The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-05
TOBACCO GREATEST
 SOLACE IN FRANCE
 SAYS ROBT. WHIDBY
Returned Member of For eign Legion Says Socks Are Hardest Things
 to Get

"Twenty-hve cents for q sack of Bull
 Durham may seem lot to the fellows
 over here, but it is as nothing to them compared to what 1t means to the boys
 over there some of whom are making only cents day" said Private Rob
 ert Whidby of the French Foreign
 Legion, Tenth company, First regiment
 Whidby has recently been discharged
 from the service on account of shell
 shock received during August.
 Private whidby sailed from Mobile
 during the summer. 1916, and after the vessel upon which he was travelling was taken as a prize ship by French
 warship, he landed Somewhere in
 France" on the 2Sth of October, 1916.
 After staying there for a week he de-
 cided to throw his lot with the French
 Foreign Legion and was accepted for
 service. He stated that his regiment
 was the first to be mentioned in the
 dispatches for four successive times
 and that all of them were awarded
 war crosses to distinguish them for
 this service, called in French -Four
 ragerre." For their services he said that the soldiers were paid, at the
 present time, cents a day. and that
 this was cents a day more than 1t was at the time he entered. The con ditions there are much worse than the people here have any conception of, he states. |, My feet would have frozen in the trenches last winter if it had not been that I killed four large rats there and used their skins sewed together for socks," he continued. There were ftnnaS when WY fay \ days without the opportunity to wash our faces even, and have often eaten as many meals out of my mess kit
 without an opportunity of cleaning it.
 when we got anything to eat. At the times when we were behind the lines for breathing spell we were always ready for smoke.
 The French tobacco is so strong that the average American cannot use it when he can procure it, and it seems to me a very little thing to do for the folks back home to contribute this mite to the men who are fighting their battles, shedding their own blood that the ones at home may be spared the horrors of war in this country
 'The lack of clothes among the French people is beginning to be a serious prop osition. Only enough Is left on the unfor- tunate ones who come in contact with the Germans to keep from saying that they are naked, and I have seen children kept In the houses because they were not provided with clothes When the women are returned, if they be so fortunate, their entire apparel consists of one under skirt, and the men are merely left a pair of pants. Last winter the temperature l was several times more than 20 degrees below zero, and should this be the case this year, which 1t probably will be, the ! situation becomes a grave one indeed. l The greatest lack of the armies there 1 at present is for socks The constant | wear to which they are subjected in the I trenches the mud. precipitation, and 1 rough use soon wears even the most dur I able beyond use. The next greatest lack 1 Is for tobacco. The strain Is almost un- 1 endurable and nothing seems to soothe 1 and strengthen man so much as his l smoke This is really a need, for the l boys can fight better and longer and keep in better condition if supplied, and
 it seems to me that 1t is the duty of the l people back home to supply this lack. | They are the only ones who can Only | two places in Paris sell American tobacco
 when they can get'it
 "On our way home I left on a former 1 Hamburg-American steamer, on Satur-
 day. September 8. at 10:3O a. m. The sec ond day, Sunday, we spotted a U-boat | about 9:30. Later when the periscope l bobbed up again we began firing. The | first eight shots missed, but the ninth | hit the coming tower, causing her to 1 have to come to the surface, and with
 one more shot we hit her engine room. | When we left nothing remained but an 1 oily spot In the sea-"