Dawson O. Clark, Local Veteran Saw Service in  Argonne-Meuse Offensive; Now With Oil Firm by Orville B. Weis

    Fall back and wait for flanking support," was the message which Dawson O. Clark battalion runner in the Argonne forest was instructed to carry from headquarters to companies A, B, and C, eighty-second division, to Lieutenant Herman Ulmer at 3 p.m. one hot afternoon after two men had been lost in an attempt to deliver the message of death.

     The scene is the Meuse-Argonne. The three companies had advanced in a wedge shape formation over the brow of a knoll. The Germans strongly entrenched with nests of machine guns were raining steel jacketed shell fire into the ranks.

     Commanding officers saw the futility of further advance until the trio of companies had retreated to the general line for reformation of lines.

     Twice the artery of communication had been severed by the curtain of machine gun bullets. But that was done before Dawson O. Clark of the 325th infantry was dispatched.

    "The one pound guns were roaring behind me but their fire was ineffective," reminisced Clark the other day at his desk in the Cities Service Oil station, First avenue and Fifth street.

    "The Germans heavy artillery guns were booming in the valley scattering death and ruin in their wake. I began the long journey of 1,600 yards advancing on my chest. The mustard gas hung in the weeds.

    "I got to the brow of the knoll and dropped into a freshly made farrow. The fire was centered in my direction. Bullets had pierced my gas mask, canteen, and pocket book. As I started to make the last lap a machine gun bullet pierced my right lung racing through my breast and leaving through the back.

Message Delivered

   "The message was delivered and the lieutenant asked me to try and make my way back. Soon after I fainted on the field. The next I knew I was in a field hospital. It came to me a year later that Lieutenant Ulmer had gone out that night and rescued me. He was accompanied by Private Arch Mayo of Waucoma, Ia"

   Later he was in base hospital Dejoru. He spent sometime in base 106 Bordeaux and sailed early in February for Camp Stewart, Va. He was discharged June 1919. He took additional treatment at Finley Hospital, Dubuque.

    While Clark was fighting his supreme battle of life in Finley hospital, he was nursed back to health by a nurse who later became his wife. And to that union there has been born two boys. One was named Dawson, jr., after the man who served so well in the Argonne. And the other, a baby of 18 months, is named Ulmer Mayo as a tribute to an officer and private who skulked up to the German lines in the night time and snatched Clark from the tentacles of death.

   Clark took two years vocational training in photography.

   "The war did not end for me when I was discharged from the service," pluckily smiled Clark. "Physical disability and a general business  depression kept me from having a steady job.

   "Day after day, I went to factories and business houses looking for work. The answer was nearly always the same. Executives scanned my personal record for signs of disability.

   "The Cities Service Oil company gave me a chance. Carl Hendrickson, a lawyer, and prominent legion man, had faith in me and worked untiring to get me something steady."

    Clark has seen the heads of comrades blown off by the explosion of shells in the trenches. He has heard men with a premonition of death tell superior officers that they were about to die in conflict. He has seen men peer from the breastworks only to die with bullets from the guns of German sharpshooters.

      Dawson O. Clark fought a good fight in the Argonne. He is thankful now for he believes his chance has come.