Deeds of heroism and bravery : $b The book of heroes and personal daring
History
Deeds of heroism and bravery : $b The book of heroes and personal daring
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
“Oh,” said “Jimmie.” “I was awarded the Croix with the six other
fellows for cleaning up that bunch of 498 Germans in the quiet sector
I told you about. The affair they gave me the palm for was rescuing a
lieutenant who was wounded in the Belleau Wood fighting.
“I don’t know who the lieutenant was, but he was a newspaper man who
had entered the fighting forces and he was out in advance of the line
when he was wounded. Several of us volunteered to go out and bring him
in, but we did not know exactly where he was. It was during the night
and very dark. Along about four o’clock, as I was crawling along, I
fell plumb into a shell-hole, and there he was with his leg shot off.”
“SORT OF SWIMMING-LIKE”
“I put my coat around him and bandaged his leg up as well as I could.
Then he got his arms around my neck and I held on to him with one hand
and dragged myself, sort of swimming-like, along the ground with the
other.
“I had only an hour and a half before daybreak when the Germans would
be able to see us, and in that time I managed to make about twenty
yards to another shell-hole. We lay in that all day. The lieutenant
suffered a great deal. I gave him what water I had in my canteen.
“When night came on we started again and before morning had made the
rest of the distance—about sixty yards—to our trenches. The lieutenant
got well. They say he is a great writer of books and things. He
belongs in New York State somewhere.”
“Were you kissed when the Croix was presented to you?” we asked.
“Yes, General Foch pinned the badge on our coats and then kissed us on
both cheeks. We were all smiling when the kissing was going on.”
WHEN THE LIGHT FAILED
One Soldier Tells What It Is Like to Have Eyes Shot Out
You may not think this a story of heroism; but if it does not fall into
that class we do not know where to place it. There is no attacking a
plane in mid-air and sending it crashing to earth; no leaping into
trench and gathering a score or so of prisoners with the tilt of a
bayonet; no running to stand on a parapet and hurl hand grenades
against a rain of bullets; nothing to set your blood into a gallop to
grip you and make you take off your hat to the man about whom Private
Jesse A. Whaley, Co. K, 310th Inf., A. E. F., is writing. And this is
what Whaley wrote as it appeared in the New York _Sunday Times_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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