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Fleury-sur-Aire Medical Memorial

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Details:

At the junction.

Monument

A three-person sculpture, a 1999 installation depicting a meeting between a doctor, a nurse, and a seriously injured patient. The nurse is Mme Jacquemaire-Clemenceau and the patient is John Verplanck Newlin, age 19, an American volunteer ambulance driver from Princeton University, whom she cared for. The memorial was inaugurated on 24 October 1999 in the presence of the representative of the US ambassador to France.

 

The monument site was a former hospital that treated some 116,000 wounded between May 1916 and February 1919. Lying some 25 kilometers southwest of Verdun city and served by an extensive road and rail network, this hospital was one of the most important in the Verdun region. At the peak of its operation, it reached the capacity of 1,220 beds and occupied 8 hectares. It covers the Haute-Chevauchée – Avocourt – Côte du Poivre front.

 

On the left side of the monument, there is a memorial boulder with a commemoration message engraved while on the right side of the monument, a trapezoidal stele bearing an explanatory plaque can be seen.

Source of information: roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com, gebete29.wordpress.com

Source of photos: Google Earth, gebete29.wordpress.com

Monument Text:

On the boulder:

 

A la memorie des combattants blesses

et des

services de sante

Francais et Americans

 

1914 - 1918

 

English translation:

 

In memory of wounded combatants

and the

health services

French and Americans

 

1914 - 1918

 

 

On the stele:

 

LE MONUMENT

 

  Ce monument commémore le dévouement le voluntariat et souvent l'abnégation de l'ensemble des membres des Services de Santé français et américains de la guerre 1914/1918, et témoigne de la force et de la grandeur du sacrifice de tous les combattants.

 

  Réalisé en 1999 par le sculpteur François DAVIN et érigé sur le lieu même d'un hôpital militaire, le monument, massif et rude dans sa réalisation, représente un médecin et une infirmière au chevet d'un soldat blessé. Ce symbole de l'humanité permet aussi d'évoquer la rencontre brève et dramatique dans cet hôpital d'un ambulancier volontaire américain de l' "American Field Service" : John Verplank NEWLIN (étudiant de l'Université de PRINCETON), grièvement blessé, et de l'infirmière-major de l' "Union des Femmes de France": Madeleine CLEMENCEAU-JACQUEMAIRE, rendant ainsi hommage à la solidarité franco-américaine. 

 

 

English translation:

 

THE MONUMENT

 

    This monument commemorates the dedication, voluntarism, and often self-sacrifice of all members of the French and American Health Services during the 1914/1918 war, and bears witness to the strength and greatness of the sacrifice made by all combatants.

 

  Created in 1999 by sculptor François DAVIN and erected on the site of a military hospital, the monument, massive and rugged in its execution, represents a doctor and a nurse at the bedside of a wounded soldier. This symbol of humanity also evokes the brief, dramatic encounter in this hospital between a seriously wounded American volunteer ambulance driver from the American Field Service, John Verplank NEWLIN (a student at PRINCETON University), and the head nurse of the Union des Femmes de France, Madeleine CLEMENCEAU-JACQUEMAIRE, thus paying tribute to Franco-American solidarity.

Commemorates:

People:

John Verplanck Newlin

Units:

Ambulance Corps

American Expeditionary Forces (AEF)

American Field Service

Wars:

WWI

Other images :