Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1919 — WALT NAGEL AT FT. HARRISON [ARTICLE]

WALT NAGEL AT FT. HARRISON

Rensselaer Boy Recovering Nicely From Recent Operation. Joseph Nagel received word from the base hospital at Ft. Benjamin Harrison that his son Walter, who was operated on for appendicitis when returning from overseas, two days before landing at Hoboken, N. J., had arrived in Indianapolis Friday evening from the hospital in the east to which he was taken on landing there; that he was getting along the finest kind and had the best of care; for him not to worry about him at all. Walter will probably be furloughed home within a few days now. In speaking of the operation and of the troops on the Finland, a New York paper says: Two delicate operations were performed on two’ soldiers while the transport Finland was on her way to New York from St. Nazalre with 3,500 troops. When the vessel docked in Hoboken yesterday the two patients were in fine condition.

Private Walter Nagle, B company, 103 d Engineers, of Rensselaer, Indiana, was stricken with appendicitis when the vessel was two days out and an immediate operation was necessary. Fortunately the sea was very calm. The operation was performed by Lieutenant Commander D. R. Ryan, assistant navy surgeon on the Finland. Private C. W. Hall, a casual, whose home is Ln South Carolina, was also an appendicitis patient. Both operations were successful. The main organization on board the Finland was the 103 d Engineer Regiment, of the Keystone Division, who in turn built bridges and went into the line as Infantrymen, and, like other units of the Twentyeighth division, suffered heavy losses. Colonel F. A. Snyder, a Philadelphia engineer, took the regiment to France and returned in command of it. One of the remarkable feats of the regiment was the construction of a trestle bridge over the Marne river near Chateau-Thierry, on July 21, when the Germans were making supreme efforts to break the allied line. As the Germans were driven back the American troops went over the bridge and the engineers threw first waive of French troops that went into the attack. Again on October 4 at La Forges they went into the line as infantry combat troops, and on October 6, in the supreme attack by the Twentysixth division on the La Chene Tondu Ridge they were part of the Fifty-sixth infantry brigade, which suffered heavy losses, but gained their objective. During the fighting the regiment lost sixty-six killed, 278 wounded, 271 gassed, thirty-seven shellshocked and three missing, a total of 636 casualties. Ono of the dead was Lieutenant Colonel Frank J. Dufy, killed August 17, at Courville. Corporal Arthur Dieter of Scranton, Pa., received the D. S. for rescuing another 'member of his company under heavy fire. Homing back in command of Base hospital No. 23, was Captain

Timothy F. Donovan of Buffalo, attached to the unit as a surgeon. He is a brother of Colonel William Donovan, of the Sixty-ninth regiment of New York.