With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American EffortHungerford, Edward
History
With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort
Hungerford, Edward
American National Red Cross; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
Thereafter and until long weeks after the signing of the armistice
Kellogg remained with the Thirty-second, but did not cease his
_Pilgrim's Progress_. For the Division moved; here and there and
everywhere. For several weeks it was at Vic-sur-Aisne, while Red Cross
Kellogg--who by this time was a real Ford expert--was making hot
chocolate in a huge cave that once had been an American division
headquarters. Then it moved to a new sector, not far from Bar-le-Duc,
and Kellogg moved with it. In the meantime he had performed temporary
work at Neufchâteau--always an important division headquarters of the
American Red Cross--at Bar-le-Duc and at Rosnes; but these jobs were
merely stop-gaps--the real task was forever at the front lines. And
when, on the twenty-fourth of September, Kellogg came up with his
Division at Wally, he was ready for hard fighting once again. So was the
Thirty-second. It was moving forward a little each day and in fact was
already considered "in reserve" on September 26--the day of the
beginning of the great Argonne offensive. Two days later, with a
borrowed army truck and an American Red Cross camionette--both filled
with supplies to their limit--Kellogg and two of his Red Cross
associates moved forward nine miles to the Avecourt Wood and there
joined the Sixty-fourth Brigade of the Division. The brigade commander
furnished them with an old dugout--which for nearly four years past had
formed a part of the French trench system. After their supplies had been
dumped into the place there was just room left for the bedding rolls of
the Red Cross men, and even these overlapped one another. It rained
steadily for several days and the mud upon the floor of the dugout
became entirely liquefied. At night water came in through the doorway
and trickled in innumerable sprays down from the roof. The men lived in
mud knee-deep. Oh, it was some fun being a Red Cross man at the front in
those days of actual fighting! But the fun was some distance removed
from those popular reports of "the Battle of Paris" which used to come
trickling back to America for the edification and joy of the folk who
stayed behind. It was prunes and preserves being a Red Cross worker in
France in those autumn days of 1918. Only the trouble was that no one
ever could find the prunes or the preserves.
On the thirtieth day of September, the Thirty-second moved from the
Avecourt Woods to those of Montfaucon and assumed a military position of
"support."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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