Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front
New York: A. L Burt Company, 1916. Tenth Impression. Hardcover. 20 cm. xxii, [2], 155, [11] pages. Illustrations. A disreputable but complete copy. Covers torn and soiled. Board shaken and front board taped and rear board reglued. Lt.-Colonel Henry Leslie Farmer Buswell was born on December 3, 1887. He was educated at Winchester School and Caius College, Cambridge University. He came to the United States as an actor. During World War I he was an ambulance driver for the American Field Service. His letters home were published in a book, “Ambulance No. 10”, which was based on a series of letters. After traveling to Paris he joined the American Ambulance Field Service. Between June and October, 1915 he exhibited such valor in driving ambulances from the front that the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre. He returned to help John Hays Hammond, Jr. with the development of radio controlled guided missiles. After the U.S. entry into WWII he joined the Army and served in the Signal Corps. After the war, Mr. Buswell again engaged in research in electronics with Mr. Hammond, Jr. in Gloucester. In the nineteen twenties he built a home in the style of a 16th Century English manor house, overlooking Gloucester harbor, with a 200 seat theater beside it. During World War II Mr. Buswell served overseas in the United States Air Force. He served in the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces in England and was involved in the D-Day invasion, for which he received the Bronze Star and a second Croix de Guerre with Palm. He was a liaison officer to the Royal Family, and received the King’s Medal. He was a past commander in chief of the Military Order of the World Wars. Ambulance No. 10 is a collection of letters describing the Western Front of WWI and emergency rescue, originally published under the title With the American Ambulance Field Service in France. It contains numerous illustrations and photographs. Editor's Note: Some months ago a few copies of these letters were printed, for private distribution, under the title of “With the American Ambulance Field Service in France.” So keen was the interest that they stirred, and so many the requests for them which followed, that permission for their publication and sale in America was subsequently asked of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. The French Government, which had conferred upon their author last October the Croix de Guerre for valor, has now given the necessary sanction and approval. The preface and introduction, written for the original edition, have been left here unaltered, as they explain the circumstances to which this book owes its existence. The title only, for brevity’s sake, has been changed to “ Ambulance No. 10. Extract: From the outset it was clear that the saving of soldiers’ lives depended quite as much upon the quick transportation of the wounded as upon their surgical treatment, and in September, 1914, when the battle front surged close to Paris, a dozen automobiles given by Americans, hastily extemporized into ambulances, and driven by American volunteers, ran back and forth night and day between the western end of the Marne Valley and Paris. This was the beginning of the American Ambulance Field Service with which the following letters have to do. During the autumn and winter that followed many more cars were given and many more young Americans volunteered, and when the battle front retired from the vicinity of Paris, sections of motor ambulances were detached from the hospitals at Neuilly and Juilly and became more or less independent units attached to the several French armies, serving the dressing-stations and Army hospitals within the Army zone. To-day more than a hundred such ambulances given and driven by American friends of France are carrying wounded French soldiers along the very fighting front in Belgium and France. Condition: Poor.
Keywords: WWI, Ambulances, Military Medicine, French Army, Humanitarian, Volunteers, Trench Warfare, War Wounded, Casualties
[Book #82557]
Price: $35.00