Someone Blunders About Medicine Stores--Spanish Influenza At Sea And No Medicine--Improvised Hospitals At Time Of Landing--Getting Results In Spite Of Red Tape--Raising Stars And Stripes To Hold The Hospital--Aid

Of American Red Cross--Doughboys Dislike British Hospital--Starting American Receiving Hospital--Blessings On The Medical Men.

At Stoney Castle camp in England, inquiry by the Americans had elicited

statement from the British authorities that each ship would be well

supplied with medicines and hospital equipment for the long voyage into

the frigid Arctic. But it happened that none were put on the boat and

all that the medical officers had to use were three or four boxes of

medical supplies that they had clung to all the way from Camp Custer.

Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded

Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali,"

which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the

fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature

of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital but lay in

their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth day

out all the "flu" medicines were exhausted.

It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three

ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of

Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of

hospitals.

On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About

thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital,

such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into

old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double

decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If

lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death

stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed.

The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come to

this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a dread disease in a strange

and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them died and the wonder is that

more men did not die. What stamina and courage the American soldier

showed, to recover in those first dreadful weeks!

No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical

officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,

was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of

the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,

Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein

and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they

performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were

crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.

The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base, was

started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of Major

Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start a

separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been blocked

by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared that it

was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or medical

personnel.

However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in

Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing them

from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by sending

back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters of Major

Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the British and

American red tape, in going through military channels.

At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid of

the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the hospital

from among the officers and men who had been wounded and were recovered

or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy duty on the

fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two American

Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the former later being

one of five American women who, for services in the World War, were

awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.

On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was also

used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was served by

Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley were in

charge of the hospital.

A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and

Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola.

A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little

Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been rumor

and more or less open declaration of the British medical authorities

that the Americans would not be permitted to start a hospital of their

own in Archangel. The Russian sisters who owned the building were

interested observers as to the outcome of this clash in authority. It

was settled one morning about ten o'clock in a spectacular manner much

to the satisfaction of the Americans and Russians. Captain Wynn of the

American Red Cross came to the assistance of Captain Hall, supplying the

American flag and helping raise it over the building and dared the

British to take it down. Then he supplied the hospital with beds and

linen and other supplies and comfort bags for the men, dishes, etc. This

little hospital is a haven of rest that appears in the dreams today of

many a doughboy who went through those dismal days of the first month in

Archangel. There they got American treatment and as far as possible food

cooked in American style.

In October the number of sick and wounded men was so large that another

hospital for the exclusive use of convalescents was opened in an old

Russian sailor's home in the near vicinity of American Headquarters.