One Thing Leads to Another – in solving a mystery

Any of you who have seen Peter Wimsey’s recent picture of two men in uniforms of uncertain origin, may know from my comments that I have done a lot of research trying to solve the mystery of who these men were. I think I have solved it to my own satisfaction at least until someone comes up with more information. I think the men are ambulance drivers for the Red Cross. That little cross insignia looks a lot like the original icon used. The courier bags on their shoulders would be appropriate too, because the Red Cross delivered messages. You can read the rest  in my comments to the Peter Wimsey's article.

In the meantime, while researching, I learned a lot of other things worthy of further discourse. The history of the Red Cross and the tremendous good they have done for the world, and who started it, etc.. I might do that later. I also read quite a lot of Dutch history ( for a while I thought the men might be Dutch soldiers) about their extensive trade by both their East India Company and their West India Company, both of which led to Dutch colonization and future important events like the settlement of New Amsterdam that became New York City; and to the later discovery of oil in Indonesia. And there were endless Dutch wars during the early days of Dutch expansion. I might take up that topic when I can get my courage up to write a review on a book I finished recently, The Island in the Center of the World. But my book reviews don’t seem to get much attention, no matter how enthusiastic I am about the books I read.

So, I will just point out that when doing research, especially in encyclopedias, one thing leads to another until a curious sojourner like I am can become inundated with topics I want to know more about. They might possibly be used for articles some day. For that, encyclopedias have the edge hands down. While reading about another topic, for instance, my eye caught the pictures on the opposite page about bird’s nests. Fascinating! But maybe I’m easy to fascinate.

One fact I learned from my research that struck me strongly was that so many ambulance drivers in WWI later became famous writers. I will give you the names that I found listed in an article at website firstworld war.com in an article written by Steve Ruediger. In a second list there are four women writers and three men who had other related backgrounds, but also became famous authors. The WWI ambulance drivers who are most famous are:

Ernest Hemingway,

John Dos Passos,

E.E. Cummings,

Somerset Maugham,

John Masefield,

Robert Service,

Louis Bromfield,

Dashiell Hammett,

William SeaBrook,

Charles Nordhoff,

Sir Hugh Walpole,

Also included are writers I am not as familiar with:

Malcolm Cowley,

Sidney Howard,

Harry Crosby.

Julian Green,

Robert Hillyer,

Desmond McCarthy,

Russell Davenport,

Edward Meeks,

C. Leroy Balbridge,

Samuel Chamberlain

In Rudiger’s second list are;

Gertrude Stein, who visited wounded French soldiers and raised funds for them;

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who worked for the Red Cross;

E.M. Forster, who interviewed wounded soldiers;

Archiobald Cronin, a doctor,

Edmund Wilson, a stretcher bearer,

Anne Grum, a nurse

Dorathea Frances Canfield Fisher, whose husband was an ambulance driver

It seems that the horror of war as witnessed by ambulance drivers was a sort of elementary course for future writers.