{"id":397,"date":"2014-09-08T14:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T14:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archives.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/?p=397"},"modified":"2023-11-28T19:59:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T19:59:39","slug":"ambulance-volunteers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/2014\/09\/08\/ambulance-volunteers\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Ambulance Volunteers, 1917"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Angela Jordan<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of four posts written for “WWI and Champaign County” of the\u00a0Town & Gown<\/a> Speaker Series, a collaboration between the Student Life & Culture Archives and the Champaign County Historical Archives. <\/em><\/p>\n

Research for this post contributed by Maggie Cornelius<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

University of Illinois students found multiple ways to aid the Allies in Europe prior to the U.S. entry in April of 1917. Among the students who traveled to war zones was a committee of volunteer ambulance drivers. On May 15, 1917, over twenty Illini men set sail for France to help deliver the wounded from the front to military hospitals.[1]<\/a> The chairman of this Ambulance Committee was Christian \u201cChris\u201d Gross. An agriculture student and a member of the Daily Illini<\/em> editorial board, Sigma Delta Chi, Alpha Gamma Rho, and Psi Upsilon,[2]<\/a> Gross organized and sent volunteer ambulance drivers to Europe for a six-month stint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Christian Gross (Infantry) and Charles Gross (Cavalry) in Hachita, New Mexico, August, 1918. Found in RS 41\/2\/17, Box 14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In order to fund its mission, the Ambulance Committee solicited local businesses, held a dance at the Illini Union, and traveled to Chicago to ask for donations from wealthy Chicagoans. The University YMCA also held a fundraising dinner and Campus Red Cross volunteers contributed to the Ambulance Committee by making \u201ccomfort bags\u201d that contained toiletries and small treats for the drivers.[3]<\/a> After a competitive enrollment process and a send-off ceremony led by Dean Babcock, the Illini volunteers joined the war effort on the western front.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Upon arriving in France, the men attended a training camp in May-en-Multen where they cleaned the mill and learned the French military\u2019s salute and march. The Ambulance Committee was assigned to the first American Field Service ambulance unit that replaced the French Army\u2019s: Section 65 of the American Field Service. Section 65 included volunteers from other universities and four Berliet ambulances that fit 6-10 people each. In July, volunteers first experienced the \u201cthrills of modern warfare\u201d when they drove wounded soldiers from rescue posts (posts de secours<\/em>) to field and base hospitals. Although volunteers did not carry the wounded from the battlefields to the rescue posts, they witnessed first-hand the explosion of shells and the garlic smell of poison gas.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Illio, 1919<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harold M. Page traveled to Europe with the Illinois Ambulance Unit in the spring of 1917.\u00a0 In a letter to Dean Clark dated September 1, 1917, Page put his student editorial skills to good use:<\/p>\n

We work 48 hours at a time.\u00a0We see much of suffering and waste and blood and pain; we smell powder and drugs and wet blankets and trench mud, we contemplate the price that\u2019s paid for every trench when we see the human scrap that\u2019s thrown back for us to pass on back to the discard.\u00a0It gets to you; it\u2019s depressing and maddening sometimes.\u00a0Now, with this as the routine for 48 hours what do you think a fellow is going to want to write about when he writes.\u00a0It\u2019s going to be anything else in the world.\u00a0Why we don\u2019t even talk about the work among ourselves. We always inquire eagerly about how things are at the poste, for there\u2019s always that one dreaded possibility. Then we want to know if firings light or heavy and if there are many or few blesses [wounded] and that\u2019s all.\u00a0We talk about everything else under the sun but ourselves and our work.”[6]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Correspondence was sparse and erratic, and Illinoisans waited in anticipation for news of the Ambulance Committee. In August, a rumor circulated that Gross and two other members of the Committee had been seriously wounded or killed. The Chicago Tribune<\/em> sent an inquiry to Paris to verify the rumor, and Gross responded by telegram to disprove the rumor in September. He reassured the Tribune<\/em> that \u201cnot an Illinois man received even a scratch,\u201d and joked that \u201cthe moment I heard of the death, I knew it was a lie.\u201d[7]<\/a> Unfortunately, this was not true for all Section 65 men. In the summer of 1917, Harvard man Paul Bentley died after a German shell hit his ambulance and wounded him.[8]<\/a> Later that year, friends of Bentley purchased an ambulance to memorialize the fallen volunteer. Gross and the rest of Section 65 donated, and the ambulance was sent to the European war zone to continue Bentley\u2019s work.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Illio, 1919<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After its July mission, Section 65 was awarded an exceptional service award\u2014the Croix de Guerre<\/em>\u2014which Gross attributed to Illini men who \u201coutclassed\u201d others from Yale and Cornell.\u00a0 Harold M. Page briefly notes this award in his letter to Dean Clark: “You have heard, I suppose, that the section received a citation. \u00a0I was decorated with the Croix de Guerre at Epieds on Aug 7. \u00a0It was a beautiful ceremony; the band played the Star Spangled Banner and Le Marseillaise, they said a bunch of nice things about our work and we were very happy, partly because only 3 other sections have ever been given the cross en sections.”[10] <\/a>Although all Illini volunteer ambulance drivers returned from the war, correspondence to Dean Clark, family, and friends gave insight to the danger, gruesomeness, and terror that Section 65 witnessed.<\/p>\n

Three Illini men from Section 65 enlisted in the U.S. Ambulance Service at the end of their volunteer stint: Chris Gross, Ray Gauger, and Milt Silver.[11]<\/a> Prior to enlisting, Gross returned to the States to receive a Captaincy for his service with the American Ambulance Corps. In 1918, he attended officer’s training at Camp Grant. He became a First Lieutenant in 1919 and served in Vladivostok, Siberia.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] “Ambulance Corps Says Farewell,” Daily Illini<\/em>, May 11, 1917, p. 1.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2] Illio<\/em>, 1918, p. 58.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3] “Get $3,750 for Ambulance Fund,” Daily Illini<\/em>, April 29, 1917, p. 1.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[4] “Ambulance Corps Says Farewell,” Daily Illini<\/em>, May 11, 1917, p. 8.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[5] Arthur A. Daily, “And We Got the War Cross, “Illio<\/em>, 1919.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6] Harold Meredith Page to Dean Clark, War Service Records, 1917-19, Record Series 41\/2\/17, Box 24, University of Illinois Archives.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[7] “Illinois Ambulance Men Outclass Others–Gross” Daily Illini<\/em>, November 21, 1917, p. 8.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[8]\u00a0Arthur A. Daily, “And We Got the War Cross,”Illio<\/em>, 1919.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[9] “Chris Gross Gives $50 to Paul Bentley Fund,” Daily Illini<\/em>, December 15, 1917, p. 5.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[10]\u00a0Harold Meredith Page to Dean Clark, War Service Records, 1917-19, Record Series 41\/2\/17, Box 24, University of Illinois Archives.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[11] “Chris Gross ’17 is Now Somewhere in the States,” Daily Illini<\/em>, November 15, 1917, p. 3.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[12] Chicago Post<\/em>, April 30, 1918.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Angela Jordan One of four posts written for “WWI and Champaign County” of the\u00a0Town & Gown Speaker Series, a collaboration between the Student Life & Culture Archives and the Champaign County Historical Archives. Research for this post contributed by Maggie Cornelius. University of Illinois students found multiple ways to aid the Allies in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":626,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28,303,344],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-found-in-the-archives","tag-ambulance-drivers","tag-town-gown-speaker-series","tag-world-war-i"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/626"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11436,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/11436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/slc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}