Private Bruce Stoney, Medical Detachment, home address, Allendale, S.C.; for extraordinary heroism in action near Ardeuil, September 29, 1918.

Private Charlie Butler, Machine Gun Company, home address, McComb, Miss.; for extraordinary heroism in action near Ardeuil, September 29, 1918.

Private Willie Boston, Machine Gun Company, home address, Roopville, Ga.; for extraordinary heroism in action near Ardeuil, September 29, 1918.

Private Tillman Webster, Machine Gun Company, home address, Alexandria, La.; for extraordinary heroism in action near Ardeuil, September 29, 1918.

Private Ellison Moses, Company C, home address, Mayesville, S.C.; for extraordinary heroism in action near Ardeuil, September 30, 1918.

Private Hunius Diggs, Company G, home address, Lilesville, N.C.; for extraordinary heroism in action near Ardeuil, September 30, 1918.

The two regiments, besides the regimental Croix de Guerre, awarded for gallantry in the Champagne, won individual decorations amounting in the aggregate to 168 Croix de Guerre, 38 Distinguished Service Crosses, four Medal Militaire and two crosses of the Legion of Honor.

An incident of the service of the 371st and particularly emphasizing the honesty and faithfulness of the Negro Y.M.C.A. and the regiment’s medical detachment, was the case of Prof.  H.O.  Cook, a teacher in the Lincoln High School at Kansas City, Mo.  Professor Cook, a Y.M.C.A. man attached to the sector which the 371st was holding during the great offensive in September, went with the men to the front line trenches and rendered valuable aid among the wounded until he was gassed.  Owing to the fact that there were no facilities at that particular time, for the safe keeping of money and valuables, he carried on his person more than 150,000 francs (in normal times $30,000) which boys in the regiment had given him to keep when they went over the top.

After being gassed he was walked over for an hour before being discovered.  The money was found and sent by Sergeant Major White also colored, to general headquarters at Chaumont.  When Prof.  Cook was discharged from the hospital and made inquiry about the money, it was returned to him.  Not a cent was missing.  Colonel Miles recommended that General Pershing award Prof.  Cook a Distinguished Service Cross.

The men of the 93rd Division and other Negro divisions and organizations will never forget their French comrades and friends.  It was a lad of the 371st regiment who wrote the following to his mother.  The censor allowed the original to proceed but copied the extract as a document of human interest; in that it was a boyish and unconscious arraignment of his own country—­for which he with many thousands of others, were risking their lives.

      “Mammy,
     these French people don’t bother with no color line business.  They
     treat us so good that the only time I ever know I’m colored is when
     I look in the glass.”