Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1917 — HARVARD MEN IN HAIL OF BOMBS [ARTICLE]

HARVARD MEN IN HAIL OF BOMBS

Show Rare Pluck When Hospital Is Attacked by German Airmen. 4 KILLED AND 32 WOUNDED Major Murphy, Red Cross Commissioner, Cables Full Details of Disaster to H. P. Davison —Show Speed in Emergency. Washington. —The manner in which the Harvard unit’s base hospitallff France .was attacked by a German airplane, with the result that several Americans were killed and wounded, was described in detail In a long cable message received here by Henry P. Davison, chairman of the American Red Cross war council, from Maj. Grayson M. Murphy, Red Cross commissioner in Europe. The message follows : “An American Red Cross Inspector who has just returned to headquarters In Paris has brought from the United States army base hospital unit of Harvard University, one of the many similar institutions on the surgical supply list of the American Red Gross, a detailed narrative of the bombing of that hospital on the night of September 4 last, and of the characteristic pluck and promptness with which the emergency was met. Five bombs were thrown, the explosions instantly killing William F. Fitzsimons of the Medical Officers’ Reserve corps. United States army, and three army privates, and wounded Lleuts. Clar-ence-A. McGuire. Thaddeus D. Smith and Rea W. Whidden, O. R. C., U. S. A.; six privates, a woman nurse and 22 patients from the British lines who were under treatment there for wounds.

Attack Occurred at Night. “The airplane attack occurred at 11 o’clock at night. Just at that time fortunately no convoy of wounded"was being received or the list of casualties would have been far greater, as one of the bombs fell ihto the center of the large reception tent to which the wounded are first borne for examination. Ten seconds suffered for the dropping of the bomb from the first flying plane, and within less than a minute afterward the surgeons of the hospital were at the task of collecting and attending those who had been struck down. And for 24 hours they were at work In the operating room, one surgeon relieving another when the latter, from simple exhaustion, could work no longer. The very next day. Just as if nothing had happened, these same surgeons were called upon to receive and care for 200 wounded sent 1 In from the trenches of the British expeditionary force. “The hospital, which is on the French coast, has 1,800 beds, and is Uqder canvas in a quadrangle 800 feet square. It is in a district in which there are many similar institutions, an<Vls unmistakable as a hospital. At the time the German aviator flew over Hktnost of the surgical staff was engaged in making rounds of the wards. Lieutenant Fitzsimons, however, was standing at the door of his tent. There had been a brief warning of the presence of a bombing airplane in the neighborhood, because a quarter of a minute before the sound of exploding bombs was heard from a point perhaps 200 yards from the hospital. This warning sufficed to cause all lights in the tents to be extinguished Immediately, and those who had been under fire before threw themselves face down upon the ground. l “Then came five in rapid succession In the" hospital itself. The first two wrfe directly in front of Lieutenant Fitzsitnohs* rent. He probably

never knew what happened to him, as his body was torn to shreds. The next two fell a hundred feet beyond, in a ward in which there were many patients, and the .last struck the reception tent. - Overhead there was no sound. The German aviator flew too high to be heard, but he left his identity behind him, not only in the bombs he dropped, but in the derisive handful of pfennings he scattered upon the hospital as he whirled away. A number ot these were found when light came. HRFby Bomb Fragments. “Lieutenant McGuire, who was in a tent adjoining that of Lieutenant Fitzsimons, was struck by three bomb fragments, but was not seriously wounded. His escape was narrow, as there were more than a hundred holes cut in his tent. Lieutenant Smith was struck in the knee and Lieutenant Whidden in the chest while in their tents in the office section of the quadwere on duty as orderlies in the reception tent, and the bomb fell almost upon them. So severely was Private Aubrey S. McLeod injured that it was necessary to amputate both his legs. “Although the explosion of the

bombs caused horror In tte hospital, there was not the smallest sign of panic, and the work of discovering the wouhded and collecting thejn was Immediately begun. This was made doubly difficult by the darkness, tut everyone sprang.>to it with .a will. Many of the injured had been blown from their cots, some even outside their tents, where t they were found tangled up iff the tent poles. The American nurse, although struck In the face by a fragment of steel from the bomb, refused to be relieved, and remained at her task courageously to the end. A hospital orderly who worked untiringly was found later to have been struck in the head by a fragment and painfully Injured. He had just tied up his head and gonebn. “In the operating room Capt, Horace Binnoy and Elliott with their assistants worked all night. Several delicate operations were performed and their task was made all the harder by the fact that in innumerable cases the patients wpre in serious danger of infection from the pieces of wood and nails and dirt which had been blown into their bodies. “Lieut. Col. E. U. Pattison, U. S. A., commanding officer of the unit, and Maj. Harvey Cushing, head of the surgical force, the latter being at the front at the time of the disaster, have expressed the highest admiration for the manner in which the emergency was met. Latest reports are that the condition' of the wounded Is progressing satisfactorily.”