enough in his forgiving heart to ever forgive. Those were the outrageous
things that happened to the wounded and sick in that North Russian
campaign. Of course much was done and in fact everything was meant to be
done possible for the comfort of the luckless wounded and the men who,
from exposure and malnutrition, fell sick. But there were altogether too
many things that might have been avoided. Lest we forget and go off
again on some such strange campaign let us chronicle the story of the
grief that came to the S. O. L. doughboy.

One American medical officer who went up with the first column of
Americans in the Onega River Valley in the fall never got through
cussing the British medical officer who sent him off with merely the
handful of medical supplies that he, as a medical man, always carried
for emergencies of camp. Story has already been told of the lack of
medical supplies on the two "flu"-infected ships that took the soldiers
to Russia. Never will the American doughboy forget how melancholy he
felt when he saw the leaded shrouds go over the side of the sister ship
where the poor Italians were suffering and dying. And the same ill-luck
with medical supplies seemed to follow us to North Russia.

Dr. Nugent, of Milwaukee, writes after the first engagement on the Onega
front he was obliged to use needle and thread from a doughboys' Red
Cross comfort kit to take stitches in six wounded men.

Lieut. Lennon of "L" Company reports that during the first action of his
Company on the Kodish Front in the fall, there was no medical officer
with the unit in action. The American medical officer was miles in rear.
Wounded men were bandaged on the field with first aid and carried back
twenty-six versts. And he relates further that one man on the field
suffered the amputation of his leg that day with a pocket knife. The
officer further states that the American medical officer at Seletskoe
was neglectful and severe with the doughboys. At one time there was no
iodine, no bandages, no number 9's at Kodish Front. The medical officer
under discussion was never on the front and gained the hearty dislike of
the American doughboys for his conduct.

This matter of medical and surgical treatment is of such great
importance that space is here accorded to the letter and diary notes of
an American officer, Major J. Carl Hall, our gallant and efficient
medical officer of the 339th Infantry, who from his home in Centralia,
Illinois, August