Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1920 — MANY LISTED AS “DESERTERS” DIED IN SERVICE [ARTICLE]

MANY LISTED AS “DESERTERS” DIED IN SERVICE

Hundreds of American listed as “deserters” from the army are now shown by investigation to have died in service in France. This fact be-1 came known at the department of justice yesterday. The department in such cases has “cleared” the records of the war department ■Many of the men who were believed to have escaped service, it was learned, had been improperly listed because of some errors in connection with the transfer from one unit to another, after they had gone through the process of enlistment. E. D. Wood, assistant attorney ini charge of draft law violations, stat-1 ed yesterday that a vigorous hunt is I on to locate draft dodgers who fled i to Mexico, Central America and other foreign countries. Many of; these were wealthy Americans who left the country to avoid service, al-1 though clearly eligible under the