Sambrook, Walter Laidlaw

Born December 10, i1893, in Watervliet, New York. Son of George T. and Emma Disney Sambrook. Educated Watervliet schools and Syracuse University, two and one-half years, Class of 1917. Florist business, Troy, New York. Joined American Field Service, August 12, 1917; attached Transport Section 397 to November 12, 917. Enlisted U. S. Quartermaster Corps; attached 302d Motor Transport Company. Staff-car driver for General Wood. Died September 5, 1918, in Paris, of pneumonia. Buried Suresnes, Seine.

AMONG Walter Laidlaw Sambrook's cherished possessions was the following letter signed by Major General Leonard Wood:

"Private Walter Sambrook has been on duty as chauffeur of my car during my tour of observation with the British, French, and American forces. I found him always thoroughly reliable and extremely intelligent and efficient. We have had no trouble with the car and his services have been in every way most satisfactory."

This voluntary appreciation from a busy and distinguished officer is indeed something of which any soldier might be justly proud. It shows the earnestness and effort Sambrook put into the execution of the ordinary tasks. It was on this tour that General Wood was wounded. A shell exploded killing several Frenchmen and wounding two officers. Miraculously, almost, Walter escaped and turned his car into an ambulance to rush the wounded to a hospital. His action at the time was in part responsible for the tribute given above. It is spirit that counts in determining character, rather than the kind of service to which it is applied; and it is often harder to do the easy job well than the hard one. But Walter did all things alike with the same high resolve and his material reward was on its way at the time of his death in the shape of a promised commission.

Walter was educated at the public schools of Watervliet and later at Syracuse University where he studied in the forestry department. He became a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and made many and loyal friends during his four years there. After graduation he went into business with his father in Troy until the call to war came to him, and in August, 1917, he sailed for France in the American Field Service. On August 24, he wrote that he had been sent to the camion camp at the front and rejoiced at being finally in the midst of the action and excitement. His period of service as an ammunition truck driver was full of intense interest for him, and he gave himself to it with characteristic enthusiasm. When the American Field Service was taken over by the United States, he, like so many others, turned his face from the alluring prospect of a return home in the guise of a war-worn veteran to whom avenues of advancement would be open, and enlisted as a private in the American Army. He was transferred to the Q. M. Corps, and, after some months of truck-driving similar to his previous work, it was his faithful and conscientious service in that capacity which caused him to be selected as General Wood's driver.

While on duty in Paris he was suddenly taken sick with pneumonia and after a very short illness and in spite of tender and careful attention, he died on September 5, 1918, just as the bell of the old church near the hospital struck the last note of midnight. He was buried the following day in the beautiful cemetery of Suresnes. General Wood wrote to his family expressing his personal sorrow at the loss of so capable and trustworthy a soldier and informing them that had he lived he would have been promoted to a lieutenancy within a short time. His commanding officer, Lieutenant John B. Atkinson, wrote of him feelingly that "his work was model and his life truly exemplary . . . . . In his death we, his comrades, lose a good soldier, a conscientious worker, and a lad who was every inch a man."

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