Menu
  • Abous us
  • Search database
  • Resources
  • Donate
  • Faq

Hall Richard Nelville

Name:
Richard Nelville Hall
Rank:
Ambulance Driver
Serial Number:
Unit:
American Field Service
Date of Death:
1915-12-25
State:
Michigan
Cemetery:
Moosch French National Cemetery
Plot:
Row:
Grave:
424
Decoration:
French Croix de Guerre
Comments:

Born May 18, 1894 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Son of Dr. Louis P. and Elizabeth D. Hall. Educated Ann Arbor schools, University of Michigan, and Dartmouth College, Class of 1915. Joined American Field Service, June 15, 1915; attached Section Three. Many men admired Richard Hall for his relentless and tireless dedication to always drive again up and down to the Hartmannswillerkopf over roads, filled with soldiers and animals. While making some deliveries in his ambulance a seemingly random German shell hit his ambulance and killed him near Hartsmannsweilerkopf, Alsace night of December 24-25, 1915.

He has a cenotaph located in Forest Hill Cemetery, Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, Michigan.
From homas William Fife, author of The Harvard Section - The History of American Field Service Section Three Volume One 1914-1915:

Richard N. Hall of Ann Arbor, Michigan volunteered as an ambulance driver with the Ambulance of the American Hospital of Paris just after graduating from Dartmouth College in the spring of 1915.

After serving a short time in Paris, Hall was assigned to American Ambulance Section Three which was attached to the French 66th Division, then engaged in fighting in the newly recaptured region of Alsace. Section Three was an all-volunteer American ambulance section composed primarily of young, wealthy Ivy League men who had volunteered on their own volition to serve as non-combatant ambulance drivers. Hall completed his first three month volunteer period and reenlisted twice more.

In the early morning hours of Christmas Day, December 25, 1915 while on his way to a front line aid station during the French attack on German positions on the Hartsmannswillerkopf mountain, Hall's ambulance was struck by a random German artillery shell and he was killed instantly. Hall became the first American ambulance volunteer to be killed in WWI. (He was also the first resident of the State of Michigan and the first graduate of Dartmouth to lose his life in the Great War.). Hall was buried in a small French military cemetery in the village of Moosch on December 27 and within a few days of his burial his comrades began erecting a rough stone cairn to commemorate the spot where Hall was killed. As the drivers would pass by the location, they would stop to add stones to the growing memorial. Once completed the cairn was topped by a cross constructed by wood recovered from the wreckage of his ambulance. Several photos of the cairn was taken, as well as a charcoal drawing. The cairn was mentioned in several letters and diary entries.