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| An AEF Medic on the Job |
On 12 September 1918 PVT Emile Calhoun, aidman attached to A Company, 1st Battalion, 353d Infantry, 89th Division, went into battle for the first time. He’d joined the Army on 2 April 1918, embarked for France on 3 June, and his first day in the trenches was 6 August. His training was limited, but there was a war to win and the Germans were being hammered along the Western Front. The 1st American Army launched its first attack with the best divisions it had, and the still-green 89th Division was one of those.
Calhoun recorded:
At about 1am one of the most terrible barrages I have yet witnessed begins. The noise is deafening. They sky as light as day, words of mine can never describe the scene. The barrage last balance of the night. We are nearly frozen, wet to the skin, but too excited to care; at 5:20am we are ordered over the top. Can I ever forget the sight? Shells going in all directions and the rat-tat-tat of the machine guns.
My first casualty is Samuel D. Farmer of Co G – First Sergeant with a shrapnel wound in right arm; about this time I saw Major O’Donnell’s orderly lying in a ditch so badly shell shocked he could not his rifle but could not tarry long with him as he was not injured;
At 6:30am PVT Clare F Sparling #2176337 shrapnel wounds in left leg – pvt Onney M Hudspeth #2185736 found dead – Harry C Wray 1st Lieu Co – Bullet wound thru chest;
At 6:55am serg George W Baker Co # - machine gun wounds thru left leg;
At 7:10am pvt Alvin C Berndt Co G #2814858 shrapnel wound in neck;
At 7:15am serg. Elmer E Bartell #2176222 found dead;
At 7:20am pct Mearl E Robins Co H. with wounds in right side;
At 7:25am Owlen J West #2176834 found dead;
At 8am Taylor B Weaver #2846378 found dead and pvt Samuel C Henrigh #2185290 found dead;
At 8:10am 1st Lieut Charles A. Show found dead, he had fallen in a shell hole & his clothing was on fire, I dragged him from this & put out the fire before going on. At 8:20am James W West #2176690 found dead;
At 9:10am Frank W Sharp Co B #2175850 found dead;
At 11:20am pvt Jacob R Groff Co H #2180687 – found with machine gun hole thru hip & compound fracture left thigh, he was in bad shape & wanted water, I gave him the last in my canteen. While taking care of him a plane comes over & flies so low above us that I get nervous, but find it to be an Allied plane & no cause for alarm. During the day several hundred German prisoners have passed thru going to the rear.
Earlier this morning I came upon two dead Germans side by side & near them stood an American soldier looking rather gloomy. I said “Well they certainly got what was coming to them,” his answer was, “Yes they were my prisoners & I was taking them back when some some of **** American came upon them & shot them both!”
It has been a nice day after all the rain & with sun shining most of time. The planes have done wonderful work in having the barrage raised & lowered as we made advances, but in spite of everything several have been killed by our own guns falling short. …
The blood is so thick on my hands & dried, I can’t wash it off. [It would be four days before he could wash his hands.]
At 4pm Corporal Furley E McCloskey Co A #2175602 is killed. He is completely riddled with machine gun bullets & both leg bones sticking up thru his clothing where he has fallen. About this time we dig in on a hill but the Germans shell us so heavily we have to move. …
In about 11 hours of action, PVT Calhoun had treated at least seven wounded, one psychiatric casualty, and had checked a further eight casualties, only to find they were beyond his help. Calhoun survived the battle, and the war, unwounded. He returned to Kansas City, MO, where he resumed working as an undertaker. He died in 1951.
Sources: AMEDD Historian, Issue #49, excerpted from “For We’re All Just Back From Hell”: The Diary of Pvt. Emile M. Calhoun. Ed. Michael C. Joseph. Independence MO, Two Trails Publishing, 2000, LINK
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