American Ambulance Field Service 1916

As German troops stormed into France in the summer of 1914, the American Colony in Paris inaugurated a volunteer ambulance service to transport the wounded from the front lines to the American Hospital on the outskirts of Paris. In January 1915 Abram Piatt Andrew - a former Harvard professor and future Congressman from Massachusetts - arrived in France as a volunteer ambulance driver. He soon began to transform the service from a subsidiary of the American Hospital to an independent organization that transported the wounded from the front lines to aid stations to the rear.

At its height, the Field Service numbered 2,000 volunteers and operated not only on the Western Front in France but also in the battle areas of Italy, Greece, Serbia and Albania. The service attracted young volunteers from the American literati: college students, poets and writers including an eighteen-year-old Ernest Hemingway who used the experience as the basis of his novel A Farewell to Arms. The volunteers were expected to pay for their transportation to Europe and for their meals while there. The American Ambulance Field Service operated as an independent volunteer agency until America's entrance into the war in 1917 when it was absorbed by the American Army.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ambulanceservice.htm

 

And for the full versions.........

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=american%20field%20service%20in%20france

 

Annie,

There are some interesting pictures here (including lorries):

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Our_Part/Our_Part_01.htm

Phil

 

You're right Phil ! .... there is some interesting stuff there !!

The reason I looked it up originally was ... many years ago I talked to an old man who said "he didn't have any war service ... he was just a volunteer ambulance driver !! "......... seems to me that they did more than their fair share !

Annie