Private Bernard Snyder returned with prisoners before dark on the first day. Making use of his ability to speak German, he induced a dozen Germans to lay down their arms, pick up stretchers and carry American wounded back five kilometers (three miles) to where ambulances were waiting.
A FIGHTING CHAPLAIN
Lieut. Jorgen R. Enger, the chaplain of a Kansas-Missouri outfit, carried the wounded for three days from the Montfaucon woods two miles to the ambulance. Searching in the woods in the darkness one night with shells bursting and bullets whistling he found a husky sergeant wounded in the foot and growing weaker and weaker from loss of blood. The chaplain shouldered the man and carried him back to a dressing station, saving his life.
"I didn't think a chaplain would do a thing like that," said the sergeant. "I would rather save you than save a general," replied the chaplain.
When not searching for wounded hidden in the tangle of under-brush the chaplain was busy helping the surgeons at a first aid dressing station.
"I never thought any clergyman would have the opportunities for doing good such as I am haying," he said when I saw him.
Col. Eugene Houghton, Wisconsin, who was a British major until America entered the war, distinguished himself by personally leading a unit of New York men. According to them he escaped death repeatedly as by a miracle.
"DESERT? NO, WANTED TO FIGHT"
Capt. Carl F. Laurer while assisting in the examination of German prisoners, was surprised when an American prisoner was brought before him. "Where do you belong?" asked the captain. "I am with an aerial squadron in the south of France" replied the prisoner. "I walked fourteen days to get here." "Did you desert?" asked Captain Lauer. "No," the man replied, "I want to fight. That is what I came to France for. When I get home the folks will ask what I did in the war and when I answer 'worked' they will say 'Why the devil didn't you fight?'" The boy's wish was gratified and he was sent forward.
"We have everything good and plenty—rations, ammunition and other things. It looks like a regular Sunday."