The Whitewright Sun
Friday, April 11, 1919
pg. 1

HEROES OF LATE WAR ARE RETURNING HOME

The community has a glad hand for its returning soldier boys, who one by one are permitted to return home under the demobilization process.  A large number of them were making ready to sail for France when the armistice was signed, while many others who got across never reached the firing lines, although anxious to get in and bring the contest to a decision.  Special interest centers around our returning boys who participated in the big fight and show marks of their grapple with the Hun.  One of these is Elzie G. Fields, who arrived home last week.

In several raiding parties at the Toul sector, sleeping by the music of passing shells at Verdun, 138 mile hike under pressure, thirty days in continuous battle at Chateau Thierry, three days without eating, wounded, carried to Red Cross Hospital in the rear and blown out of bed by air raid, are among some of Elzie’s experiences.  He also modestly confesses to having dispatch several Germans in hand to hand fighting with revolver, bayonet and knife.

Elzie volunteered and enlisted with the United States regulars May 1, 1917.  He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Fields, residing south of town, and several other boys of the community went to war with him, among them being Ozro Sloan, Bob Benson, Herbert Neathery and Howard McSpeeden.  They were soon separated, however, and Elzie drew assignment with a New York regiment, being a member of a machine gun company of the 9th Infantry.  After a short stay in San Antonio and three months’ training at Syracuse, N.Y., he embarked for France on the seventh of September 1917, being among the first troops to go over.  In due time his company was fitted out and billed for front line service and assigned to the Toul sector.  He was on this sector about thirty days, during which time the Germans raided them several times.  On one occasion the Dutch sent over a raiding party of 500, but backed off with a loss of 300 killed in the barbed wire entanglements in front of Elzie’s sector.

The Ninth Infantry then moved to the Verdun region, and after an uneventful sojourn there, received hurried orders to go to the relief of the American line at Chateau Thierry.  To reach their new position they hiked 183 miles in five days, and on June 1st went into one of the longest and hardest fought battles of the war at Chateau Thierry.  They held the German line for a month and on July 1st went over the top, pressing the enemy back a distance of five miles.  Of the 200 men in his company only seven remained when the rest orders came, the others having been killed or disabled.

Elzie was wounded on July 1st in an open fight.  His company surrounded a building in which 60 Germans had taken position with machine guns.  Elzie was struck in the sweep of these guns, one ball passing through his left hand, another through his helmet and several through his blouse.  He stayed in the fight, however, until the Germans were brought out, lined up and shot.

He was then taken back to a Red Cross hospital, and during his stay there, the German air men raided the hospital dropping a bomb that killed one nurse and blew him out of his bed.  He has had a great experience, and fate has marked him as one of the surviving heroes the of the world’s greatest war.