Richard Jopling with his ambulance during the First World War. (Photo courtesy of the Marquette Regional History Center)

It was called the “Great War” but the greatest thing about it was the size — the sheer number of people affected: those who fled the fighting, who served, sustained injuries and died over the course of the conflict. The First World War saw the mobilization of more than 70 million military personnel. There were more than 20 million wounded and 16 million deaths.

The large number of casualties stemmed from a clash of 20th-century technology and 19th-century tactics. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties, consuming vast quantities of explosives. The war was notable for trench warfare which provided the troops with some protection from the enemy’s small arms fire and artillery. But when they left the protection of those trenches “going over the top” to attack the enemy lines, hundreds often died for each meter gained. Though chemical warfare using chlorine, mustard and phosgene gases captured the public’s imagination, it was effectively countered with inventions like gas masks and caused relatively few casualties, although those that were sustained could be horrific.

Before the U.S. entered the war, two of the larger volunteer ambulance services were the American Red Cross and the American Field Service. The AFS was a quasi-military organization that drove combat ambulances for the French army. Most ambulances were provided by American donors and could carry six stretchers or a dozen sitting wounded at a time. The men were all volunteers and had to pay their own way to France, purchase their own uniforms and agreed to enlist in the French Army with the pay of a private, 15 cents a day with a minimum six-month commitment.

The men received three weeks of training in French Army procedures and in driving ambulances without lights before they were sent to the front. The schedule was 48 hours on, 48 hours off. The wounded were given immediate medical attention at division dressing stations behind the first two or three lines of trenches. From there the ambulances would transport them to casualty sorting stations behind the lines where they received additional treatment and were moved to adjacent field hospitals or further to the rear. After the U.S. entered the war, the U.S. Army eventually took over the volunteer ambulance services.

Several men from the Upper Peninsula served as volunteer ambulance drivers on the Western Front. Of these, the first to leave was Hugh McNair, son of the President of Michigan College of Mines (Michigan Technological University), who joined the AFS in May 1917. One rainy night about 1 a.m., just 21 days after arriving on the front, McNair was told that a wagon load of hand grenades had been dumped over all over the road.

A group of soldiers had walked into them resulting in a number of deaths. He was ordered to go get the survivors and to take his chances but to keep in the middle of the road as it was the safest place. He later reported that it was ticklish but he got through while saving numerous lives. In October 1918, McNair volunteered to make an ambulance run under heavy enemy fire. His ambulance was hit by a German shell resulting in the amputation of his right leg and ending his career as an ambulance driver.

When the United States joined the war, Marquette native Richard Jopling applied to Officer’s Training School but was disqualified due to being underweight. Undaunted, he began working for the Red Cross in New York while undergoing a painful, three-month long operation to stretch his jaw, which increased his breathing power by a third. He then enlisted in the AFS in September 1917 and departed for France. He served with distinction for nearly a year and a half. While on furlough visiting relatives in England in March 1919, he was found dead in his hotel room. The official cause of death was that he had been over-strained and shell-shocked but did not succumb until the relaxation of the furlough.

Earl Hodson and Raymond Zerbel, also of Marquette, enlisted in the U.S. Army Ambulance service at Battle Creek, Michigan, in June 1917. Seizing the first opportunity to go overseas, they transferred to a New York unit. They left in August 1917 and were attached to French Army units. After their return in April 1919, Hodson and Zerbel were interviewed by The Mining Journal and described the days when the Germans were advancing as the hardest of all. “Frequently they were forced to drive all day and night in search of hospitals at which to deposit the wounded, the field stations being evacuated before the rush of German forces. The heavy damage to the roads, as the result of the constant shell-fire and bombing of both the allied and German forces, reduced most of the roads to little better than a maze of holes, making traffic all but impossible, particularly for the ambulances loaded with wounded soldiers.

Sometimes cut off from retreat by the invading German hordes, they were forced to run blockades over picketed roads. Several times they narrowly missed being blown to atoms, evacuating their quarters only a comparatively few moments before the billets were shattered by the accurate fire of the Huns.”

Richard Jopling and Earl Hodson both received the Croix de Guerre, a French military award given to soldiers who distinguished themselves by acts of heroism involving combat with the enemy and commonly bestowed on foreign military forces allied to France. Hugh McNair received two Croix de Guerre plus the US Army’s Distinguished Service Cross. McNair, Jopling, Hodson, and Zerbel placed their own lives in danger to help rescue their wounded comrades. They and their fellow medical staff helped ensure that the death toll from the war wasn’t worse.

Come learn more about Richard Jopling and other World War I veterans at the History Center’s 12th Annual Cemetery Walk on June 1.

This year two tours are offered at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Meet inside the main gate at Park Cemetery. Suggested $5 donation. For more information contact the History Center at 226-3571.