Identifier: 01120085R.nlm.nih.gov
Title: Ambulance no. 10 : personal letters from the front
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Buswell, Leslie, 1890- author
Subjects: Buswell, Leslie, 1890- American Field Service Voluntary Workers Ambulances World War I
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Contributing Library: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons, U.S. National Library of Medicine

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otruined. There stands Nomenys skeleton.Not a roof, not a particle of wood remains?Just the bare walls of the houses. 144 AMERICAN AMBULANCE We arrived at the outskirts of the townand presenting ourselves at the com-mandants bureau, a lieutenant offeredto show us over the town. I cannot de-scribe it. No words could adequatelyconvey the sickening sense of desolationand desecration. Here are the facts.The Fourth and Eighth Bavarian regi-ments, on August 20, decided to loot thetown. Camions coming from Metz tookaway everything of value. Every housewas burned, house by house, men, womenand children being shot as they tried toescape. Those who were in the basementsof the houses were shot there, or burningpetrol poured into the cellars. When theFrench arrived (our guide was one of thefirst arrivals), they had to bury sixty mur-dered civilians. Our long tramp home was uneventful,though very tiring—except when we cameto the little village where we had restedand lunched with the 75s bursting
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FIELD SERVICE 145 some kilometres away. Here we foundtwo trees across the road, and on makinginquiries learned that the Germans hadseen the Generals staff car going alongthe road (did I explain that the wholelength of this road is in full view of theenemy?) and seeing the car enter the woodand not emerging on the other side, bom-barded the wood, and were successful inwounding the Generals chauffeur. Yesterday we went to Fey-en-Haye,and we saw quite another thing. This lit-tle village, a bit larger than Montauville,is as completely destroyed as Nomeny.It is true that the church was dynamitedby the Germans, but here we have a legiti-mate excuse. The village was of strate-gical importance and the absolute destruc-tion was done after the evacuation of thecivilians. The ruins look as different fromthose of Nomeny as could be imagined.No skeleton remains; it simply has beendestroyed by shell fire, hundreds and hun- 146 AMERICAN AMBULANCE dreds of shells, both French and German.The whole pla

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