Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1918-09-26
DRIVING TRUCKS
FOR UNCLE Sam
AUDUBON YOUNG MAN HAS
GREAT EXPERIENCE AND
WRITES ABOUT TRIP.

Walter Kester, son of Mr.. and Mrs.
T. c. Kester, of this city, is in the
army service and at present in the
motor truck division. Uncle Sam is
using an endless number of trucks
and these are run overland from the
factories to the camps in the east. Mr..
Kester has just been out on one of
these long drives and writes such in
teresting facts that we print num-
Der of his letters, which will be eag-
erly read by those who know him. His
letters follow:
Camp Holabria.
Dear Folks:
| didn't get chance to write yes
terday so will try to write before
going back to school. Just finished
dinner. We had potatoes, beans. to-
| matoes sliced, ice tea, cucumbers
and pudding, so you see We are not
starving Yesterday afternoon l went
over to the "Y" for some paper and
happened to run across a book that
have been wanting to read for some
time, 1.-The Road to Understanding,
by Eleanor III. Porter. l brought it
back to the barrack and lay down on
my bunk and didn't stop until l fin
ished reading Thus it was that
did not get any letters written.
We are expecting to finish the
course this week.
We are going to start tomorrow on
two-day motorcycle trip. We are
to take 80 motorcycle and viii. travel
about 125 miles.
We hope to get to Gettysburg, Pa.
We will come back next day, making
$50 mile drive. We are driving
Indian motorcycles with side cars.
hope we have fine trip. At least we
will get to see lot of country.
Sunday about 100 of us will start
on special train for Detroit and will
drive back big train of army trucks.
either Packard or Liberty. We will
probably stay there about three or
five days looking through the Pack
ard, Dodge and Ford factories. We
expect to be back in two weeks.
hope We have a fine trip. l know it
will be hard work, as there will be
only one man to a truck, we will
have to drive eight hours a day.
Well, it is time to get to work. I'll
try and/write more of my trip later.
Lovingly, Walter.
Detroit, Mich, Aug. IL, 1918.
Dear Folks:
We arrived here this morning and
have just got located in our barracks.
There are about 100 men in the crew
and we had fine trip here.
suppose that in order to tell all
the news I'll have to make my let
tiers a sort of continued story, so
will start where left off before.
We stayed all night at Camp Colt
on the Gettysburg battlefield. II
certainly was pretty place. We
camped at one edge of the canton
ment on the spot of ground over
which Pickett made his famous
charge on the third day of the battle.
1t wasn't over 100 yards away to
the place which was the high water
mark" of the Civil war Camp Colt
has about 5000 men training for
tank service. They only have one
small French tank to work with,
however.
We started out with the motor
cycles at 500 in the morning. 1t
had rained quite a bit during the
night so the roads were very muddy
and il was hard driving. We went up
over the mountain to Hagerstown.
The mountain drive was splendid
and the scenery was beautiful We
had to stop quite frequently in order
TO allow the motors TO cool, for II
was upgrade all the way and muddy
too. We only travelled 81 miles, eat
ing dinner at Hagerstown. We left
at 1880 and then we did travel some
The road was paved all the way and
men had been sent ahead to warn
the people at the curves and cross
ings that we were coming, so We
opened up at 35 mile an hour pace
We had over so miles to get to Bal
timore and arrived there at 600
We travelled for an hour and then
stopped ten minutes to rest and lei
| the motors cool. imagine the trucks
which are governed to a speed OF
miles per hour will seem to go pretty
slow after that ride. We goi
through safely, except that two ma,
chines broke down and one turned
! over, but no one was hurt.