The Truth About Risks in France.
Page 18
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A Word for the A.S.C., ACT.
By One of Its Members.
It is not the object of this brief note to continue the making of comparisons, but when some people, inspired it is to be conjectured by the knowledge that they have not specially contributed to the welfare of a branch that they seek to belittle, attempt to show that the Mechanical Transport section of the A.S.C. runs no purely war risks and therefore compare unfa,vourably the M.T.'s dangers with those of their brothers in the Horse Transport, it is, perhaps, as well to say something from the XT.. standpoint. Excepting on special occasions, such as the retirement from Mons and the Ostend Antwerp incident, none would attempt to gainsay that the horsed branch, taken all round, runs greater purely war risks than the Mechanical Transport, but there the matter ends.
Running the Gauntlet.
If anyone should require confirmation as to whether the M.T.s ever come under fire, he might talk to those who were ambulance driving at La Bassee about Christmas time, say Christmas Eve, or on one particular road near the Aisne in October, when to get over the ridge of one hill (the ridge being accurately ranged by the enemy's guns) meant almost certain destruction, at least one lorry, drivers and load being blown to bits. Talk to anyone on the ammunition columns running on the roads behind the firing-line—those roads that have, during the long, dreary months of winter trench-fighting, been most carefully ranged off by the Huns' shells dropping at frequent intervals, making any journey over those roads a matter of literally "running the gauntlet."
Illness Brought On by Exposure.
None would try to deny that the great majority of the casualties amongst the rank and file of the Mechanical Transport were due to illness owing to exposure to the wretched weather experienced in Flanders and Northern France this past winter, and to accidents connected with the running of every type of internal-combustionengined vehicle under war conditions. But even then, there is still a fair percentage of M.T. men who are killed or wounded directly by the enemy's fire in some shape or form, but generally by shell fire.
Leaving for a moment the question of the risks run by the M.T. men from that cause, it is well to remember that during the long months of bad weather just ended elG
(not taking into account the recent heavy rains), when the condition of the men in the actual trenches was infinitely worse than that borne by the M.T., A.S.C., the men with the wagons (again excluding the exceptions and the men at the different bases) had no billets to retire to1 but went on, week in week out, living, sleeping and having their being on their own wet lorries, often without a chance of getting either themselves or their clothes dry, or of getting a change of things.
Men Who Have Kept the Wheels Rolling.
The score and one diseases and illnesses brought on by exposure, hardship and diet can be added to all the accidents, fatal, serious and minor, that have followed in the train of the innumerable duties performed by the M.T. companies and columns. The dangers of loading and unloading from trucks at railhead ; the faulty generator, with attendant explosion of acetylene lamp ; the handling of petrol near naked lights, all have gone to take toll of the men who have kept the "wheels rolling."
Straight From Civilian Life.
The rush and scurry of wartime, the speedy movements of the various companies, the whole spirit of the time and place, are all contrary to that brooding over L, C.C.eurn-police-controlled garages and roads. Merely to run, however carefully, over shell-ruined roads, or roads cut up by the traffic of a great army, is to run considerable risk to men and material. Men fresh from the comforts and considerations of home have gone straight to face, and cheerfully endure, all those varied risks and hardships of campaigning, generally without any of the training and preparation that their brothersin-arms, in other branches of the Service, have received and benefited by.
Men of the A.S.C., M.T., "Carry On."
It was said the other day, within the writer's hearing (by a man who• was "supposed to know "), that, strange to say, the Royal Flying Corps had suffered the least, in proportion, of any unit in the Army, and that the interpreters (if they can be called a unit) had lost the most. Somewhere between the two come the M.T. s, who, as a body, if they know not the thrills of a bayonet attack, or the dash of a wild charge, still "carry on," whether under fire or not, in the face of many and varied difficulties and dangers, and under adverse conditions of all kinds. To belittle them as experiencing few of the real hardships of warfare is to exhibit ignorance of facts, to say nothing of a pettiness which it is difficult to understand. The casualty lists prove the facts.