Life & Style On this day in history, July 8, 1918, American Red Cross driver Ernest Hemingway is wounded in World War I On this date in history, July 8, 1918, the iconic novelist Ernest Hemingway, then an 18-year-old ambulance driver for the American Red Cross, was struck by a mortar shell while serving on the Italian front, along the Piave delta, in World War July 8, 2023