Column: He survived a 1918 gas attack in France, but not unscathed

Published 12:00 am Friday, May 2, 2003

Not long ago Buzz Knudsen loaned me some photos and old Tribune news clippings. I’ve already used one of the photos (V. B. Valleau, the theater man), plus the (censored) letter in the April 4 issue, and will feature several more clippings in future articles.

As mentioned earlier, during World War I the Tribune published many letters from members of the armed forces who were serving in France. These letters were provided by family members in the area.

Two of these letters were from Private Adolph M. Hanson, the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Hanson, who lived on what was then St. Johns Street. Adolph had become a member of the U.S. Army in April 1917 and was assigned to the 18th Infantry Regiment. In May 1918, he went to France, a member of the regimental band.

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Being in the band should have been better than being a rifleman in a line company. However, Adolph soon discovered that band members could be assigned to medical duties and traffic control all too close to combat action.

One of the real hazards in 1918 was the poison gases, such as mustard and chlorine, being used by the German Army in France.

In a letter dated May 6, 1918, Adolph wrote the following message to his mother:

&uot;I am at present in a French hospital. Am going to an American hospital in a day or so I guess. There has been a great number of our regulars gassed. I am not seriously injured, so don’t worry. It’s only my eyes. I am pretty weak. My stomach and lungs are a little affected, but they say I will be all right. Some of the boys can’t see a thing and keep coughing and throwing up. I can’t say how they will turn out.

&uot;I am sitting up in bed writing this and am able to walk, but they want us quiet. ….

&uot;Been surely busy doing first aid and stretcher work. I am all worn out. I need a rest more than anything else. …&uot;

Adolph’s next letter, dated May 10, 1918, gave more details abut his duties and when he was gassed:

&uot;I am still in the hospital. Am in a different one than when I wrote my first letter. It’s a French one and everything is French. I have on French clothes and have French nurses and two American nurses.

&uot;There is nothing the matter with me at all, only when a patient has been gassed they give him a rest. I was gassed on the 3rd of May. My eyes were sore the first few days but they are a lot better.

&uot;I was out doing stretcher work when the gas attack came. It was about 9 p.m., so dark you could not see with the mask on, so had to do without it and worked all day around the infirmary until my eyes and head began to ache so had to go in.

&uot;The town we were in is just the remains of a town where a regimental infirmary is located. We had a dugout or cellar there. Our work was between the cellar and the front line. Any of the boys wounded or killed, we volunteered to get back to the cellar.

&uot;The town is under a continuous shell fire day and night. The longest time I was there between shells was three minutes. A lull of three minutes doesn’t happen often. … Everything is done at night, and then is when they do the worst shelling. …&uot;

As a message of reassurance to his mother, Adolph added this sentence later in his letter:

&uot;You know if my eyes were bad I could not write, so don’t worry.&uot;

Adolph’s service in France evidently resulted in more severe medical problems than his letters indicated. He was also shell-shocked, possibly from later service near the front lines, and spent 40 years as a patient at the Veterans Hospital in St. Cloud. He died there on March 26, 1965. Funeral services were held with full military honors at First Lutheran Church in Albert Lea and burial was in Lakewood Cemetery.

Tribune Feature Writer Ed Shannon’s column appears Fridays in the Tribune.