Ww I Cover Trying To Locate A Soldier

I like covers with lots of markings

This one was sent to C.E. Falconer, 110th Sanitary Train (a hospital unit), AEF. Unclear postmarks and no backstamps. It looks like unfortunately it was not delivered to the recipient (but not for lack of trying).

A Sgt. Clarence E. Falconer, 139th Ambulance Co., was gassed at the Battle of Argonne.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33841/33841-8.txt

Further reading indicates he survived the gas attack, being discharged or transferred out of the company.

Regards, Robert

A Sanitary Train of a Division in the Great War (what some people call WW 1 but at the time it was called the Great War since back then no one thought there were ever be a second world war) was, at least on paper, comprised of one hundred officers and 1,300 enlisted men under the command of the division surgeon, usually a colonel or lieutenant colonel. It was made up of four ambulance companies with twelve ambulances each, a medical supply unit and four mobile field hospitals; one for gas cases, one for surgery, one for ordinary sick cases and one held in reserve to meet emergencies. It sounds like this Sergeant was attached to one of the four ambulance companies in this particular Sanitary Train.

Wow that's a great historical cover! Thank you for showing it.

Another hit from Google: Clarence E. Falconer was a defendant in a law suit in Kansas City in the early 1950s.
http://leagle.com/decision/19556201...ERVICE%20CO.
Most likely the same man. Looks like he survived World War I.

Robert

It was called "The Great War" as a propaganda and recruitment device. Not because it was "the war to end all wars."

Thanks everyone for the extra info about the recipient! Very difficult to imagine what he endured.

Hi Jenny.

As an ambulance driver he would have had a relatively cushy job compared to most soldiers. He would have been behind the lines and not huddled in the water and blood filled trenches or the waves of frontal assaults into barbed wire and machine gun fire. He would get to ride in an ambulance and not have to march endless miles. He would get to eat and sleep well behind the action where he would get a cot to sleep in instead of on the ground in a trench or bomb crater and he would get regular hot meals. I am sure most soldiers would have been envious of the relatively comfortable life he had.