Deeds of heroism and bravery

Bravery is the beautiful, impatient gesture of the soul at its highest reach, baring its own breast to a fatal wound in its eagerness to deal a fatal blow at something it abhors.

The air-raids over London and Paris and the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and various hospital ships horrified the world. The first gas attacks added a new shudder to war. The prol...

“Half of this little force was under Captain Duncan and the other half under Lieutenant Robertson. The enemy’s fire, as they neared the town, was frightful, and more men fell th...

Major-General Robert Lee Bullard saw far more actual fighting than many of his colleagues in the old regular Army establishment. He led the First Division in France and later re...

It was an extraordinarily nondescript assembly—all nationalities, all colors, from the black of the negro to the blonde of the Saxon, having but two things in common, their form...

“Then suddenly out of that weird darkness, that curious silence that had been disturbed only by the rapid, half-choked panting of the steam tugs, the surge of the water against...

“Seated well up in front in the orchestra as the manager’s announcement was made was a man about forty-four years old. The audience, with the exception of this particular man, b...

He was cited for extraordinary heroism in action between the Argonne and the Meuse. With great coolness and bravery under machine-gun and shell fire, he maintained liaison betwe...

The son of the Great Garibaldi wrote letters to five of his seven sons scattered about the world. Two of them were in New York (Giuseppe, named for his grandfather, and Ricciott...

“No Archduke’s little life was worth the titanic butchery of the world war. The beginning was petty and small. And I, looking back at horror, horror, horror, cannot forget the e...

“I remember an Irishman, quite of the type of Micky Free in Lever’s novel, a rollicking, jolly child of the Emerald Isle, pretty badly battered, but with a sparkle in his eye at...

And there were men from tribes less well known: the Gurhwals, a comparatively new regiment, who proved their mettle at “the Indian Neuve Chapelle.” This was an engagement in Nov...

But even when recruits came the work of the Ambulance Corps was such that the need of men was increased, and Dick continued to drive his ambulance, postponing a little further h...

Fred Holmes, corporal in the Yorkshire Light Infantry, was awarded France’s chief military decoration, the _Médaille Militaire_, for gallantry during the fight on the Aisne. The...

That is the story of Jesse A. Whaley, told by himself while an inmate of the Red Cross Institute for the Blind, where the blinded soldiers are aught trades and occupations in wh...

“I have tried to account for it, and it appears to be like this: at first our thoughts are almost incessantly occupied with the frightful things that are about to happen. Then m...

“Seeing the grenade could not be thrown away without making certain the wounding of American troops—most probably some of his own men—Sergt. Purdy instantly commanded his men to...

“On June 21, we left the sector of the Thiescourt Woods for an unknown destination, which proved to be the Somme. We took the train at Estrées St. Denis, and on June 22 about 10...

“We joined in on the left. There was no time for us any more than the others to get into extended order. We formed another stream converging on the others at the summit. By this...

A man in American uniform appeared among the United States troops in the Vesle sector, shouted that resistance was useless, and that American officers had advised everybody to s...

“And the ‘Razzle Dazzle’ carried out her own idea of attack. She banged head-on into the ‘mill.’ She went right through a wide doorway, making splinters of the door; she knocked...

“Miss Cavell was prosecuted for having helped English and French soldiers, as well as Belgian young men, to cross the frontier and to go over to England. She had admitted by sig...

“‘This little heroine of Picardy, this admirable girl, this incarnation of the qualities of the woman of France, this girl of simple origin, flawless dignity, of serious mind, a...

The surgeons and attendants were greatly alarmed for her. Their experience had taught them the rapidity and horribleness of the effects of gangrene, the most dreaded and the mos...

“Soldiers carried him to shelter, and later he was taken to a field hospital, where he lingered for days between life and death. Ten fragments of the explosive bullet were remov...

But after he had brought down his fiftieth, for some unaccountable reason a change came over Guynemer. He became nervous and irritable. He lost his old vivacity, nerve, dash, an...

Beyond this all that is known is more or less speculative. Jan. 3, 1919, the Graves Registration officer of Neufchateau reported to the Chief of the A. E. F. Air Service on the...

As I was making my “Kiste” ready for flight again in the afternoon, with the help of several drivers of the General Staff auto—that is to say, refilling the benzine tank and car...

“The right-hand machine whirled past him so close that he saw every detail of the pilot’s dress—the fur-fringed helmet, dark goggles, black sweater. He caught his machine out of...

Theodore, too, retained his tenderness despite war’s horrors. In July we read of his paying homage to Lieut. G. Gustofson, Jr. In September he writes to the widow of Lieut. Newb...

He was assigned to pilot duty with a scout and fighting squadron doing service in France, and his first turn of service consisted of patrol duty for three days running. It was a...

“I killed two Huns in a double-seated machine in the morning, another in the evening, and then I was captured myself. I may have spent more eventful days in my life, but I can’t...

“Our old 94 Squadron had won the first American victory over enemy aeroplanes when Alan Winslow and Douglas Campbell had dropped two biplane machines on the Toul aerodrome. 94 S...

“But, above all, I recall that my first thought was the cargo. ‘Is the cargo safely stored? Can it lose its equilibrium?’ Curious as it may sound in retrospect, that is what I i...

“The attack on the _Hogue_ went true. But this time I did not have the advantageous aid of having the torpedo detonate under the magazine, so for twenty minutes the _Hogue_ lay...

The Germans and Austrians, knowing that it would be folly for them to risk a naval battle, kept their navies cooped up in harbors and rivers to the intense disgust of real jacki...

“About 2 a.m.—We reach the third obstruction, which runs parallel to the jetty, without encountering that running from the jetty on the right of the guard boat to the large open...

“Meanwhile Fairfields in Glasgow were hard at work. A special staff of draughtsmen and mechanics were put on to the construction of two flexible tubes, one designed for the pass...

“Yet the men worked on and did their utmost to carry out the directions of those who led them. The place where the hole was about to be cut lay far towards the bows, and to reac...

Then the _Arcadian_ was dismantled and turned into a transport, and Captain Custance took her back to England filled with Canadian troops. But wanting a more war-like job he app...

Among the pre-war activities the German government made a contract with Dr. Karl Buenz, American head of the Hamburg-American Line, for the provisioning, during war, of German s...

There was a veritable storm of excitement in Congress over the imputation of bribery, some Congressmen in the heat of the moment intimating that they knew what members had benef...

“There have only been twelve spies shot since the beginning of the war, but hundreds are either in penal servitude for life or serving shorter sentences. The actual number was n...

“To-day the Belgian flag flows again from the tower of Thielt and the thrifty people of Flanders are busy rebuilding their homes. Many of the men are missing; some died on the b...

He fixed the dynamite against a girder of the bridge above the Canadian bank of the river, adjusted the explosive cap, and touched his cigar to the end of the three-minute fuse....

One of the most impressive features of the national holiday observances in Paris on July 14th, 1918, was the parade by Russian troops led by a giant color-bearer marching along...

We began to brighten perceptibly. Instead of the earth rocking it became the gentle tossing of a languorous, moonlit sea. We leaned our heads in genuine affection against the di...

_Hays, George Price, First Lieutenant_, 10th Field Artillery, 3rd Division, Okarchee, Okla.—Grèves Farm, France, July 14-15, 1918. At the very outset of the unprecedented artill...

_Anderson, Johannes S., Sergeant_, Co. B, 132d Infantry, 33rd Division, Chicago, Ill.—Consenvoye, France, Oct. 8, 1918. While his company was being held up by intense artillery...

_Wickersham, J. Hunter, Second Lieutenant_, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division, Denver, Col.—Limey, France, Sept. 12, 1918. Advancing with his platoon during the St. Mihiel offensive...