Click2Disasters - The Spanish Flu - Chapter 5 - Sick Soldiers

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>SPANISH FLU</b></font> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 5 - SICK SOLDIERS</b></font></p> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">When American troops went to Europe, they unwittingly carried with them a virus that would end up killing more people than the weapons of war. Photographs from the national archives depict both the fighting men and their surroundings.</p><ul> <li><a href="images/evacuation.Reeve017635.jpg" target="_blank"><b>Air evacuation</b></a>, in 1918, was <a href="images/primitive.Reeve017633.jpg" target="_blank"><b>primitive</b></a> by today’s standards. But then, as now, <a href="images/planes.Reeve017634.jpg" target="_blank"><b>planes</b></a> could mean the difference between life and death.</li><br><br> <li>Soldiers and <a href="images/civilians.Reeve037288.jpg" target="_blank"><b>French civilians</b></a> had to wear <a href="images/gasmasks.Reeve037283.jpg" target="_blank"><b>gas masks</b></a> to <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmustard.htm" target="_blank"><b>protect</b></a> themselves from <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_gas" target="_blank"><b>mustard gas</b></a>).</li><br><br> <li>As U.S. troops crowded into confined spaces such as hospitals, trenches and blocked roads (like the <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/28/8/28-0789a.gif" target="_blank"><b>ruins of Esnes</b></a> behind American lines in the <a href="http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/bigshow.htm" target="_blank"><b>Argonne</b></a>), they spread the flu virus.</li><br><br> <li>Americans were <a href="images/sick.Rve14682.jpg" target="_blank"><b>sick</b></a> with the flu in Aix-Les-Bains, France <a href="images/and.Rve15183.jpg" target="_blank"><b>and</b></a> Hollerich, Luxembourg.</li><br><br> <li>Triumphant U.S. soldiers <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/28/7/28-0679a.gif" target="_blank"><b>marched</b></a> through Perth, Scotland in 1918 while others, <a href="images/wounded.Reeve011462.jpg" target="_blank"><b>wounded</b></a> at the front, were brought back to Souilly, France on September 28, 1918.</li></ul> <p>The following month, civilians back in the States would endure a horrifying outbreak of the flu epidemic as returning soldiers brought the now-mutated virus home. Much worse than its “first wave” (in the spring of 1918), the Spanish Flu had turned deadly. Philadelphia, where there were more bodies than coffins, was the <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1198/lynch.html" target="_blank"><b>hardest hit</b></a> American city.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="spanish_flu_ch4.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="spanish_flu_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="spanish_flu_ch6.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>