John Earl Fike of Wooster, Ohio, enlisted under the name of his grandfather, Captain John Smith, who had rendered distinguished services in our civil war. He and Russell Kelly disappeared during the battle, and have not been since heard from.
Many notices have been in the newspapers, tending to explain their absence, all of which on investigation proved incorrect.
The only authoritative information regarding either of them was that “Russell Kelly was seen in the second line of German trenches with a clean wound in his left shoulder that did not seem serious.”
After some time the names of these two were placed on the official list of “missing” and the French Minister of War notified their families that their names would be carried on that list until a search could be made in the internment camps of Germany.
The State Department at Washington had special inquiries made by the American ambassador at Berlin, and on January 3d, 1916, Ambassador Gerard sent word from Berlin that their names were not reported among the prisoners of war in Germany.
The German War Office, the Imperial Foreign Office, the German Red Cross, as well as the International Red Cross at Geneva, Switzerland, reported that their names were not registered on any list in their possession.
On January 16th the New York Sun contained the following cable:
“Paris, January 15th. Official news reached the Lyon depot to-day that Kenneth Weeks of Boston was killed on June 17th last year near Givenchy.
“Official announcement also is made that John Earl Fike of Wooster, Ohio, was killed the same day. The death of Henry Farnsworth, another American in the Foreign Legion, reported on October 16th last, is officially confirmed.”
On January 17th all the New York dailies contained the following cable: