Buckler, Leon Hamlink

Born January 6, 1894 in Farmington, New York. Son of John A. and Addie Hamlink Buckler. Home, Rochester, New York. Educated West High School, Rochester, and three years Rochester University, Class of 1917. Publishing business, Buffalo, and Curtis Aeroplane Company. Joined American Field Service, December 18, 1916; attached Section Four to summer of 1917. Attached Field Service Camp, May-en-Multien. Enlisted U. S. A. Ambulance Service with French Army. First Sergeant. Reassigned Section Four (627). Died September 19, 1918, of pneumonia, in Urbes, Alsace, and buried there. Body to be transferred to Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York. Croix de Guerre.

THE quiet heroism of Leon H. Buckler shines out so steadily and warmly from the simple narration of his services, that the following letter from a co-worker reveals the man with a sincerity and completeness difficult to equal.

"The first time I met Buckler was in the late fall of 1916, when he joined Section Four of the American Field Service. He arrived at Ippécourt in the Verdun Sector when the snow was on the ground and the weather conditions the worst that had been seen in France in twenty years. He was a small, slight figure of a man, looking so delicate that one wondered whether he would have the physical strength and stamina to go through the War. We were living in Ippécourt in brushwood compartments made by German prisoners, with very little protection from the weather.

"It happened that I took Buckler up with me as orderly on my car to Esnes on his first trip to the front. We drove back and forth most of the night through a blinding snow storm in the bitter cold, with the usual amount of shelling on the road, as this post and sector were always pretty active. Buckler showed remarkable courage and no nervousness under the shell fire, and seemed as keen as mustard for the work. He exhibited an extraordinary amount of wiry strength in helping carry the wounded to and from the car, and in helping push the car through the snow and mud. Altogether we had a very strenuous night, and when we got back to Ippécourt for breakfast in the morning we were ready for a few hours' sleep. However, I found that I had to go at once to a hospital for a wounded man. I said nothing to Buckler, supposing he would want to finish his breakfast and get some sleep. Before I could get away he came out and volunteered to go with me so as to learn the roads to the hospitals. This showed the kind of a man he was, and his reputation with the Section was established from that time on.

"He was a quiet, unobtrusive fellow, always on the job. He invariably kept his car in good order and showed a surprising strength for one of his slight build. A few months later, as Chef of the section, I considered Buckler a driver upon whom I could always depend, and yet we worried about him because of his delicate constitution.

"Finally in the spring of 1917, after having been through a winter at the front of terrific cold and exposure in which many of the section were taken sick, Buckler came down with severe pneumonia. In the hospital at Bar-le-Duc, owing to the best of care by the French, he was just able to pull through. What a welcome he received in his Section after his convalescence!

"When he recovered, I insisted at Headquarters that Buckler be sent to help in conducting the training camp near Meaux, that he might be less exposed to the cold and inclement weather for I feared that at the front he might again contract pneumonia. Buckler was, therefore, sent to May-en-Multien, much against his will.

"Later, in the fall of 1917, he enlisted in the United States Army Ambulance Service with the French Army, was made a first Sergeant, and on his own very insistent request, was sent back again to the front with his old Section. Here he continued the faithful record he had always made in the old volunteer days, but in the late summer of 1918, when the Section was working in the mountains of Alsace, he contracted another case of pneumonia, and from this he died on September 19th, in the little village of Urbes in Alsace Reconquise."

"He left behind him many devoted friends and a record of courage and service and devotion of which all his friends and family may well be proud."

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921

* * *

Buckler was awarded the Légion d'Honneur (Chevalier degree) posthumously on November 11, 2011.