Description
Letter from an acting Corporal in Ambulance Company #16, stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, before deployment to Europe in June, 1917.
Two-page letter, written on “Army and Navy Young Men’s Christian Association” letterhead. Framed with gray matte, archival glass. This letter is written to “George” in New York. The Corporal spends most of the letter detailing camp life at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, noting that a “about 20,000 soldiers are here at present and over a thousand a day come in.” He describes the offices as: “nearly all civilian doctors, who have had training and got in the officer’s reserve corps. They are very decent, but occasionally make “bulls.” An insightful look at camp life, shortly before deployment to the European Theater.
Ambulance Company #16 was part of the 6th Division Medical Regiment, which deployed to France in early 1918. They were initially stationed along a “quiet” part of the line French-German line, between Verdun and St. Mihiel, the Toulon-Troyon sectors, to train with French medical personnel. Ambulance Company #16 arrived in Brest, France on February 5, 1918, then quickly dispatched to Blois, France where they assisted with soldier fatigue and general medical duties. On March 24, 1918, they deployed to Revigny, where they assisted in French hospitals and with evacuations of injured soldiers.
