Medal Grouping of American Volunteer Ambulancier Powel Fenton Section Sanitaire Unis 3

[Croix de Guerre]

The following medals were awarded to American ambulance volunteer Powel Fenton of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA.  Powel volunteered as an ambulance driver with the American Ambulance Hospital of Paris in February 1915, first serving as a member of the Paris Squad evacuating wounded from le Gare du la Chapelle until he was assigned to Mrs. Whitney's American Ambulance Hospital "B" at the College du Juilly.  In April 1915 he was chosen to be a member of an experimental section assigned directly to the French army then fighting in Alsace and he quickly rose to be the chief mechanic of Section Z, 66th Div. 7th Armee.  Powell remained with the section through the Christmas Battle of Hartsmannswilerkopf in 1915 through their service at Verdun in 1916.  Fenton returned to the United States briefly in the summer of 1916 before returning to join American Field Service Section Three as it was reassigned to the French Army of the Orient and saw service in Monastir, Salonika, Albania and northern Greece. Powel Fenton served a total of 27 months with the Field Service.  In mid-1917 Fenton returned to Paris and enlisted in the United States Army and served as a non-flying officer with the US Army Air Corps.  After WWI Fenton remained in France in in 1940 he again volunteered with the American Red Cross at the American Hospital of Paris.  After an altercation with a German police officer for allegedly breaking curfew in an attempt to get a pack of cigarettes and according to his family, punching the German in the nose, Fenton was arrested and incarcerated by the Nazis in December 1941 and interned as prisoner of war at Frontstalag 122 (camp de Royallieu) in Compiègne where he remained for over two years, until the Allies liberated France in May 1944. Fenton was repatriated to the U.S. after the end of the war.  He passed away in Philadelphia in March 1986 at the age of 95.

 

The decoration ribbons are in rough shape but a fitting tribute to a man that served both the United States and France nobly. 

 

Le Conducteur FENTON, Powel, de la Section Sanitaire Automobile Américaine N° 3, sujet Américain

 

A de nouveau fait preuve d'un dévouement digne des plus grands éloges en assurant nuit et jour, pendant quinze jours, avec un parfait mépris du danger, l'évacuation de nombreux blessés sur une route de montagne constamment battue par les projectiles ennemis.

 

 

 

 

 

[SARGE]

An amazing story of a volunteer along with the medal grouping.