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CORPORAL DON SPARKS

The day they saved the French town

 The following is a copy of a newspaper story about Don Sparks who now lives in Farmington.

Corporal Don Sparks, son of Mr. and Mrs. Everett Sparks of Flat River, is mentioned in the following transcript of a news dispatch, which was featured in a radio broadcast over KMOX.

Last week in the battle of France three American medical officers, two G.I.'s, one Frenchman, and one Jill, as American service women are called, received accidental credit for saving the entire town of Steinfort.  The story is another one of those strange paradoxical events that serve to relieve the stark grimness of war.

The story is told by the Jill - and, incidentally, the jeep driver was Corporal Don Sparks of Flat River, Missouri.

"We were riding along," she says, "on an eight hundred mile, four-day trip to find sites for military hospitals.

"We were driving along, prosaically dicussing the requirements of U.S. Army hospitals - buildings and grounds large enough to accomodate one thousand beds and six hundred personnel.

"There is a deceptive atmosphere of quiet behind advancing spearheads.  There are stalled tanks, numerous burned and wrecked trucks and automobiles.  Occasionally huge trees have been snapped off.  There are some battered towns, but generally the countryside shows little signs of war.

"It is very important in following in the wake of an advanced spearhead to be certain to stay within the area of its advance.  A few hundred yards to right or left and the chances of getting a sniper's bullet are excellent.

"One of the G.I.'s had one way of spotting whether American troops had passed - he looked for K-ration cans tossed by the roadside.

"One of the men had just remarked that they hadn't passed a kid asking for chewing gum for several miles, when we took a turn into a village, and from everywhere, houses, yards, and lands, men and women, and children came shouting, gesturing, and gesticulating in German and French.  One member of the party was able to interpret what they were saying, and then a man who spoke English dashed up.  'There are two hundred Germans in the woods.  When is the army coming?' he demanded.

The driver told him - we're a medical reconnaisance detachment, but we're going to find the U.S. Army, but quick.

The driver turned on a dime - with about nine cents change.  As we left, someone stuck the town flag of Steinfort on our jeep.  In a little while we ran into combat units, and before we knew it, were in the middle of a convoy heading right back to Steinfort.

"When our jeep came along flying the Steinfort flag, there was a huge roar.  Everyone in the town thought that we had gone back and picked up the U.S. Army.   And for the rest of our short stay, we were all treated more like heroes than members of the combat units."

Thus we bring you a story with a little different slant.  A story by an American Jill.  And the story serves to point out a well-known fact.  American servicewomen - in all branches - are no more afraid of combat duty than they are of being in work behind the lines.  As a matter of fact, with typical feminine American curiosity, most "Jills" prefer to be right up in the front - where the shooting is going on and where the adventures are many.

Donald Paul Sparks of Farmington, was a Sergeant T-4 with the U.S. Army's Medical Corps (Hospital Train) in Europe during World War II.  Mrs. D.P. Sparks provided this information.

The DAILY JOURNAL, St. Francois County., Wednesday, April 26, 1995.

 
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