Hans Peter Faye Jr. (1896-1984) was born at Mana, Kaua‘i and was attending Yale in 1917 during World War I when he volunteered for service with the AFS (American Field Service). Founded in 1914, the AFS was a volunteer unit
Hans Peter Faye Jr. (1896-1984) was born at Mana, Kaua‘i and was attending Yale in 1917 during World War I when he volunteered for service with the AFS (American Field Service).
Founded in 1914, the AFS was a volunteer unit composed of young Americans who’d left college to serve France as ambulance and military transport drivers during the war. Their motto was “Tous et tout pour la France” (All and everything for France).
Participating in every major French battle of the war, over 2,500 AFS volunteers transported more than 500,000 French casualties and military material.
AFS missions were often dangerous. By the end of the war, some 127 AFS volunteers had been killed in action. H. P. Faye Jr. served in the AFS during 1917 as a truck driver hauling ammunition to the front lines near Soissons, France.
In December 1917, he wrote, “On the first trip I ever took, way back in July, we went up in the daytime, and I got my first sight of actual shellfire, as the Bosches [Germans] were shelling the road and the crest of the hill like the very devil that day. We couldn’t go across the river then because the roads were being too heavily shelled, so we had to drive along a road by the river, but that was near enough. The ‘arrives’ were bursting on the top of the hill first, then they began creeping down the hill, and finally began to land in the river. We left then. Remember, the road ran alongside that river!”
Faye later transferred to the American artillery for the duration of the war and was commissioned an officer.
After the war, Faye went on to become president of American Factors, one of Hawai‘i’s Big Five companies.
