Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1917 — HEROINE Of SERBIAN BATTLEFIELDS [ARTICLE]

HEROINE Of SERBIAN BATTLEFIELDS

' One of the bitterest contests chron- , Icled during the great war has for Its setting that bleak region surrounding Gornitchevo and Kaymakohalan, In the Serbian campaigns to defend their lltitle country from the Teuton octopus. In the Serbian ranks were many heroic women who dressed like the men and fought as unselfishly. But iwe are to tell about a little woman — » Scot —who exiled herself from her native hills of old Scotland to march over hard frozen ground' powdered with wind-driven snow on the hills of Serbia. Her claim to fame would very probably have never been from that of many another woman trudging In the Serbian ranks had she not been cast by fate Into a military hospital maintained by British on that front.

In the early winter that saw the beginning of the drives which pushed the Bulgaro-Germans back to the mountain known as Hill No. 1212, this little Scotchwoman was carted to the base hospital with her whole right side, from the shoulder to the knee, a mass of torn flesh and shattered bone. Miss Flora Sands —for that Is the name of this Intrepid Scotswoman — began working In Serbia as a Red Cross nurse early In the war. Her sympathy became so aroused by the sufferings and heroism of the people that, when the hospital units were broken up during ithe great retreat of October and November, 1915, she solicited and obtained permission to enlist as a private soldier In the rear guard that protected the retreating anny. Before that army reached the Adriatic she had won promotion. Become Sergeant Sands, she stood high In the regard of both officers and men of the crack regiment to which she still belongs. On the Macedonian front she went through the whole of the arduous and successful campaign that began on September 12.

By G. KAY SPENCER

It was in the decisive assaults on the highest crest of Hill No. 1212 that Miss Sands’ active career was suddenly cut short. How this happened let her relate in her own words: "We had been crouching In our shallow pits for hours, -waiting impatiently for the order to attack. At seven o’clock in the morning the order came. It was snowing and the snow lay on the ground. I was out of my pit In half a second, and running as fast as my legs would move. I am always the first to leave Cover. It is my duty as a non-commissioned officer. But, unfortunately, I am not so nimble as most of my men. So It happens that I am generally among the last to reach an enemy trench. Well, I had nearly reached the brink of the' Bulgarian trench in which our men were already at grips with the defenders. I was one of a small group of laggards—perhaps half a dozen — when a well aimed grenade fell In Our midst. A couple of men besides myself were in the radius of its explosion and fell wounded, but I seem to have got most of the scatter.” . So this Amazon tells her story. Simple It Is apd self-denying, for a number of her brother officers have stories to tell of the engagement which considerably elaborate upon her terse recital. In the military hospital of Camp No. 41 she was the only patient of her sex. The camp had accommodation for sixteen hundred sick or wounded, and there is a heavy percentage of women among the Serbian armies. A few days after her admittance into the hospital a royal aide de camp came to her bedside "and, on behalf of the prince regent of Serbia, pinned to her breast, with much ceremonial, the gold and sliver cross of Kara-George — a rare badge that Is given only for conspicuous bravery on'the field of battle.