Sidney Towner Phelan - Ambulance Driver



Sidney Towner Phelan, n.d.

Sidney Towner Phelan was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 3, 1896. When the United States declared war on Germany, Phelan was a sophomore at Washington University. Since it would be many months before the Americans could mobilize their forces, a call went out for young men to become ambulance drivers for the French Army. Phelan answered that call, even though he did not know how to drive. A friend, Rex Brashear, taught him to drive and in May 1917, the group of volunteers found themselves on a French troop ship on their way to France.


The Sidney Towner Phelan Papers, which are located at the Missouri History Museum, have been selected by Over There Project Staff for digitization. The papers consists mainly of letters he wrote to his mother while serving as an ambulance driver in France and a large photo album.



Phelan wrote over fifty letters home, but only a few of them contained information on the harsh details of his service. These letters, along with images from Phelan's photo album, serve as graphic reminders of the horrors of combat during World War I. A letter dated August 22, 1917, sums up Phelan’s first few weeks over seas. In it, he describes his experiences on the front lines during the Battle of Verdun in graphic detail.

Letter to mother August 22, [1917]

"I have been at the front over a week now and I have passed thru enough experiences to fill an ordinary life time. Tho a green section we were given the hottest post in France— a post which two veteran ambulance sections quit on. We also got three other posts, none of them easy. On my first day of it (24 hours on duty with only one meal and no sleep) I was under shell fire a half dozen times and I can’t count the shell which fell near me. My car was hit by one and I got a mud bath from another. I also went through gas once, but that was only a pink tea to what we got Sunday. It is utterly beyond human imagination to realize in a small degree what war is. Dante’s Inferno shows a weak lack of imagination in comparison with the reality. There is a stretch of road leading up to our most advanced post which for over a mile is in full view of the German lines on a hill whose name is [blank]. I have passed that road and seen so many Boche Shells falling on it that it seemed the whole hill must be blasted away. I have never seen such a wonderful sight, A volcano in steady and violent eruption might be something like it. The road itself is shelled pretty badly as it is lined on both sides by French [batteries] and the Germans try to get them. I made two trips on that road for which I have no excuse but the impulse of a fool to try anything that a Frenchman thought possible. Bill Dickey (my partner) and I were advised that the road was impossible to pass but the medicine chief wanted a car so we went. How we got through I cant see. The road was less of a road than a block of office buildings would afford were they leveled to the ground by an earthquake. The smoke from bursting shells was so thick we could hardly see the road. That was for a stretch of two hundred yards at Hell’s corner. For the rest of the way it was just a shell torn road under ordinary fire."


Images from photo album "Battle of Verdun August 1917"

"There were several reminders of the Germans tho. The carcasses of several horses, a body minus a face and all that was left of three men, a shell hole filled with blood three battered helmets and a broken machine gun. When we got to our post we swore that we would not go back until morning when the shelling would quiet down and the holes filled up. The medicine chief said he wouldn’t think of sending us back with the road in that condition and several other French officers advised us not to go back until morning. But we hadn’t been there an hour the chief want us to go back with a load of “blesses”. Bill put the decision up to me. He said “We haven’t a chance to get back but if you want to try all right. The chief smiled when we hesitated and I got sore and said Yes. Of all the wild rides we have had that was the wildest. It was if possible worse going back than coming up. I didn’t believe we had a chance but I give you my word I have never had such a wonderful sensation. Before you start you are very much afraid but after the first shell bursts something gets into your blood and you just revel in the greatest sport in the world. Bill turned to me and yelled “I love this” He was drunk with it and so was I. That was the most vivid experience of that day but that same evening I had my closest call. I was stopped at a railway crossing to let a train pass and just then the Boche shell began to fall. I dropped face downward in the dust and had three shells shower me with stones. I got two dents in my helmet and one stone raised a lump on my head..I was lying in between the car and the shell. I am just in from a long stretch of duty. I was on thirty-six hours without sleep. I followed that with a nights sleep and thirty hours more on duty. There has not been a single day in the last week when I have had three meals."

In September 1917, Phelan's unit became part of the United States Army. Phelan was not very happy about this. He explained why in a letter he wrote to his mother on September 28, 1917. Below is an excerpt:



Letter to mother September 28, 1917

"...I am getting used to this being a private in the army. But I can tell you it's hard to fit yourself to a detailed regulation of everything you do and say and write and wear and eat and (think!). Especially when you have seen more hell and war in five minutes than your superior officers have in a lifetime. Don't worry about my cutting up a bit - I won't though petty annoyance gets my goat.... With all due respect to the fact that the Lord God created the world in six days and spent five of those days on the US Army which is his most perfect work with all due respect to that fact I don't like to be put to bed at 10:30 every night and be gotten up at 6:00 A.M. forced to do everything by schedule and have every detail of my life mapped out for me by somebody else. I don't doubt that it's for my own good and all that but I can't see the idea... "

Images from photo album "In the U.S. Army Ambulance Service"

After months of being "en repos" and doing rear work while waiting to be attached to a unit, Phelan was anxious to get back into the action. In the letter below, he explained what he was going through to Val who was also in the military.

Letter to Val March 31, 1918

"I am looking forward to meeting you and Fax. Charlie and the rest of the bunch over here won't it be great? We are still en repos I am thoroughly sick of doing nothing. We are expecting orders to move any day but, damn it, they don't come. I would give my neck to get in the big action going on. I am going to quote to you what I have sent in a dozen letters and it's the truest conception of war I have yet seen. "War is an exciting game it excites once in a couple of months. And the rest of it is dirt and muddle and boredom, and smashed houses and spoilt roads and muddy scenery and boredom, and the lumbering along of supplies and the lumbering back of the wounded and weary and boredom, and continual vague guessing of how it will end, and boredom and boredom and boredom and thinking of the work you were going to do and the waste of life and the waste of days and boredom, and stink everywhere, stink and dirt and boredom ...."

Images from photo album "Second Marne July 18th - Aug 15th 1918"

But it wasn’t long before he and his unit found themselves on the frontlines again. The Battle of the Marne brought them back to a town that they had been stationed at a year prior. In an excerpt from the letter below, Phelan explained what happened to the house he once billeted in.

Letter to mother July 25, 1918

"...Our post is a little beyond a town we spent some months in last winter. It certainly has changed. Signs in German are nailed up all over and the whole place is littered with abandoned Bosche equipment. The house I used to live in is a perfect wreck and where my bed was is the scene of a direct hit by a not too small shell. Our old popote has the front wall caved in and the cafe will no longer serve as our club house..."


Memorandum Subject Citations January 2, 1918

Phelan's unit, S.S.U. 646, USAAS, received numerous awards and citations during the war. In fact, at the time, they were the only unit ever awarded the Fourragere of the Croix de Guerre by the French Government. The memorandum above contains a congratulations that the unit received from the American Expeditionary Forces and General John Pershing as a result of one of its citations.

After the war, Phelan returned to St. Louis, but he did not return to college. Phelan pursued a career in advertising instead. He got married in 1924 and had two children. In 1927, Phelan joined the D’Arcy Advertising agency and handled the account of the St. Louis Union Trust Company. In 1929, he left the advertising agency and joined the staff of the Trust Company as a trust officer in charge of advertising. Phelan's “institutional” type of advertising on a quarter page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch every Tuesday morning was widely admired. In 1934, he was named Assistant Vice-President, and in 1940, Vice President. Phelan studied law at night with the help of a lawyer who was a close friend, and passed the Bar Examination in 1934. In 1940, he graduated from the Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University. Phelan served as a City Councilman for the City of Ladue, Missouri for nine years. Illness caused him to resign in March 1949. Phelan died of a stroke in January 1964.

Retirement Photo December 1960

Sources:

Sidney Towner Phelan Papers, Missouri History Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri.