The Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania, in the World War / The authentic and comprehensive narrative of the gallant / deeds and glorious achievements of the 28th division in / the world's greatest war

by H. G. Proctor

In this waiting time it was decided to clean up a position of the enemy that was thrust out beyond their general line, from which an annoying fire was kept up constantly. Accordingly, a battalion of the 110th was sent over to wipe it out.

The Rev. Mandeville J. Barker, rector of the Episcopal Church in Uniontown, Pa., is chaplain of the 110th, with the rank of first lieutenant. He had endeared himself to officers and men alike by his happy combination of buoyant, gallant cheerfulness, sturdy Americanism, deep Christianity, indifference to hardship and the tender care he gave to the wounded. He had become, indeed, the most beloved man in the regiment.

He went over the top with the battalion that attacked by night on the heights of the Vesle. It was not his duty to go; in fact had the regimental commander known his intention, he probably would have been forbidden to go. But go he did. He had an idea that his job was to look after the men's bodies as well as their souls, and when there was stern fighting to do, he liked to be in a position where he could attend to both phases of his work.

The attacking party wiped out the Hun machine gun nest after a sharp fight and then retired to their own lines, as ordered. It was so dark that some of the wounded were overlooked. After the battalion returned, voices of American wounded could be heard out in that new No Man's Land, calling for help. Dr. Barker took his life and some first aid equipment and water in his two hands and slipped out into the dark, with only starshine and the voices of the wounded to guide him and, between the two armies, attended to the wounds of the men as best he could by the light of a small pocket torch, which he had to keep concealed from the enemy lookouts.

One after another the clergyman hunted. Those who could walk he started back to the lines. Several he had to assist. One lad who was beyond help he sat beside and ministered to with the tenderness of a mother until the young soul struggled gropingly out into the Great Beyond. Then, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, the beloved "Sky Pilot" started back.

But again the sound of a voice in agony halted him. This time, however, it was not English words that he heard, but a moaning petition in guttural German: "Ach Gott! Ach, mein lieber Gott!"

The men of the 110th loved their "parson" even more for what he did then. He turned right about and went back, groping in the dark for the sobbing man. He found a curly-haired young German, wounded so he could not walk and in mortal terror, not of death or of the dark, but of those "terrible Americans who torture and kill their prisoners." Such was the tale with which he and his comrades had been taught to loathe their American enemies. Dr. Barker treated his wounds and carried him back to the American lines. The youngster whimpered with fear when he found where he was going, and begged the clergyman not to leave him. When he finally was convinced that he would not be harmed, he kissed the chaplain's hands, crying over them, and insisted on turning over to Dr. Barker everything he owned that could be loosened—helmet, pistol, bayonet, cartridges, buttons, and other odds and ends.

"All hung over with loot, the parson was, when he came back," said a sergeant in telling of the scene afterward.

"The Fighting Parson," as the men called him, did not fight, actually, but he went as close to it as possible. On one occasion snipers were bothering the men. Dr. Barker borrowed a pair of glasses, lay flat on the field and, after prolonged study, discovered the offenders, four of them, and notified an artillery observer. A big gun casually swung its snout around, barked three times and the snipers sniped no more. Two or three days later, the regiment went over and took that section of German line and found what was left of the four men. "The Parson's Boche," the men called them.

Toward the last of the action below the Vesle, a group of men of the 110th had established an outpost in a large cave, which extended a considerable distance back in a cliff—just how far none of the men ever discovered. After they had been there several days, Dr. Barker arranged to cheer them a little in their lonely vigil. The cave had been an underground quarry. The Germans had occupied it, knew exactly where it was and its value as a hiding place, and kept a constant stream of machine gun bullets flying past its mouth.