Daniel Sylvester Carroll

Submitted by: Natilie

Daniel Sylvester Carroll served in World War 1 with the United States Marine Corps. The dates of service are: Known January 1918-December 1918.

 

Daniel Sylvester Carroll was a member of the United States Marine Aviation Force, Northern Bombing Group, Foreign Service, Field D., France.

Daniel Sylvester Carroll’s War Experience as told by his daughter, Doris Carroll Simper

Dad was inducted in Vernal - He went instead of Uncle Roy because one of them had to stay home and run the farm. Dad said he would rather die than be stuck on that farm. He was sent from Vernal to Salt Lake City where he was sent to Vallejo, California for his Basic Training. From there he was sent to Miami, Florida where he trained to be a mechanic and machine gunner in the first planes ever used in combat.

He was then shipped directly to France. Upon arriving there because of the shortage of planes he was assigned to be a motorcycle dispatch rider. During this assignment he had five cycles blown up. Two while he was on them. He was not critically injured or so they thought at the time but a small fragment of shrapnel somehow had become lodged in his head. It travelled around doing its thing and caused all kinds of problems for a long time.

On one of his trips to the front lines he got lost in the trenches. While working his way through the maze of trenches he came face to face with another soldier. They stood looking at each other for a few seconds and Dad realized the other fellow was a German. He instantly turned and started running back the way he had come as hard as he could. He stopped suddenly and listened to see if he was being followed. He could hear the other fellow running as hard the other way as he had been his way. He finally delivered his messages and started back through the maze to find his bike, only to find it had been blown up again. It took a good many hours to work his way back to headquarters. While trying to find his way back he found himself in the middle of a cemetery when a barrage of mortar fire came hailing down on him. He took cover behind a large statue of Christ along with one or two other soldiers. After it was over they got up and looked around to find everything around them completely destroyed but the statue had not been touched.

It was shortly after this happened that he was put into the air service where he became a machine gunner in the rear cockpit. There were no parachutes at that time so when it was evident they were going to crash they frantically looked for water as it was softer to jump into when the plane got low enough for them to jump.

This is all I can remember talking about very much. Do hope it helps…