Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-12-27


West street. this city:
Thanksgiving day.
Pengance, England.
Today is Thanksgiving and / am
sure we have lots of reasons for being
thankful. Mother il is a wonderful
thing to know that this terrible war is
over. and in a few days our boys will
be homeward bound. What wonder
affair to look forward TO. Our mail
isn't censored any more so can write
anything / wish. Mother, we had
fine dinner today l will try to give
you the menu: turkey, celery, mince
pie, oranges, fruit cake, potatoes, cof-
fee, fruit, jam, bread and butter, APP
pies and also a beautiful bunch of
flowers, which a couple of little Eng
lish boys brought us. and also nice
white table cloth. Oh, i forget some
thing, and nice asparagus. ! ate so
much | could hardly button my dunga-
rees. / have been to Bermuda, Azores
islands, (which are about five hundred
miles west of SPAIN, Brest, France;
England and Ireland. This has been
sightseeing trip for me. but | have
had some exciting times, too.
We left Queenstown, Ireland, No
vember "a, for England, arriving there
next day. Plymouth. England, is our
base at present. Plymouth is a nice
city of about two hundred thousand
population. At present we are in Pen
gance, which is town of about twenty
thousand population, and is seventy
miles from Plymouth. We are on a
little sightseeing trip. We go from
here to Falmouth, then return to Ply
mouth / exect to get seven days
leave which / am looking forward to
with much pleasure, for / want to go
to London and Glasgow, Scotland. If
| get the leave my transportation is
free.s hope you are not worrying, for
my tough times are over now. No
more night patrols and am glad of it.
4 The submarine chasers look so much
/ like submarines in the night time that
several times we were nearly rammed
by our own destroyers. But there isn't
any danger now, for all ships run with
their lights just as it used to be be-
fore the war. We don't do patrol work
any more In fact we don't do any
thing now, but eat and sleep.
/ have heard lots of rumors about
going home this winter, but | don't
pay much attention to them. Mother,
think we will be home by early
spring when the weather is sbetter.
The submarine chasers are very sea-
worthy little boats, but ! don't think
we will cross the Atlantic this winter
unless we take the southern route.
There is a rumor that we are going to
the Canary islands, then to the west
Indies, from the West Indies to Florida
and then up the coast We would have
good weather if we take this route,
but l don't believe we will, because it
is very long route. ! think we will
wait until early spring and go straight
across. And have also heard that we
are going to France pretty soon.
hope we do for would love to get a
chance to see Paris. The French peo-
pie treat us fine. The English treat us
French, and the Qrish) mother l hate
to think of them. A few of them like
the Yanks, but the majority of them
hate us and they don't like the Eng
lish.
Ireland has very pretty scenery but
you can't see it for rain and fog. We
were there three months and / am
good clear weather the whole time
we were there. The girls wear pillow
shoes and thick stockings, and most of
them are teethless, and still we sing
songs about ireland. Well, l guess
will stop knocking ireland, but we
we're treated pretty bad and had to pay
terrible prices for everything we
bought.
Mother l am very glad I got across
for wouldn't have been contented in
the states during this war, but am
glad it is over. ! worried about Elmer
all the time. for the boys in the army
had the worst end of it and they de-
serve most of the credit. But the navy
has been doing wonderful work, and
of course they are the boys who
brought the army across safely. The
American convoy system done wonders
towards winning the war.
The submarines were afraid to at
tack our conveys when our destroyers
were with them They took chance
at us on our way over, just of Brest,
France, fired several torpedoes at two
of the largest ships in the convoy but
they missed One of the torpedoes
passed few yards astern of our
chaser. and just missed the U. S. ship
Bridgeport, which is a large repair
ship for chasers and destroyers. and
several were fired at the U. s. ship
Buffalo. which is also a repair ship.
Well. we had fun for about one and a
half hours. One submarine was de-
stroyed. and no more was seen or
heard from that surprise party You
can't imagine how much fun it is But
| missed most of the fun because my
place is in the engine room when any
fun is going on. We were making
some speed, and l didn't have time to
think of submarines. when we were
running full speed. But it was real
sport.