The car was a pool of blood.

In what is one of his most harrowing diary entries, Grant Willard describes his first exposure to chemical warfare and losing one of his charges.

Sunday, August 19, 1917:

Beautiful morning. No calls came in during the night. Johnnie and I went on duty about noon. We made one trip to La Source, 2 to Sainte-Fine and got no more calls until 2 A.M. Monday when we went to Berjes on a call for 5 bad couchés. It was a terrible trip. The road was jammed and it was close to 4 A.M. before we were able to get a passage. The location of Berjes is such that it is frequently heavy with German gas. Tonight they were sending gas shell after shell into the valley. The air was very still and heavy so that the gas did not rise as high as the [poste de secours]. We felt the effect of the gas on our eyes, nose and throat and watched the Frenchmen closely to know when to put our masks on. We didn’t need them all night though what little we got made us sleepy and tired. We waited at the poste about half an hour during which time we must have heard 100 gas shells explode in the valley below not more than 100 yards away.

We finally got our load of 5 couchés (very bad cases) and started on our return journey. By 5 o’clock we had reached the Citerne and by 6 o’clock Bévaux. The worst case had died on our hands. It was a depressing feeling to think that a man had suffered and bled to death in your car. He had one leg shot entirely away, the other leg badly crushed up to the knee and a bullet wound through the head. During the ride he had threshed around in semi-consciousness until he had broken the bandages on his left crushed leg and had bled to death. The car was a pool of blood. I am glad he didn’t live, however, because he was suffering terribly and would probably have had both legs removed at the thigh had he lived.

It’s so useless, hopeless and destructive.

On this date 100 years ago Grant sat down to write a letter home after his first taste of war. He was in a state of shock from what he'd experienced.


Friday – Aug. 17, 1917

Dear Family:-

Have been sitting at this table for the last 15 minutes trying to collect my thoughts sufficiently to assemble them into some sort of an epistle which I feel is due you. The thought which continually comes to mind and refuses to evacuate is the significance and true meaning of the war, or rather the phrase “modern warfare” and the hopelessness and uselessness of this present war in which we 40 men are trying to play our infinitesimal part. Having just come off a 48 hour shift up near the front I am chock full of it and I don’t know that my brain has been sufficiently cleared by the three hours sleep I have just received to relate it in anywhere near accurate sequence to you. However, I shall attempt to do so in brief. I shall fulfill your request in telling you a bit more about our work over here. Please don’t blame me if the censors see fit to remove part of it.

The French military departments are about as follows: Army, Army Corps, Brigade, Division, Regiment and Companies. A Regiment over here is made up of anywhere from 1000 to 3000 men. A Division comprises anywhere from 2 to 7 Regiments depending upon the sector served by said Division. Each Division has anywhere from 1 to 3 or 4 Ambulance sections serving it. All of these sections were formerly French sections but have been gradually replaced by either the American Red Cross or American Field Service. The French sections have not been entirely replaced by any means but to a considerable extent.

With this as a foundation then let me tell you more of Section 61’s situation. We are serving with Division [CENSORED]which is at present in a rather hot sector and therefore considerably swelled in numbers and therefore we are serving with Sect. 1 of the American Field Service who have been operating in this district for some time.

We are responsible for about 10 posts called “Postes de Secours” to which the wounded are brought by French “brancardiers”. The roads to these various posts centralize at a cave called Citerne Marceau. All of these roads are partly exposed to the Boche sausage balloons in the day time so our work as well as that of the supply trains and artillery caissons is done under cover of night in pitch blackness over roads made very rough by heavy traffic and occasional shelling by enemy guns. Four cars are kept at the Citerne continually and the remainder are kept back here at our base ready for instant call when the other four are busy. We are supposed to work on 24 hour shifts but we have been rather unfortunate with cars of late and have been called upon to use every available car for the last two nights. My car happens to be in perfect running condition which fact keeps me on the job a good share of the time. The work has been very hard for the last two nights.

The wounded are classified under two heads – couchés and assis. A couché is a badly wounded man who has to be carried on a stretcher. An assis is a sitting case. Our cars carry either 10 assis or 5 couchés or a combination of the two. Every incoming load stops at the Citerne for inspection and any work which requires immediate attention is done there by a very good French medical corps. From there the wounded are carried by us to this hospital where the worst cases are taken. The rest are taken by a French section of Fiats to hospitals in the vicinity so that the place may be kept as clear as possible. The other night and night before last the work here was too heavy for the French Fiat sections and I was called out at 3 P.M. that day to help evacuate. We were busy until 1 P.M. yesterday. We carried during that time 35 cases in six trips. You can perhaps judge from this something of the difficulty of night work on heavy roads with no light. Some of the cases were very bad gas cases.

I went to bed upon my return and was aroused at 4 P.M. by the good news that Mr. Norton was in camp and had brought some mail with him. The mail proved to be one registered package for some one else. At 5 P.M. yesterday the chief asked me if I would take himself and Mr. Norton up to one of our posts. Of course I did. The road was being shelled by the Boche and we had to take refuge in an abri (which is an underground cave found everywhere along the roads) where we remained from about 10 P.M. to 4 this morning. After the shelling ceased the road became jammed with wagons and trucks and being very slippery after a heavy rain we found it necessary to wait until almost daylight before the road became sufficiently cleared to run on. We found our car untouched and made a rapid trip home. This place never looked so good before. During our 6 hours in that hole in the ground Mr. Norton told us many funny experiences and kept us in good humor all the time. He’s a great man and I’m sure every fellow here is mighty proud to be working under such a man. Such experiences as these ought to make men out of us all. While one can’t avoid a decided hate for the enemy he learns patience, calmness, ability to think rapidly in emergencies and he incidentally becomes very fleet of foot. In addition to this he becomes a decided pacifist and loathes the person or persons who instigate such murderous slaughter. It’s so useless, hopeless and destructive. There is no gain there from which cannot be obtained without the sacrifice of human lives and the sacrifice of every thing the human mind has spent all these years in developing. The other night I had a town pointed out to me and was told that we were then passing through the main street. Gun flashes revealed the fact that not a single stone of that town was still whole. It was an absolutely flat mass of broken stone without a single building or tree left standing. It’s criminal: and the responsible party deserves to be punished accordingly. I have had my fill and will be glad to return to America but it will be to a New America. I’m sure Americans have no idea what hell is and will not until our boys get busy and their stories told back home.

But take heart, dearest family, and tell mother not to worry. By the time you receive this letter we will be off this sector and in repos somewhere far from this hell hole and December will find me on my way home to you.

Now I must go and get my blankets in before the dew falls.

Use your own judgment Dad in showing this letter to mother.

Much love,

Grant.

Convois Automobiles,

Section Américaine, S.S.U. 61,

Bureau Central Militaire,

Paris, France.

Mr. Norton’s a brick.

Richard Norton (1872-1918) was an archaeologist and amateur baroque-art scholar. The son of Charles Eliot Norton (Harvard art historian), he graduated from Harvard College in 1892. At the outbreak of WWI he organized the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps, known also as "Norton's Corps." It later merged with the H.H. Harjes ambulance unit of the French army, which, in turn, was absorbed by the U.S. Army in the fall of 1917. Norton died of meningitis in Paris in 1918.

Thursday, August 16, 1917:

Was awakened at 4:30 P.M. with the news that [Richard] Norton was in camp. The Chief asked me if I would take Mr. Norton, Mr. Langelier and himself up to [the aid station at] Carrière Sud. At 8:30 we started. It was too late for an easy run. The roads were jammed with artillery and ammunition trains.

About half way between Chambouillet and Carrière Sud we suddenly came on to one of our cars in the dark. It was backed in against the hill with the front end blocking traffic. A wagon driver was trying to pass, cursing like a good fellow. Just then a shell dropped near us and warned us that we were in a dangerous place. We thought at first something had happened to the boys on the stalled car, but they were nowhere in sight and their motor ran when I cranked it up to move it out of the way. We found a wide place in the road and drove both cars out of the danger of passing traffic. Then we dug for an abri [shelter]. On reaching an abri we found the other boys safe, but somewhat frightened. We there also 2 bad couchés which we couldn’t account for until a Frenchman came in with the news that one of our cars was stalled up the road about 100 yards coming with 5 couchés coming from Carrière Sud and that these were two which they had brought into our abri for safety. Chief and Matt walked up the road and soon came back with Wilson Clarke and Shorty Prior who had run their car into a shell hole in the middle of the road and broken the front X all to pieces. They had moved the car out of the way.

To go on in that shell fire was out of the question. To go back against that traffic was impossible so we prepared to stay until just before daybreak when traffic ceases until dark again. We had nothing to do but put boards across the 3 ft. space in the abri over the couchés and smoke and talk. Mr. Norton’s a brick. He told us many interesting things among which was the fact that the French attack was being held up a couple of days in order to coöperate with the English on their big offensive in Belgium, that this was to be the biggest attack ever launched in the history of the world and that he didn’t see how the war could possibly continue through the coming winter. Incidentally he said we oughtn’t to have Carrière Sud on our list at all because of the danger and delay--that our cars ought to be working instead of laying up for repair.

Well, we smoked up five or six packages of cigarettes until 3:30 finally came. Suddenly in walked Bart and Jake on their way to Carrière Sud. We got all five couchés out and started to load them in to Matt’s car to go back to Citerne. We were loading № 4 when a shell landed near us. When we turned around to load the 5th couché we found nothing but stretcher. Thinking that he had rolled into the ditch for safety we crawled on our hands and knees in mud four inches deep searching every shell hole all in vain. Jake and I ran up to the abri and asked them if they knew anything about him. They furnished us the interesting fact that last couchés had run into the abri about 5 min. before and said he was going over to La Source. Matt & Rap returned. Bart, Sparks, Chief and myself went on to Carrière Sud. We found the road pretty well chopped up but passable. We loaded up and returned by light of a beautiful sunrise, reaching Beaulieu about 6 A.M. very tired but happy that the night had passed with all of Section 61 present and accounted for. №1 was badly damaged but not irreparable. ‘Twas indeed a warm welcome for Mr. Norton.

The Germans are using a new gas called "tear gas" which is hardly noticeable until it has complete hold on you.

With only a few days' notice Grant Willard was thrown into his ambulance work. Working under cover of night he and his aide, Johnny Taylor, evacuated wounded soldiers from aid posts and hospitals to areas in the rear. In his diary he refers to sitting patients as assis and those lying on stretchers as couchés, from the French.

Wednesday, August 15, 1917:

Johnny and I went on duty evacuating from Bevaux to various hospitals in this district at 3 P.M. today. This hospital does not keep cases which they can safely move on to other hospitals. The wounded are brought from the field posts by American Ambulance Section 1 and ourselves, and are left at this Bevaux base. From there they have formerly been evacuated by a French section of Fiat cars, but since the attack has started there have been too many cases for them to handle. We have offered four of our cars to help them out. So Johnnie and I were put on for our 24 hour shift. We carried our first load of two couchés and 4 assis to the Vadelaincourt hospital which is about 30-35 kilometers from here and returned for supper.

From then on to 1 P.M. Thursday we carried 5 more loads to various places near here--Belrupt and Dugny are the principal ones. We carried about 30 cases during that time, 15 of which were couchés and bad cases. At 2 A.M. we went to Dugny with three bad couchés. It was our first trip to that hospital. When we got down there we found the town in complete darkness and under shell fire. There wasn’t a soul we could ask directions of. We finally found what appeared to be a hospital, but we couldn’t rouse a soul. Johnny at last pulled about 6 nurses out of an abri and one of them could speak very good English. She told us we were at the wrong hospital and directed us to the correct one. Even then if it hadn’t been for a chance meeting of one of our cars on its way to Vadelaincourt we would never have found the place.


Most of the cases are brought in to this base to this base early in the morning around 5 and 6 o’clock because the night is very busy up at the front and roads are almost impassable because of camion trains and wagons. There were many, many gas cases brought in. The Germans are using a new gas called (in English) "tear gas" which is hardly noticeable until it has complete hold on you. Your eyes and nose and mouth all run and you feel sick all over. It doesn’t kill instantly, but puts one out of commission. There are other gases which are more poisonous, but can be smelled and seen before getting the best of one and masks put on. The odors vary. Some are plain chlorine, others smell like rotten vegetables, cheese, garlic, etc.

Beautiful green fields replaced with crater filled, barren waste-land.

The cataclysmic Battle of Verdun lasted for ten months: from February 21 to December 18, 1916. Total casualties for the French and German armies exceeded 700,000 men. In addition, the battle destroyed the city of Verdun and transformed the surrounding terrain into a barren moonscape.

When Section Sixty-One arrived the following year, the fighting was still going on sporadically although the French had regained much of the lost ground. Over a few short weeks in August, Grant and his comrades got more than a taste of the horrors of war, witnessing scenes that they'd never forget.


Saturday, August 11, 1917:
 

Got up at 7:45 A.M. with a headache after a more or less nervous night with heavy artillery fire going on all night. The noise was terrific this A.M. about 5 o’clock. Think what it will be when the offensive starts! We haven’t been shelled since last evening, but 5 shells have passed over our heads this P.M. There was considerable air activity this P.M., but we saw nothing spectacular.

The evening passed quietly without much excitement. The Boche have been shelling a road back of our camp. Their purpose is more than I can guess. There is very little traffic this evening over the road. Later the activity starts when camion trains and troops pass on to the front for the night. It is remarkable how they are able to shell accurately a spot invisible to them. The evening was clear enough for considerable air activity and we spent the evening looking for excitement, but all the excitement took place far out of our sight. We could hear machine gun fire way up in the air, but out of sight.

Having been here a day I am now able to describe in a way our situation. A diagram will give in a way the relative positions of the various important details.

We are on a mound, less than a mile from Verdun, just out side of the walls of our hospital -- Caserne Bevaux. We overlook a beautiful valley on the south through which a broad canal winds and twists lazily. The valley was once beautiful and fertile and the canal a busy path with continuous strings of large canal boats passing down to Verdun and other centers. Now the scene is quite different. Where beautiful green fields once lay now are replaced with crater filled, barren waste-land. Where patches of woodland dotted the green floor now only desolate sticks like tomb stones are left standing. The whole floor is a mass of crossed and recrossed roads -- white against the black of the ruins. The roads all lead somewhere, but where I have not yet learned: Undoubtedly they lead to "Somewhere in France" and we shall find out all we want to know about them before long. While one road is being shelled from the German lines about 6 miles away other roads are noisy with long endless lines of artillery, camion trains, troops trains and provision trains. The big movement starts about 6 or 7 P.M. and continues until day light.

The sky is dotted with sausage balloons and aëroplanes.

My turn will come soon

As August 1917 rolled on, Grant Willard went from the bucolic to the downright dangerous. Section Sixty-One moved to a base hospital just south of the city of Verdun known as the Surgical Center of Beaulieu. It was located at a cavalry barracks called Casernes de Bévaux. Today the old barracks buildings are part of a vocational high school and the only remnants of World War I lie in the national cemetery of Bévaux opposite.

Friday, August 10, 1917:

National Cemetery of Bévaux in 2008

8 o’clock found us on our way to our new base. We passed back over part of the same territory on which we came the other day. Reached our base about 5:30. At 6 o’clock three big German shells tore up the ground about ¼ of a mile off. We thought at first they were trying for us, but I think they were shelling one of the main roads near here. It caused a great deal of excitement anyway. The screams of the shells was terrific. They came about 1 minute apart and in approximately the same place. They certainly ripped up the sod. I foolishly watched two of them land from the fender of my car. The third one found me flat on the ground with the rest of the gang.

We have five posts to make with this hospital as a base. We are one mile from Verdun almost directly south. Our furthest post is up near Fort Douaumont about 1,000 yards from German lines. The rest are further south, but still near the lines and very exciting. This base is called Caserne Beaulieu or more familiarly Bévaux. It is a combination hospital and barracks and quite frequently shelled by the Boche. We are living in tents just out of the hospital walls – 14 in a tent. Our cars are parked about 100 yards from here under a big red cross flag. Aeröplanes are passing over continually.

This evening a German plane attacked an observation sausage right near here. The observer saw him coming and left the balloon in a parachute. Regardless of continual shelling from the ground the German made a beautiful swoop for the sausage, like a hawk swoops on prey, and burned it with an incendiary boom before the French could take it down. The German then went after a second sausage a short distance off. The observer left in a parachute, the French planes drove the German back over the lines before he did any more damage. It was extremely exciting to watch and we rooted like at a foot-ball game. The German was exceedingly clever and did his work beautifully. Later we saw an air battle in which a German plane was brought down inside the French lines.

Went to bed early after a hard day. Three of the boys went out with an American Field Service man tonight to learn the roads. We are to cover these 5 posts in conjunction with Section #1 of the American Field Service. We work on 24 hour shifts and they have already been here about 3 weeks. They are showing us the roads before the big offensive starts. Our work is most all done at night with no lights. My turn will come soon. The Field Service men say this is a particularly heavy district to cover.

We go out in the morning near Verdun to take part in one of the worst sectors of France.

Thursday, August 9, 1917:

Fine day. Took a bath in a muddy stream near here after spending most of the A.M. under the car examining universal joint and differential.

We go out in the morning near Verdun to take part in one of the worst sectors of France. We have been supplied with two new gas masks, making three in all. One is to be carried always. Also we were given emergency rations and medicine kits. We are requested to wear our helmets all the time. We received instructions regarding our work and what to do when under shell fire. It begins to look like real war.

Wrote Dorothy and went to bed early.