That afternoon an artillery Regimental band gave a concert. Illustrative of the mental breadth and generous nature marking the real American boy, in its repertoire was to be observed Strouse's "Blue Danube Waltz!"
It was during one of these eventful days word reached us from across No Man's Land that old men, women and children in the town of Gorz, across the German border, were entirely without food, and dying of starvation.
Our forces were marking time in the positions the close of hostilities found them occupying, and, as the time for moving forward with the Army of Occupation was indefinite, we decided to go forward at once with food supplies for the starving inhabitants.
This aid work was to be entirely informal and on our own initiative, no military provision having been made for such emergency. With little difficulty five tons of army rations were secured, and, accompanied by good Major Hirch, I set out.
Our journey took us through miles of devastated country. Tons upon tons of war material, abandoned by the retiring German troops, littered roads and fields. Clothing, helmets, small arms of all description, whole batteries of Howitzers still in position, dense black fumes from burning ammunition dumps, acres of barbed wire fields and hillsides shell-torn, bodies still unburied—all this was the spectacle of war havoc greeting the eye on every side.
In the chill of that bleak November evening we crossed the German frontier and entered Gorz. Aged and feeble men and women looked sadly at us from their doors. Children, whose pinched faces clearly showed the ravages of hunger, timidly followed our supply trucks up the deserted street.
"Greater Love Than This No Man Has."
We were the first American soldiers they had ever seen. Drawing up in front of the old market place, Major Hirch explained our mission, speaking to the people in German.