THE CLOUDS OF WAR ARE BUILDING

Ambulance Service Drivers

It is all coming quickly to a head, isn't it Ernest? 

The clouds of war are sweeping across the skies of Europe and will shortly jump the pond of the Atlantic and land squarely on the shores of a country unprepared for the impact of it's ripping forces. Young men now daily line up to sign up as the call goes out for soldiers and skilled workers. In your article of April 17, 1918 entitled Six Men Become Tankers you write, "Six men were accepted today for the new tank corps by Lieut. Frank E. Cooter, who arrived from Washington yesterday to recruit men for the special service. The men were selected from a crowd of twenty that appeared at the army recruiting office at Twelfth Street and Grand Avenue today." 

On that same day you also wrote an article titled, Big Day for Navy Drive where you covered the enlistment of sixty-one men at the recruiting office at Eighth and Walnut streets. But it's perhaps your description of what it's like to be a Tanker that I found most interesting, foreshadowing your growing skill at story telling:

"A returned officer from the western front now training recruits at the national tank training camp at Gettysburg, Pa., tells the inside story of one of the land ships in action.

For several days the men prepared for the coming offensive. The tanks are brought up behind the first line trenches under cover of darkness and the crews crawl into the close, oily smelling steel shells. The machine gunners, artillerymen and engineers get into their cramped quarters, the commander crawls into his seat, the engines clatter and pound and the great steel monster clanks lumberingly forward. The commander is the brains and the eyes of the tank. He sits crouched close under the fore turret and has a view of the jumbled terrain of the battle field through a narrow slit. The engineer is the heart of the machine, for he changes the tank from mere protection into a living, moving fighter.

The constant noise is the big thing in a tank attack. The Germans have no difficultly seeing the big machine as it wallows forward over the mud and a constant stream of machine gun bullets plays on the armour, seeking any crevice. The machine gun bullets do no harm except to cut the camouflage paint from the sides. 

The tank lurches forward, climbs up, and then slides gently down like an otter on an ice slide. The guns are roaring inside and the machine guns making a steady typewriter clatter. Inside the tank the atmosphere becomes intolerable for want of fresh air and reeks with the smell of burnt oil, gas fumes, engine exhaust and gunpowder.

The crew inside work the guns while the constant clatter of bullets on the armour sounds like rain on a tin roof. Shells are bursting close to the tank, and a direct hit rocks the monster. But the tank hesitates only a moment and lumbers on. Barb wire is crunched, trenches crossed and machine gun parapets smothered into the mud."

Little do you know, Ernest, that you will soon be among the ranks of fighting men like these Tankers, battling it out in the killing fields of Italy. The time of war is approaching like a great tsunami, and it will sweep over you, literally knocking you off your feet and wreak havoc in ways you could never have predicted. The call of war has thinned the ranks of your fellow reporters as they enlist and go off to Europe and you're feeling the strain. Your letter to your father dated April 16, 1918 has you at your breaking point.

"Dear Old Pop:

I have been down here about seven months, granted. Until lately I have been making not enough to live on. I am only a kid of 19 granted, and have been hitting the pace pretty blame hard. Working in competition with men with three to ten years more experience than I have. I have had to work like sin and have concentrated about three years work into one... And now Pop I am bushed! So bushed that I can't sleep nights, that my eyes get woozy, and that I am losing weight and am tired all the time. I'm mentally and physically all in, Pop, and there isn't any body knows it better than myself."

Hem, my friend, there will be no rest for the weary. The paperwork to call you up to serve was likely being drawn up even as you were planning to take a break and try and get away for some fishing and time in the wilderness. You will barely get your line in the water before your father will reach out to you, in a letter dated May 8th, to let you know that you've been called up for duty and are to report to New York immediately. The telegram from the Red Cross headquarters in St. Louis had arrived in Oak Park that same day. The good news is you will be traveling with a great group of guys and you will meet up with some old friends in New York. The bad news is: the clouds of war are building.