It seemed like Sunday: the Sunday hush.”Īt the end of one trench Church noted a seemingly unimportant detail: a detached automobile horn. “It was very still, the stillness of the high places accentuated by the tension of ever waiting for the scream of shells and the scrambling rush of infantry attack. Mostly, though, the hills of France were quiet. One fell on a shelter he’d only just departed, killing the French doctor who had shown him around. In the trenches near Verdun he came within 40 feet of German-occupied soil and heard shells explode nearby. On orders from his superiors Church soon went looking for the conflict. “Pencils of white streaked the heavens and there seemed to be a rapt attention in the air of the low-voiced French speaking people.” “There were crowds of people in the streets, watching the skies,” Church wrote later. Everyone seemed to be waiting to hear the whistle of German bombs. He went to see a moving picture, and when he left the theater, the city was cloaked in the protective cover of darkness. Along the Western Front he encountered wounded men who suffered not only from bombs and bullets but also from chemicals that burned like fire in the lungs and on the skin.Ĭhurch arrived in Paris before daybreak, and his first direct encounter with the war came that evening. The combat in Europe was different, though. Church was an experienced surgeon whose service in the Spanish-American War had earned him a Medal of Honor. But that winter he was sent to France to gather information on Allied hospitals, ambulance routes, and medical posts. The United States had so far stayed out of the conflict in Europe, so for an American like Church the war had remained a distant affair. Two months later the Sussex would be torpedoed by a German U-boat, but on that night the trip across the channel went smoothly. The ship was so full that some passengers huddled on deck for the five-hour trip. With war raging in Europe the journey was likely a tense one. One winter night in 1916 James Robb Church boarded the ferry Sussex, sailing from England to France.
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