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WW! medal arrives 61 vears lateB By J.R. SCHRADER JR.News EditorIt was just over 61 years ago that a young Pulaski man “felt a sting” in his right shoulder and thought a tree limb had fallen in the Argonne Forest of France and hit him in the shoulder. 0It was more than a tree limb, it was a bullet from a German machine gun and it has taken 61 years for Roy C. “Pop” Hall to receive his Purple Heart for that wound.Hall, well known for his baseball exploits and management of several eating establishments in and around Pulaski, leaned back in his rocking chair at his N. Jefferson Avenue home and recalled the events surrounding that day, 20 days before the Nov. 11, 1918 Armistice which ended .World War 1, when he was wounded during a battle in the Saint Mihiel area of the Argonne Forest.The medal and accompanying lapel pin and ribbon, all enclosed in a leather case, arrived recently at the Hall home after several months of correspondence with the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to verify records and to determine the Roy Hall of Pulaski was the Roy Hall wounded in World War I.“It took about 90 days to get back (the medal) after everything was cleared up,” said Hall, who now has to use a crutch to get around.He said he saw an article in a Roanoke newspaper about a Salem man, Thpmas Shilling, who had also received his Purple {ieart 61 ^ears after his injury. This, said Hall, arpused his interest.”“I didn’t want any publicity about this, I’m just proud to get it,” he said, slowly recalling names, dates and facts about his two years in France as an American soldier.With the 116 Infantry, 29th Division, the same outfit as the Salem resident but not known to each other, Hall said he was in four fronts during his two years in'France.“I was sargeant in charge of one gun, a 37 mm or one-pounder, as it was called,” Hall recounted, as he leaped back in his rocker, bringing back memories of those days in 1918 when he was a 19-year-old far away from home.“These guns were used to knock out tanks, machine guns...it took about six men to handle one of these gun-s...one man to carry the tri-pod; one the barrel, an ammo carrier...,” Hall said.“That was probably the hardest job, the ammo carrier. He carried a satchel in each hand,” Hall said, showing how the carrier held the two precious bundles.Getting nearer the point of his wounding, Hall said the crew would set up the gun, fine several salvos and get ready to move quickly to another site after drawing fire from the enemy.It was during one of these maneuvers that Hall was wounded. “We were drawing fire from an enemy machine gun and we were crawling along a log toward the machine gun...the battle was^going on over our heads...something stung me in my shoulder,” he said reaching up with his left hand to his right shoulder. “I thought a tree limb hit me...but I spit up blood. I got brave...went running up, threw a couple of grenades into the nest. They came out, six of them...they were glad to be captured...they were getting tired of fighting...a couple of them were killed,” Hall recounted.Continuing, the former major league baseball prospect, said, “I got these six men and went on back to the first aid station and they went with me, like sheep..,”Hall said he then “went to a field hospital where they cleaned me up.”Did the wounded American return home after treatment? No, he went back to his company, which was then part of the army of occupation. “I was there six months before being shipped back home. I was 19 years old when I got out,” Hall said.He told of how he traveled by train to a base hospital where he was treated; how the men were fed by the French along the route from the front to the hospital, and how one man, a lieutenant who was wounded in the face, gave his food to Hall because the man was unable to eat. He said he could not find the lieutenant after they got to the base hospital.Hall also said Dr. Dyer, who was a Pulaski doctor and inSee MEDAL, Passe 12i • S'; r \rMatt Photo by J.R. Schrader# Jr.ROY ‘POP’ HALL WITH PURPLE HEART Award Arrives 61 Years After War Ends
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