Re: Soldiers gassed in France
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In reply to:
Re: Soldiers gassed in France
cheryl gIL 2/24/06
Cheryl,
Soldiers that were gassed were considered 'wounded' and so listed as such in company returns for the day they were sent to hospital. Depending on the severity of the gassing, after treatment they might be sent back to their original unit, or through a replacement depot on to another unit. This last was usually the case only for those men that were out of action for an extended peiod of time, or for those whose original units were then too far away from their treatment center to easily reach. Severe cases (those that affected a soldiers' ability to perform his duties in the army) were invalidated home for treatment and eventual discharge. While gas actually only caused one half of one percent of the total number of U.S. fatalities during the war, it acounted for about ten percent of those listed as 'wounded/treated and released'. Most men that served in a front line combat situation received some about of gassing to one degree or another. It was the 'Agent Orange' of the First World War generation. While relatively few men actually died of its affects during the war, it wreaked havoc among survivors long afterwords. If one looks at the records of combat veteren's deaths post war, one finds an alarming spike from about 1924-5 or so, on to around the mid 1930's; most of these deaths being respratory related episodes (ie: Phnuemonia, tuberculosis, indeterminate infection, etc...) And many men that lived with the troubles that gas brought about, were disabled for the rest of their lives by breathing problems, digestive system/throat problems, an increased suseptability to colds and 'flu, etc... In some cases, death would have been a preferable choice to the agony of life afterwards was.
As for records, lioke I said he would most likely be listed as simply 'wounded' on most general rolls. Some more detailed rolls, such as unit histories that actually contain casualty lists, might also list what the wound was, such as GSW for Gun Shot Wound, G for Gassed, etc... Outside of general unit histories, there is little out there. There is a book that the government put together after the war that lists nearly all reported casualties, but it is difficult to obtain permission to see. The only one that I know of with relatively easy access is at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, but the staff there has NO time to look through it for anyone - you would have to take the time and arrange to go there and see it for yourself. In any case it is unlikely that it would tell you much anyway that you don't already know, except PERHAPS the name of the ship he came home on. As for individual service records, almost all of the enlisted men's service records from the First World War were stored at the St Louis government archives facitlity and were destroyed there in 1973 by a terrible fire. There were no copies of any of these records anywhere; only the detroyed originals. Thus, researching WW1 enlisted personel is definately a tough row to hoe.
One possibility of finding information might be to see if the county he enlisted/was drafted from still has his 'Staement of Service' card on file in the county archives. Many counties across the country kept these cards for years and then transferred them to microfilm before detroying the originals. This is a crap shoot however, since not all counties kept these cards.
If you send me the mans name and the city or county and state from which he entered service, I can run him through the ancestry.com data base - which i have year's subscription to - and pull up his draft card for you.
Robert Laplander
www.lulu.com/lostbattalion
More Replies:
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Re: Soldiers gassed in France
cheryl gIL 3/23/06