True Stories of the Great War, Volume 5 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 5 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Mrs. Hilda Wynne has youth, beauty, wealth and fascination--she cast
them all into the great pool of the war in Europe, and added bravery to
them--a limitless bravery. She wears the Croix de Guerre, the gift of
France. King Albert of Belgium decorated her with the Order of Leopold,
and Russia honored her with the Order of St. George. These rare
distinctions she won by unique service. She drove her ambulance between
the first trenches. Back and forth she went, driving her automobile
at furious pace with the fire pouring upon her from the allies on one
side and the Germans on the other, but a mile separating them. Her
unit worked between the first trenches, the only workers permitted
to operate on this danger line. Mrs. Wynne and her organization, the
Bevan-Wynne Unit, have saved more than 25,000 lives of wounded that but
for her speedy aid would have been lost. She then came to America for
the specific purpose of interesting Americans in the needs of Russian
soldiers.
_Told by Hilda Wynne, herself_
I have looked into the eyes of death and seen there many things.
Looking upon the human carnage I have witnessed, from this distance and
in the little breathing space I have taken from service to make you
Americans know the Russians and their needs better, I testify that I
have seen thousands of heroic acts, but the bravest act happened on the
Russian front.
I saw two aviators go up to certain death. They were a Russian and a
Frenchman. Both were little men. They went up to meet twenty German
aeroplanes. It was suicidal. But they had been ordered to go--and
theirs was the spirit of the gallant six hundred. I stood near them as
they made ready to go. They said nothing. That is one of the lessons
you learn in war--not to waste time nor words.
They got their machines ready as a rider tests his saddle straps and
stirrups before starting for his morning gallop through the park.
A little pothering and fixing of the machinery and they had gone.
They went straight up and began blazing away at the German planes. I
watched and the cords of my heart tightened, for the German planes,
looking like great gray birds with wings wide spread, came closer
and closer. They surrounded them. They formed a solid double circle
about them. Then they began to fire. And I turned and covered my eyes
with my hands, for out of that solid, ominous group two dots detached
themselves and fell. A few seconds later what had been aeroplanes were
splintered wood and what had been men a broken mass covered by smoking
rags.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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