Of all the forsaken, desolate spots we had ever seen, Lanchy won first prize. Cold, rain, and mud added to the dismalness of our surroundings and tended to make existence pretty unpleasant, living as we did in tents and cellars.

The work in this sector was not very strenuous. We had two front postes, one at Holnon, the other at Maissemy, of one car each, with a two-car relay station at Marteville. Two cars daily were on evacuation. This latter work was very popular, as it took us to Ham and Cugny, the home of some American Red Cross nurses, and sometimes as far as Noyon, with its ice-cream parlor and cafés. As we were working in a repos sector we did not see much action, except for a gas attack, during which all the Section was called out. Of course, there were the usual wild rumors of big coups de main and attacks that were to come off "next week," but which never materialized.

Gloom descended upon us on August 31, when the United States recruiting officers appeared to enlist men for the army; but Seventy-One enlisted a larger proportion of its men than any other Field Service section. Toward the end of October rumors spread that we were to be relieved, and on November 1 an Allentown section, fresh from America, appeared with little pasteboard-walled cars. After two days, during which we showed them the postes, we were ordered to leave for Noyon and turn in our cars. So glad were we to leave Lanchy that the convoy out to Noyon, once beyond the limits of Ham, developed into a whirlwind at which the gendarmes could only throw up their hands in despair.

After two days of bliss in Paris, the Section was cut to twenty-five members, who moved to Belrupt just outside of Verdun, where we relieved the members of Section Twenty-Nine, taking over their cars and equipment, and where we became attached to the 120th Division and worked the poste de secours at the Carrière d'Haudromont between Bras and Douaumont. Here, on November 22, Way Spaulding was severely wounded in front of the abri. During the thirty-five days at Belrupt, five of our cars were smashed by shells and all but two cars were hit by éclats. On December 8 we were relieved by a French Section of Fiats and moved to Andernay en repos. On Christmas Day, with much "crape-hanging," we donned the "choker uniforms" and became S.S.U. Six-Forty-One of the United States Army Ambulance Service.

PHILIP SHEPLEY*

*Of Brookline, Massachusetts; Harvard, '20; served in the Field Service with Section Seventy-One, and subsequently in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service.

Nesle, August 6

GAS-MASKS and "tin derbies" were given out to-day, and, with both of them on, I look like some prehistoric fish. We were also warned by our Lieutenant regarding the new German gas-shells. It appears that they are filled with a combination gas, make very little noise when exploding --something on the order of a defective giant firecracker --- and make their presence first known by a faint smell of garlic or mustard. Now we all run like fiends when some imaginative soul thinks he smells garlic. At the conclusion of his speech, the Lieutenant added that the present gas-masks were no protection against the new shells. I wonder what we're going to use them for.

August 8

AT last we've carried our first wounded, and if the war were to stop to-morrow, which it won't, I could at least say that I've seen some service, even though not actually under shot and shell. Early this morning Harry and I answered a call at Masy and transferred two couchés from the first-aid station there to the base hospital at Ham. The roads were terrible, and I, riding in the back, had a chance to witness the tortures endured by the poor devils who were bounced about in a very gruesome manner.

August 11

THIS afternoon Dick, Harry, and I visited Herly, Curchy, and Manicourt, ruined villages to the west of the château. They were in utter ruins, and were uninhabited save for a company or so of our Division, who were living in the old German dugouts. Everything was in perfect order, as the Boches were forced to evacuate in such a hurry that they had little time for their usual "strafing." .The dugouts, which were about eight feet long by six feet wide and six feet deep, were lined with thick sheet iron, on top of which were placed sandbags, then logs, and finally a thick layer of sod, the final product being perfectly disguised, and for a distance up to a third of a mile practically indistinguishable from the landscape. Many of them bore upon their walls somewhat pointed and impolite messages from the retiring Germans to the entering Canadians. The dirty Boches had time, however before their departure, to chop down every fruit tree that lay anywhere near their path of retreat. I remember seeing a photograph of this atrocity in the pictorial supplement of the "Times" --- a devastated orchard of which, out of a total of one hundred trees, but two remained standing. You can imagine my interest upon finding that the original of the picture was one of the ruined orchards at Manicourt.

WHEN CLEANLINESS IS A MYTH	WHERE ARMY-BLUE TURNS TO KHAKI!

Nesle, August 16

RATHER a humdrum day. The only outstanding event was the Lieutenant's leaving for his permission. He made us a little speech, during which he read us an official communication from the Division Commander in which the latter complimented the Section upon its general behavior and its quickness in responding to calls. When he had finished, we were purring like so many cats!

Lanchy, August 20

PROMPTLY at eight o'clock we left our quarters and set out for the front, destination unknown. Arrived at this town shortly after ten and parked behind S.S. Fifty-Eight, a French section, decorated with the Croix de Guerre for splendid work at Verdun. As soon as the French cars leave we should get our chance to do some of the real work for which we have been waiting.

August 22

S.S. FIFTY-EIGHT left at eight o'clock this morning. I might say that until to-day we have been sleeping in our cars, secretly envying the Frenchmen who had provided themselves with tents made with poilu ground sheets. "Sandy," "Stew," and I had an opportunity, fortunately, to buy one, and very promptly did so. It is one of the larger type, about ten feet square, well entrenched and very sturdily put up. "Castle Cootie" is richly luxurious compared with our cramped and somewhat scented ambulances. We paid only fifty francs for the compartments, including an extra roof, and though tents have been ordered for the entire Section, I feel sure that we shall be greatly advanced in years before they arrive. Meanwhile our purchase is the admiration of the Section. We carried out our business transaction last evening, and I therefore felt it my duty to be present at the departure lest our newly acquired home were to take it into its head to leave with them. My appearance, shivering in my B.V.D.'s, was the signal for untold merriment. I accepted the tribute in stern silence.

August 24

LAST night the wind did blow; also the rain pattered, dripped, and drizzled through every possible crack and crevice in our most esteemed tent until "Castle Cootie" was one damp puddle of floating possessions. And yet the merry(?) patter of raindrops is a cheery sound under even the most discouraging conditions, and the three of us were soon wrapped in noisy but peaceful slumber. At 2.45 A.M., by actual observation of our wrist watches, tent number 2, owned by Messrs. Crosby, Fox, Salinger, and Spaulding, collapsed with a piteous sigh. Muffled curses, groans, and wails. At three, Crosby, a most heart-rending sight, indeed, crawls under the flap of our swaying mansion, dragging behind him two wet, muddy, and exceedingly tired blankets. His entrance was greeted with suppressed snickers from our three cots, but he haughtily rolled himself up in the blankets, on the muddy floor, and, no sympathy forthcoming, silence followed. In the morning Harry presented a never-to-be-forgotten appearance: one belly-band, a pink pajama top, a heavy woollen undershirt, a white St. Mark's sweater, a raveled blue sweater constructed by "Her," and, as an outer shell, a goatskin coat; while his props were encased in a damp, mud-bespattered pair of pajama trousers, around which were wound, in a most uncertain manner, a pair of roll puttees!

August 25

BLUE MONDAY! It's raining as consistently as it did all day yesterday. The tent maintains its reputation as a sieve. And a huge mail from the States arrived, my share of which may be represented by the latter half of the number 10. Gloom!

August 29

WONDER of wonders!! Last night's rumors were verified this morning. Shortly before eleven, two United States officers and a very young-looking Army doctor drove up. After lunch the Section was addressed by Lieutenant Webster, and told that the Government had decided to take over every independent American organization on this side of the water. Then followed the necessary recruiting officer's "line," telling of the advantages, joys, and untold privileges to be derived from "signing up." We were given an hour to make up our minds, at the end of which time seventy per cent of the Section signed. "I'm in the army now," rendered by Private Weeks.

August 30

STILL recovering from yesterday's dismal prospect. Suppose this damnable war lasts for some seven years. I return, a rheumatic, crabby old bachelor, losing my hair in bunches, to be greeted by strange faces on all sides and the consoling news that the object of my tenderest affections married some slacker five years before.

September 13

WE had our first real work last night. It appears that the Boche artillery had a holiday and spent the greater part of the evening throwing gas-shells into the second and third lines near Holnon. Their range was good --- it always is --- and they successfully cracked a few abris and threw things about in a most unpleasant manner. We got a call for "several ambulances" a little after ten, and I believe we made a record time to the poste. When we got there a rather unpleasant sight greeted us. All about the abri and in the forepart of the trench the ground was covered with gasping, prostrate figures of men, their faces a livid green, their foreheads shining with sweat, mumbling incoherently, twisting and turning in agony. It was our first experience with gas and one that did not tend to heighten our respect for the Hun. The curé was among those gassed, but he refused to accept any aid until all his men had been attended to, lapsing into unconsciousness just as the doctor bent over him. just two-score men gassed, an incident too trivial to be mentioned in the daily communiqué; just one of the million unrecorded sacrifices for which the Boches will have to pay some day.

EDWARD A. WEEKS, JR.*

*Of Elizabeth, New Jersey; Cornell, '19; served as a driver in Section Seventy-One of the Field Service and, subsequently, with the U.S.A. Ambulance Service. The above are extracts from his unpublished diary.

NOTE. Early in November most of the American personnel of Section Seventy-One, including the American Officers, were transferred from the borrowed French cars to the Field Service Fords of old Section Twenty-Nine. Shortly thereafter this latter Section was renumbered by the U.S. Army, and became Section Six-Forty-One. Under this title it continued to function until after the Armistice.

NOVEMBER 3, 1917, the Section, now relabeled Six-Forty-Four, took part in its first engagement under American régime, at Verdun, in the Bezonvaux sector between Forts Douaumont and Vaux. It was in the line during a period of thirty-five days, and evacuated 3040 blessés. Although we had no casualties we lost two of our cars. The Section here received its first citation.

After a ten-day repos at Combles, the Division went into the lines, again at Verdun, and captured Hill 344. We carried 4210 wounded during the ten days the Division was in the lines. On December 3 the Section went en convoi to Bar-sur-Aube, where it remained en repos for a period of two weeks. At Darney we settled down for a long cold winter. On January 21 of the new year we quit Darney, going to Custines, a small town on the Nancy front. From here we operated postes in and around Nomény.

The Section left this sector about the first of March for the front near Amiens. The Division went into the lines at Villers-Bretonneux, and the Section was cantoned directly in back of the troops, at Petit Blangy, later at Patte d'Oie, where we camped alongside of the main road between Amiens and Saint-Quentin. We again were forced to move, and this time went to the Bois de Fort Manon, where we stayed until August 2, operating postes in front of Villers-Bretonneux and to the left of that town. We then went to Wailly, and from there, after a few days' wait, to Cottenchy where the Division made a joint attack with the British on their right. The Germans were forced back to the general line of Ham, Nesle, Roye, etc. During this attack the Section took its first part in open warfare, as well as occupying reconquered territory for the first time. The Division by forced marches through Maignelay, Jonquières, and Ribécourt, went into the lines at Chiry-Ours-camp, and, attacking, captured Noyon, then advancing to La Fère. During this time the Section made their evacuations in such a manner as to receive another citation.

From there the Division advanced through the towns of Chevresis, Monceau, Parpeville, Puisieux, and thence to Hirson, in a continuation of the Aisne-Oise offensive. The Armistice was signed the day after the Section reached Hirson.

Returning to La Fère, we remained there until the latter part of December, when we started en convoi for the Vosges, preparatory to taking part in the French occupation of Germany. We stayed in Rambervillers two weeks, and then went into reconquered Alsace on February 14, 1919, stopping for a few days in the town of Sarrebourg. From there the Section convoyed to Einöd, in the Palatinate, and thence to Alsie (Hesse), Bierstadt, in Rhenish Prussia, near Wiesbaden, and to Niederhausen, where the Section was cantoned for two weeks or so; moving from there to Ober Losbach. From that place started the final convoy of the Section for Paris.

JOHN S. CLAPP*

*Of Auburndale, Massachusetts; in T.M.U. 397 during his time with the Field Service, and in Section Six-Forty-Four of the U.S. Ambulance Service with the French Army during the remainder of the war.

SECTION SEVENTY-TWO arrived at May-en-Multien on August 6, 1917. It left for the front, driving French ambulances, on August 18, 1917. After repos of two weeks at Noyon, it was sent to the front at Saint-Quentin. En route for this place, it was enlisted, at Flavy-le-Martel, by the American recruiting officers, being the first section of the Service taken over by the U.S. Army. It continued work under the old régime until November, when it filled in Old Section Twenty-Seven's vacancies and took over their Fords, becoming Section Six-Thirty-Nine of the U.S.A. Ambulance Service.

SEVENTY-TWO was the youngest son of a large family. When only one day weaned from a dusty preliminary repos of two weeks at Noyon, the Section undertook its first service at Saint-Quentin. Immediately thereafter came the United States recruiting officers offering every man the opportunity to become a private in the American Army, but to remain with the Section in the Sanitary Service of the French Army. One of the first groups to be visited by these officers, we have the distinction of enlisting every man able to meet the physical requirements, except one. Four of the original number were rejected on physical grounds.

The last complete section sent out from the Field Service Headquarters in Paris, we found ourselves, September 5, 1917, just emerging from the embryo of war in the abstract into active service and the American Army. Our personnel, with the exception of our Chef, was composed of the young men who sailed from the docks of the French line in New York City on two steamers, the Chicago, leaving July 23, and the Rochambeau, leaving August 3, 1917.

Those of us who came over on the Chicago arrived in Paris from Bordeaux on the morning of August 4, and on the afternoon of the 6th we were transferred to May-en-Multien. The fortnight spent at this camp will always be remembered by us as a real midsummer idyll; for, although May was located in the now famous Marne district, scarcely thirty-five kilometres from the Soissons front, the sound of the cannon was only dimly heard. Here the enemy in hasty retreat had been unable to commit his customary acts of vandalism, and the beautiful country was practically untouched. So we received our first taste of rural France in a lazy courtyard, surrounded by buildings which had once been the possession of a rich miller, trying in vain to realize that we were so near the scene of gruesome war.

The majority of the Chicago's Field Service passengers quartered at May preferred to drive Ford cars, and out of these a new section, Thirty-Three, was immediately formed. When this group left the camp for the front, the rest of us, who had spoken for gear-shift cars, were compelled to wait until our personnel could be increased by new men. Nine days after our arrival the ambulance recruits from the Rochambeau came out from Paris, and from this group we were able to fill out a complete section of forty-nine men, and on August 18, after two days of intensive driving on May's historic voitures, we were transported back to Paris.

Again our stay in Paris was brief. The day after our arrival we were lined up at rue Raynouard and informed that we would henceforth be known as S.S.U. Seventy-Two and that we would take over a former French section of twenty Fiats, two men to be placed on each car.

We were then introduced to our Section Commander, Chef William Westbrook. In the early morning of the following day, August 19, we were routed out of bed and despatched to the military town of Noyon, in the Oise, where we were to await instructions for joining a French division, and where our twenty cars were lined up on the main highway to Saint-Quentin, in the heart of the town. They were seasoned veterans, these cars, and were scarred and battered by great campaigns. Each one, however, had been carefully repaired at the Noyon parc before our arrival, and could be counted on for years more of active service. Owing to the lack of quarters, most of us had to sleep on the stretchers in these very cars; so they became near and dear to us from the very start.

For precisely two weeks we led an absolutely useless existence, which was principally spent in inhaling dust and exhaling epithets; and somehow the veteran cars seemed as impatient as we were at this forced idleness. During the first week Lieutenant Gibily, our French commanding officer, to whom we became greatly attached, was transferred elsewhere. He was followed by two other French officers who came and went for reasons known to the inner circles only. This did not tend to remove our impatience. It seemed at times as though we were to remain without the extremely valuable surveillance of French authority.

Saturday evening, September 1, we received orders to move forward toward Saint-Quentin, and the next morning the staff car, camionnette, and twenty ambulances, with our complete equipment, moved slowly over the road in convoy, and stopped at about noon on the outskirts of Flavy-le-Martel, where late in the afternoon of the same day the American recruiting officers followed us out from Noyon and formally enlisted the entire Section, with the several justifiable exceptions mentioned earlier. So what we at first thought meant active work at the front, really ended only in our incorporation into the American army, which was well enough as far as it went, but which did not go far enough for most of us.

Our camp, which had been a prosperous stock and poultry farm surrounding a spacious court, was cleaned up until it was made quite comfortable. The shacks used for houses were reënforced. Useless acetylene gas-tanks were stripped from the cars and served as generators for truly modern lighting systems. Stoves for winter we found among deserted ruins. Daily the cantonment and court were swept and cleaned furiously. But none of us lost in weight, thanks to work enough for appetite and good food. The historian is compelled to be truthful and admit that Section Seventy-Two's story ends where most others begin. Our work came after Section Seventy-Two of the Field Service was combined with S.S.U. Twenty-Seven, and had become Section Six-Thirty-Nine of the United States Army Ambulance Service.

JOHN H. WOOLVERTON*

*Of Trenton, New Jersey; Dartmouth; served with Section Seventy-Two from August, 1917, and continued in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service during the war.

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