Cyrus Yancey in World War I

Taken from "Family Book of Remembrance and Genealogy With Allied Lines" By Leonidas Meacham - Page 252.

Cyrus Yancey [3 Dec 1890 - 18 March 1948]

The Next few years were spent on the farm, or until the first World War, when I enlisted in the marines in June 1917, going overseas in January 1918, and was on the Verdun Front. One time when we were so nearly exhausted that we felt we could not take another step, we had to continue on for twelve miles. At another time we were given some moldy bread to eat and threw it away, but when we came back that way we were glad to pick it up and eat it.

When being removed from the front after the fighting in Belleau Woods, I was wounded, June 1918, a piece of shrapnel going through my abdomen and thru my right hand. When the soldiers came along and found me alive, they took me to the field hospital and then on to the base hospital, where they found that practically all of my stomach had been shot away and had no hopes of my recovery. There was a German soldier who had died about the same time of my operation, so they removed his stomach and put it in me. I was in the hospital for nearly nine months, undergoing three major operations. I could not use my right hand so had to have other write for me.

When I was able travel I left for home, arriving in February 1918. When I arrived in New York a number of prominent doctors met me to talk about my recovery. I was recommended for bravery in action and received the Purple Heart Military Medal for being wounded in action.

[DJY: Cyrus lived until 1948 when he died of a sudden heart attack - he was son of Adam & Alice Tolman Yancey of Groveland, Idaho - and a descendant of Austin Yancey]