100 years ago in The Record

Friday, Dec. 20, 1918. “Being struck in the abdomen by shrapnel is not the worst experience a man could have had in the world war,” The Record reports. For one Troy soldier, such a wound was only the beginning of a harrowing adventure. Private John F. Nagle serves in the headquarters company of the Troy-based 105th U.S. Infantry regiment. In civilian life, his home is 2341 Sixth Avenue. A Record reporter visiting Troy troops in a New York City military hospital tells his story today. “First, however, it should be stated that, although Nagle can testify, he does not do so voluntarily,” the reporter writes, “his buddies who knew of the story furnished most of the details. Nagle corrected a few errors and modified some of the statements that to him seemed extravagant.” Nagle was wounded on June 26, while he and nine other men were transporting ammunition. German artillery killed the other nine. Nagle woke up in an evac hospital several days later. On July 31 he boarded the British hospital ship Warilda for transport to a military hospital in England. On August 1 a German submarine prowling the English Channel hit the Warilda with three torpedoes. Of 815 people on board, 500 died. “Nagle was in a crib on C deck, the third down, when the explosion occurred. He was thrown from the crib to the floor of the deck and toward the starboard side of the boat. All he had time to save of his equipment was a campaign hat.

“The bed-ridden, those who were helplessly crippled and the number the impact of the explosion had stunned drowned like rats, while those that could move crawled first and then best as they could made their way up two flights of stairs to the main deck.

“The stair-climbing and the struggle with the inrushing water had thoroughly weakened Nagle. No longer could he walk. On his stomach he crawled toward the bow, when another explosion resounded on the other side of the ship and the big hulk began to settle all over.”

A British major grabbed Nagle and carried him to the rail to be picked up by a British destroyer. The force of the third explosion tore him out of the major’s arms and threw him into the Channel. An Australian lieutenant saved Nagle from being sucked into the destroyer’s propellers.

Of his rescuer, Nagle says, “His name is Lieutenant W. D. Hunter and his home is Melbourne, Australia, and some day I am going to see him if it takes the last cent I have.” What became of the English major is unclear.