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ALWAYS READY
THE CADUCEUS.
COLORED MEN HERE
BASE HOSPITAL PROUD OF ITS
FIRE FIGHTING SYSTEM.
“Always ready to answer the call,
Though wild flames leap and timbers
fall.”
So runs one of the half-forgotten
melodies written about the deeds of
a crew of city firemen. We claim that
it would also hold for the fire fighters
of the base hospital as they have al
ways been on the job and are ready to
answer any alarm on the minute.
There are five firemen who live in
the hospital fire house although every
detachment soldier answers the alarm
tor action when the big gongs ring
at stations, about the hospital. By
timing the false alarm runs it js found
that eight minutes is the average timo
required for two hundred men to
reach the seat of a hospital blaze and
to have one stream of hose drowning
the flames.
Lieutenant C. F. Harvey, Jr., who
has succeeded Captain Harold Carney
as fire chief of the base hospital is
drawing up a new set of fire drill rules
which will be announced in The Ca-
duceus of next week.
The fire station, standing in the
shadow of the hospital water tower,
has been in service since last Octo
ber. New equipment has been added
at intervals since that time, however.
The latest improvement is the in- ,
stalling of two large chemical drums,
which stand at the head of A and C
rows. The twenty-gallon force tanks
are mounted on wheels and can be
drawn along the runways to the loca
tion of the fire.
Pour gongs and two sirens are now
ready to sound fire alarms and bring
the men running from wards, and of
fices at the first shrill call.
There are twenty fire plugs distrib
uted over the hospital grounds. Each
fire plug is marked by a red lan
tern by night. During the winter
the pipe was covered by a big red
box in order to keep the pipe from
freezing. Lieutenant Harvey has ar
ranged for the turning off of the wa-
TRAINING FOR OFFICER.
Sergeant Arthur C. Pay, who was
transferred to Markleton, Pa., from
the base hospital two weeks ago is
now at Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Ga..
where he is in the officers’ training
camp.
ter beneath the ground surface and
therefore making the use of the cov
erings useless. With the box cover
gone a coupling can be made a halt
minute sooner, it is reasoned.
Members of the regular fire force
see to it that all lanterns are lighted
at night and that apparatus is, ready
for instantaneous use. These men
leave the station only for their meals
and on the one day in five when they
are at liberty.
Corporal Arthur Overly Is in charge
of the station men since Sergeant
Wentworth Piles is called to Offi.cers’
Training Camp. Private John Booth
is the only member of the force who
was a regular fireman in civilian life.
He answered the calls in New Haven,
Conn., from the No. 5 station before
the war opened. Corporal Herbert
Freeman and John Doyle are othe’’
members of the hospital crew.
FAREWELL LETTER
BIDDLE UNIVERSITY WILL BE SO
CIAL CENTER.
FIFTY-FOUR SERGEANT VOICES
THANKS.
Nearly 2,000 colored men have been
brought to Camp Greene during the
past week, most of the men arriving on
Tuesday. The new arrivals are near
ly all draft men and seventy of that
number are from Mecklenburg coun
ty. It is expected that 4,000 colored
men may be brought to the camp and
six times that number of white men.
Biddle University, just outside of
Charlotte, and one of the best known
colleges for colored people in the
south, is t6 be a social center for the
colored troops, it is planned. A house
next to the colored people’s library
on South Brevard street has been
rented by the S.oldiers’ Club for a
club house for colored soldiers.
With the knowledge that the Base
Hospital No. 54 outfit is soon to be
ordered away. Sergeant J. R. Hoffman
has submitted a farewell letter of
thanks to the men of the medical sup
ply department for their efficient ser
vices in aiding the soldiers of Base
Hospital No. 54.
“Our best wishes and many thanks
to the M. S. D. for their kind re
marks and good felowship, they have
shown towards the members of Base
Hospital 54.
“We can only hope to meet as clean
cut an, organization over there, who
instead of trying to find our faults
will only see our good points.
“We will all disregard personal
grievances and pull together, as ev
ery American citizen is duty bound
to do at this time.
“When we arrive ‘over there’ we all
expect to have our hair clipped short
and sincerely hope to meet the type
of men that you represent.
“The members of Base Hospital
No. 54 are in this war to do their bit,
they have all passed the physical ex
ams. for overseas service and are
proud of it and their non-commission
ed officers, especially those who have
lately been transferred from the old
detachment and have helped to build
up this base hospital.
“We do not need a long crop of hair
at present and don’t expect to shine
in anv more society until the job
over there is finished.
“Our best wishes to all the men
that we leave behind.
“Good-bye.”
—By Sergt. J. R. Hoffman.
LABORATORY AID.
Private S. V. McCullouch, trans-.
fe^e-ed to the base hospital from the
Aviation section Signal Corps, is the
latest addition to the laborotory force.
He is acting assistant in the bacterio
logical department.
Brown’s
Restaurant
THE
te'xtile mill
SUPPLY CO.
'‘The Sensible Place.to Eat”
30 North Tryon Street
Telephone 2485
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