Milne, Caleb Jones, IV

Caleb Milne, IV was killed In action north of Enfidaville on May 11, 1943. He and his comrades had been attached to the forward troops of the 8th Army and since El Alamein had evacuated the wounded as they advanced through the Western Desert. Finally, during the bitter fighting at the end, came a call for volunteer stretcher bearers to help with the wounded forward, in an area ambulances could not travel. Caleb and three comrades responded, and while carrying out this task a shell from a mortar mortally wounded him. Carried back by his AFS comrades to the dressing station he was unable to survive the operation. Caleb had risked his life many times to save others, but when even more was asked he never hesitated. There can not be greater faith than this.

__ AFS Letters No. 13

At the same time, Milne was sitting with a Legionnaire who had a slight shrapnel hit in his foot and was going to accompany him down the hill. Then a mortar burst beside the two of them, and the call went over for Lindsay and myself.

"I took a brief look at the Legionnaire and saw that there was very little chance for him, since he had severe head and abdominal wounds. Milne seemed in good condition, considering that his left leg was badly cut by shrapnel and the foot broken at the ankle. I asked him if there were any other wounds, and he said only a small piece in his back. I applied a tourniquet, although bleeding was not too severe, gave him a grain of morphine by hypodermic, and tried to fashion a splint of newspaper and twigs for his ankle. [...]"

By 12: 30, Milne had been driven back to the GSB 1 and was under a doctor's care. His injuries proved much more severe than they had at first appeared, and, although two surgeons worked over him for three and a half hours, by mid-afternoon Caleb Jones Milne IV was dead. "Milne did the work of many men," Captain Greenough wrote, "and was ever on hand where the shell-bursts were the thickest. Perhaps the best tribute was given him by Lt. Martineau [MO of the Foreign Legion 1st Battalion] when he said 'Milne was so evidently a gentleman. He did his work better than any other probably because be was a better man than any other."'

__ George Rock. Chapter 5. "Middle East 3. El Alamein to Tunis (October 1942 to May 1943)" History of the American Field Service, 1920-1955. New York 1956.

You will have heard of the death of Caleb Milne, directly hit by a mortar shell. He nearly lost one foot. Before he could be aided, he had been hit again. I helped bear his stretcher for a while back to the dressing post; my heart goes out to his friend, who with two Frenchmen carried his stretcher for two hours from within a few feet of the front over the difficult and dangerous map to the Post. That afternoon, after everything humanly possible was done, he died. You will have heard, too, of the death of Lieut. Stockton, who with T.R. drove into a mine field. T. was badly wounded and a prisoner. They were all friends; and that is what war means.

__ AFS Letters No. 15

Mrs. Caleb Milne, whose son Caleb Milne IV was killed in action at Enfidaville in 1943, has just published a collection of his letters under the title I DREAM OF THE DAY. These letters were written to his mother while Caleb served as an AFS ambulance driver in the Alamein-to-Tunis desert battles. The beauty of these letters lies not so much in the narrative as in the feeling and form of expression imparted by the author. The letters are lovely and make the book a memorable one.

__ AFS Letters No. 33