Page:Fred Arthur McKenzie - Americans at the Front (1917).djvu/27

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AMERICANS AT THE FRONT.

several of them have died in the fighting ranks. Some joined the French Flying Corps. The case of Mr. Dilwyn Starr is typical of others. The son of Dr. Starr, of Philadelphia, he was conspicuous at Harvard as an athlete, playing for four years in the University football team. At the outbreak of the war he volunteered for service with this Corps, and for several months drove an ambulance for it. In December, 1914, he enlisted as a petty officer in the Armoured Motor Car Section, R.N.A.S., and served with the Duke of Westminster's Squadron in France, taking part in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. Recommended for a commission, he was gazetted second lieutenant in May, 1915. At Gallipoli, he served with distinction as a machine gun officer in the trenches at Suvla Bay. Returning to England, he was given a commission in the Coldstream Guards, joined the Expeditionary Force in July, 1916, and was killed in the great mid-September fight on the Somme.

The work of the Ambulance gives its members full experience of actual war. "One of the posts which we served from the Somme Suippes was in front of and open to the German lines at Tahure," a report stated. "We had been frequently shelled there, but nothing serious had happened, though the hospital tents had been

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