The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette from Fort Wayne, Indiana • Page 1

ss DC SUN DAY MAGAZINE, SECTION OF Taxicabbing qr the Wounded Atouaid. Verdun's Bloody Trencher Some Impressions of Young Everitt Fisher of Newark, N.J. Just Returned From Fioe Months' Service With the French First Line yfbrt Waxjtie Joumal Gagtte SUNDAY, MAY 13, 1917. ill i ii Everitt Fisher almost got the "woidtn cross" by reason of his magnetism Eos Verdun shells. Br ROWLAND THOMAS.

That tils i tor must manage to limp long as belt It can without a hero Is entirely the fault of jonag Mr. Everitt liihei of Newark, 5. who was east for the part but flatly refused to play It Ills refusal was quits friendly, but absolutely blunt. "If Vm going to talk to you," he said, "you'll have to prom lie to can the glory stud." So the glory stuff Is canned here, and you will never hear from me what It was young Mr. Everitt Fiiher did lu France that led the French Republic to honor him In a Terr signal way though he was lust downy cheeked pink and white skinned, blue eyed Am.

erlcan boy, wlTJB the powerful hands and wrists of a seasoned motor driver, who had wandered over their way( and volunteered his services as pilot of an American Bed Cross ambulance. SIX months ago Ereritt Fisher was learning the automobile business with his older brothers, who hav jelling motor cars in Newark. N. for a good many yean. And all at once, as he pot it, "I Eot an idea I wanted to see a little more of the world." So the Captain of a freighter took him across the Atlantic as a guest, and he landed in Havre the middle ot last field kltciea.

some repair cars and two louring cars for tie French Lieutenant and tha FieJich Captain la command of the i esc Hon. Each section has about twenty flra volunteer drivers, Ameri cans. Tier work In tains. WelL, io n.r Boctlon was a new one and 1 was 1b He west thing la It When I weatoO. to do my first tazlcab work I'd never le trd a bullet whistle or a shell explode.

I heard plenty that night, ma when we got back my comrade said be isn't going to work any more with me. Kj accused me of being a tiiiiia magnet, because eight hlgh eijilaiiwe shells had happened to b.urst'iaj.3iUiau of two hundred yards around n.ev Next day the section had a song MuLt started. "Why do the Bochcs siicb oik 'Aboul thirl ot our cars wers fords, auul the rest were a sprlnklin pf vaitoaa Jteav ones, Rolls Royce, Pierce Arrows, Cadillacs, und oi or two Fiats and Peugeots In the Ambulance whictr It different organization from the Am November. "I got job In the steel company there," he told me. "But I couldn't keep from wondering what it was like up at the front, so jtretty soon Iwent up to Paris and signed up with the French Government for six months volunteer driver with the American Red Cross.

They gave me my uniform and kept me in Paris a week, then shipped me out to Verdun. "It's a hundred and oi miles, and wt) took, two daya for the trip. I landed In Verdun at noon, and right oft the bat they gave me twenty tour hours on duty. That's the way we worked, one whole day on and then a whole day tores "Our section was ev new one you tnow what an ambulance section Is? Twenty motor ambulances and one big camion a motor truck tnat will carry twenty five 'sittlsg up cases and a erlcan Red Cross, all the car are Fords, unit all the time fellow were transferrins from the ambulance to us became; they thought they'd enjoy it better driving btrger cars. We let them lure tbera and welcome.

The Fords ie so small that it you took up the i.twr boards you bad plenty Of heat, wleitai la the big fellows, where you coiataiLtly shifting gears, you got btil frozen. It was a mtrfcty cold winter, yeis hncw. I've still got my Verdu.n'bmrk ttiat was our name for the concha everybody had. Bealdi the light cara made handler taxlcabe, and they didn't give us half as much bother with the hundreds ot punctures you were bound to get from the hobnails that had dropped out of the soldiers' shoes. "Taxicabbing' that was the name tor picking up the wounded from Dead Man's land and toting them back to the hospital.

'When a man was hit In the first line trenches they fixed htm up roughly at the first dressing station, enough to control the bleeding, and then with a dog and cart, or maybe a stretch' er mounted on two wheels. they carried him to the Poste de Secoura, Car enough iback so It was eupposed to be safe and that was. a good husky piece ot supposition. We ploked 'em up at the Poste de Secours and carried them back elx or eight miles to the hospital. "I remember cue Poste de Secours they had to give up.

It was In a second line trench, only two hundred yards from the Doches. One moonlight night we did all the picking up at night, you know a fellow had Just got hla car loaded up with wounded when the Germans began to shell it. As he was turning round his engine stalled, and before he could start again the Bodies got the range, lie and his wounded got Into a trench, nd the Germans shelled that ambulance more or less all night. They spread the en gine all over Verdun. In the morning all the part of his car that the fellow could find was the magneto.

That was't hurt, and he took It back with him. and a tew pieces ot the diilereu UaL "They gave up that post, and after that we did our pickups about one mile back of the line, which gave us a six mile trip, and a funny kind ot a trip Until you got used to It We weren't allowed any lights not even as much as a match tor a cigarette. It a Frenchman lighted one they give him eight days cutting barbed wire up in No Man's Land between the trenches. "Unless there was a moon it was so dark you could hardly see your radiator, and you 14 to feel your way along past the shell holes in the road. and, the big camions full of supplies ani ammunition, and the marching bodies ot troops.

There was barbed wlro all around too, and one bad stretch where a forest about a mile square had been shelled to splinters Cvery once in a while a star shell would go up they burn about eight seconds and light up three or four square miles because the parachute acts as a reflector! and while it last ed you would be able to rush forward as much as a hundred feet. Driving by star shells is quite an nperlence. "Every once in a bile, too, you'd cross a narrow gauge railroad track. It wound in and out among the hll and it, with five inch guns mounted on them. It would stop most anywhere.

and the Captain, in his office on board, wculd look at the squares on his map and be able to hit where he was or dered to. By the time the Germans let drive back the train was gone, and all their shells did was tear up the track. There wer batteries all around too, screened from airplanes so that only their muzzles stuck out ot the ground. Between their firing unei pectedly and the Germans answering back, it kept you on the Jump, ft wum often that you wouldn't hear a shell coming somewhere. How do thef sound As if the sky was made muslin and the devil had started to r'j.

It open. "I remember one night when one came pretty close, a high explosive too. It was a bright moonlight night, and we'd made good tipie to thePoste de Secours In our 'meaale germ' that was the pet nam for Ford. We had been gaaaaaBgsggMgggggjasesjsassssfM v' KfBtBSiyCSKlSBBSflBSSrfl.wnCli' KJBBBMSw ISSbKB IBfJSBVMBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBHBBBaBal iBBWBBBBVBHBlBBBBHBBGHiBBBBBBBf BbIbBB g'" ''tvSc IS aBBB7MsBBaS sf jr cl I fey ffj4BMl7ifclBnM.SBBa?fl fTBrrff1 4BBW1 tKJtMavJBLBSJBTaLy jgKBpBBJijj "SKsfmj a IbLV lr' BBBLf BBBBBT 3 VxHj i vwi 1 i sjssiiim rtjmwmunnmnxgiMjwti tt wmwJ uv iM BROUGHT ibe cMessaae toJVewlorkj ERE is Miss Jean Earl Moehle, the girl who duplicated Paul Revere's ride, in New York, one hundred and forty two years later, to the minute. It was midnight before "Wake ur Kew ork Day." Ail sorts of schemes had been uael to stimulate recruiting.

4Why not have Paul Revere's ride down Broadway by a girl?" suggested somebody. A fine ideal it made a great mt the tnad clatter oi hoots as a mounted feminine figure in tri cornered bat, white shirt and bottle green breeches, black silk stockings and silver buckled shoes, tore along the Broadway car tracks shrilling her tense mes H' TLA 1 VU MiWL sage to the. after theatre crowds, shifting kaleldoscopIeaBy "Wake Up, New Yorkj Wake Upl" And then Uncle Bam iMeeas uur The New York heroine of this thrilling night Or, rather, eariy morning, is tne oangnter or mtj and uscar Moehle, All her life she has ridden horses, and one has but to glimpse her sitting her saddle, light as thistledown, to sense this immediately. A glance at "Othello," the coaK black beauty she rides in the picture, shows no lack of life and ginger on his part, either, hy." Miss Moehle protests with becoming modesty. "I OiJu't want to do it at all, at first.

Then they told roe my rule mas for recruiting and 'Wake TJp New York and they must have some one who wasn't afraid to dash throUgn the city streets on horseback, and so I volunteered as Paul Revere. It was fine fun after I got started, and I'm glad I did it now, although at first I felt rather, foolish and un feminine And this from a SuffragUtl Yesi Miss Moehle owns membership in the New York State organisation which strivea for votes for women, and she works actively for the cause. Likewise is she a Barnard girl and a sealoua athlete la the Intercollegiate Alumnae Association. She has volunteered to drive a motet ambulance for the war. eolne to live, and while mv comrade was turning the car I went into' the trench for him under the road and about two hundred yards along.

When we got to the road there wasn't room to carry him under, and we climbed ifp on the bani And right then, about three seconds before it landed, we heard that shell coming our way. 'It landed about five feet ahead ot the front stretcher bearer. In a heap of loose earth, went in about half Jts length, and then exploded. It was a big one, and the first sensation I had was that I was up In the air some' where in France The nest knew I landed in the trench about twenty feet from where I had been standing. And the funny thing was that the shell killed only one ot the of us, the front bearer.

"A splinter went right through his breast The wounded man was only acared and scratched. They had set the stretcher down when he heirl the shell. The Tear stretcher bearer wasn't wounded, but the concussion knocked the senses out of him. lie Just ptood there, holding his hand to his aide. and tried to talk and couldnX We car ried him back, and when I left France be was a raring maniac from the shock.

But they thought he'd get over It after a while. some gravel had been blown Into it But the doctor greased It up and I was all right to finish out my twenty four hours. After that I felt so well acquainted with shells that they didn't trouble me much. "But the gas attacks were mean. The chlorine comes at you like a cloud of smoke.

First your eyes begin to water, and then you smell it like hbt "Me? It only blew my helmet off. (sent for a wounded maq wbo had to My face etung me like blazes, and when get the hospital at ouci If he we got back to the hospital they found bread right out ot the oven. There's a new kind ot gas, too, that they use in shells that you can't see or suull or feel at all until you faint Any kind ot gas is bad. It you don't got your mask on before the first real whiff, it seems to ahrivel your lungs up and you're through. The men don't seem to suffer much.

Just froth at the mouth, but many's the gas case that turned our ambulance into a hearse. We'd put 'em In alive and pull 'em out Just said they dldat seem to suffer much. That is equally true of all the French soldiers. It would be hard to say too much about their courage after theywere wounded. I've carried thou sends hurt In every Imaginable way arms or legs blown off, faces almost shot away and never a yip came oat of them." 1 asked young Mr.

Fisher how he passed the time In his days off duty. "Rubbering round," he said. "There were lots ot different kinds of troops to see. I liked to watch the Moroccans, They carry their rlflesf or ornaments. and for business bare their lunch hooks' long knives with a hook at ths point The first time I sw those knives and asked what they were, a fellow told they were "tjench clean era' It's a good name too, for the Moroccans say it's against their religion to take prisoners.

The Germans dont like Moroccans a little bit. "And we used to go up on a hill be hind our camp and watch the shells burst German sheila with black clouda and French with white and watch the airplanes reconnoitre and fight That was pretty, to watch thm ewooplag and hear the machine guns go. One day a German plane was ah solutely blown to pieces by an antl aircraft shell that struck It square. It Just dlsappearedr nothing dropped at all. And one day I saw a French sausage balloon get hit by an Incendiary bomb dropped from a German plana It burst into flames, but the observers hqpped off with their parachutes and came down safely.

"But after A while, three or four months, I got so I wasn't eating well and my deep didn't rest me because I dreamed so much. I hadn't ever known I bad a nerve In my body till then, but the doctors told me to take a little leave in the United States. A funny thing happened in Parts. I hadn't been hurt at all at the front, but In my hotel there a wardrobe toppled over on my head one morning and all" but finished me. But not quite, and Fa plannlsi to go back again In couple ot months." "Red Cross agalnr I asked htm, "I dont know, rve got a lot ot ou friends interested, and am gstttng eome donations.

I hope to take soma automobile chasses over to Paris wita and a lot of other truck that would be useful. For one thing. I'm going to try to get every woman and girl in Newark to give me a pillow. A woman can make In about five minutes. ana a puiow ia ine oiggesi luxury one of those wounded soldiers can get, Tel like to take tack about a milUon pllj lows.

After I get there I dont know what I'll do. Drive an ambulance for, a while, perhaps. I could go in for avk atlon. but 1 hardly think I will. Ten get the wooden cross too easy in aviation, and I'd like a chance to ettek1 around a tew years more and see things." "Maybe this time," I suggested, "you can go over aa an AmertcaV Young Mr.

Ereritt Fisher fired Up al that "I went as an American be said. "An American volunteer and let me tell you, that's good aoaaf forma" So ends tne story, with tie gtety stuff all canned. It you want to knew bow and why the French RepafcUe honored the blue eyed boy from Mew ark bo signally you'll hare to fioaaatt the official records..