at War, although a study of the last war, covers the problems of mobilizing civilian strength back of the Army and Navy, most of which still exist today. Cherne's Adjusting YourBusiness to War deals with the practical problems to be faced by the American business man in a war crisis.

CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM OF 1896 OF WHICH WALTER MCCORNACK '97 WAS CAPTAINThe College lost one of its most devoted alumni, a man who has worked untiringly forDartmouth welfare, when Walter E. McCornack '97 died suddenly in Chicago, June 30. (See Necrology.) He was attorney for the Interstate Commerce Commission. "Mac" wascaptain of the Green teams of 1895 and 1896, and was the first Dartmouth player chosenfor Walter Camp's Ail-American Teams. The championship eleven of '96 is shown abovewith Captain McCornack in the center holding the ball. Those in the group are: First row, left to right, W. F. Kelley '97, end; F.J. Crolius '99, halfback; W. E. McCornack '97,captain, quarterback; J. B. C. Eckstorm '98, halfback; C. J. Boyle 'OO, end; Second Row, F. W. Cavanaugh '99, end; C. H. Pillsbury '97, center; J. H. Edwards '99, tackle; D. C.Macandrew '98, fullback: Back row, J. H. Putnam 'OO, tackle; B. T. Marshall '97 guard;J. B. C. Walker '99, guard.