Friday, December 7, 2018

Some Prisoners of War Freed to Fend For Themselves; Trucks Rush Out to Meet Them, 1918

From the Monroe Journal, Dec. 6, 1918

Trucks Rush to Meet the Returning Prisoners. . . Patrolling Swiss Borders to Meet the Boys Discharged from German Prisons. . . Trucks Are Loaded With Medical Supplies, Other Necessities and Thousands of Cigarettes

With the American Army of Occupation, Nov. 28—To prevent American war prisoners from dying of hunger and exposure after release from prison camps in the far interior of Germany, big American motor trucks are swinging along German roads today in the direction of Mannheim.

Assuming that our men are in the same condition as the released prisoners of other nationalities, shoes, beef, hardtack, bandages and cigarettes have been loaded into Red Cross motor trucks and are not only en route to meet them in the German interior, but are patrolling every road along the Swiss frontier where they are likely to cross the friendly border.

On Nov. 11, according to the Spanish embassy, 2,545 Americans were released from German prison camps, the greatest of which is located at Rastatt. This prison released 1,600 privates. Many of our officers were released from Villegen, while others were permitted to leave the 16 various camps in different parts of the former German empire.

These figures as to the number of American prisoners are believed low, because those taken in the fighting a few days before the signing of the armistice were not enumerated. The Americans hold 45,000 German prisoners.

The routes which our men are most likely to take center about Mannheim, and it is toward this point that the main Red Cross relief work is converging. Mannheim, however, remains in the hands of the Socialist revolutionists.

Food is scarce. All roads and railways are congested by the movements of the returning German army. The weather in Germany is very cold, which, together with reports of prisoners of other nationalities dying along the roadsides, caused the Red Cross, with Gen. Pershing’s permission, to make extraordinary efforts to cope with the situation.

This work should ease the minds of the fathers and mothers of American boys who have become alarmed by the plight of other returning prisoners, who, possibly like our men, were turned loose and told to shift for themselves.

Dr. E.F. Pope of Spokane, Wash., who is in charge of one of these trucks, left Metz to proceed until he meets groups of straggling Americans. Dr. Pope’s truck alone carries large quantities of medical supplies, thousands of cigarettes and other necessities.

I learned today that Dr. Pope entered Metz the day before the armistice was signed. Although he was fired on repeatedly, he took a motor truck load of supplies to the American wounded in the Metz hospital. German paper bandages and paper dressings were removed from wounds of injured men there by Dr. Pope, who redressed them with American absorbent cotton and cloth bandages.

When the news of the signing of the armistice was received, the following day there was a stirring scene in the hospital, where fever-tossed patients threw back their blankets, sat up as best they could, and sang The Star Spangled Banner until they became exhausted.

Dr. Pope and his Red Cross associates intended to provide a real Thanksgiving for the men who were walking back to freedom.

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