The Twin City star., 1918-04-20


"ao drive the swift war boats
HNX to their double task of slaying and
mV&CXI saving makes fine and joyous telling
IX4EI TO the credit of the killers Of the u
- boats and guardians of the convoy let
1t be said that half Of the splendid tale has
not yet been told.
The men Of thes lean hunter craft are the pic.
OF the navy and their ships come close to be-
Ing the best In the world They know It, their
countrymen know It, and Fritz of the submarine
Is learning 1t to his own sorrow.
Much hOn6r~fs also pald TO the men of the
grand feet-the bluejackets who are waiting Mt
some unnamed sea rendezvous for chance to
loose the destruction Of their great guns upon
the ships OF Wilhelm, sea lord of the Kiel canal.
These are our buckler, and our shield. They
man the first line of the nations defense They
are fighters. skilled in their appointed tasks, and
eager for. that battle that they believe cannot
be SO far off now.
No one tells of their brethren Of the trans.
port service. Only the brief official announce.
ment gives their history, and this comes but
rarely. Occasionally the powers Mt Washing
ton lift the curtain of secrecy that hangs be-
tween our coast line and the Atlantic to an
ncunce that troops have been landed to an un-
mentioned number at an unnamed port In France.
Only once so far has II named the ships that car
ried those troops
To the average American mind the transports
leave our shores and reach those of France and
that Is all there is to It.
There Is much more. Most Of this probably
will never be told. The endless chain Of ships,
most of them built in Germany, that carry
men and supplies to the immediate rear Of the
war, and then return for more, have no his
tory.
Yet the history Is there. latent and waiting
for BIRTH The fate of Americas part In the
war, perhaps the fate of the war itself, rests
on the blue-jumpered shoulders of the transport
men. Their business is not to fight, unless cor
nered. Their task is not to defend so much as
to evade They are responsible for the lives of
thousands Of temporarily helpless soldiers. They
and their ship play desperate game of tag, in
which every U-boat the kaiser owns Is 1T" and
they and their vessel the lone and unhappy tagee.
Day by day they come and day by day they 60.
and Of their doings only the high lords OF the
navy know. Peril Of storm and torpedo are
theirs. Unrelaxed vigilance and eternal weari-
ness are their duty. And they are doing their
work. They are getting the men across Up
to the time this was written, no transport fly
ing the Stars and Stripes and carrying her pre-
cious load Of men and munitions to France has
lost in her deadly game Of tag The Tuscania. 1t
should be remembered, was a British ship.
That is what the men of the transport serv-
Ice, most of whom enlisted to fight and were
chosen to run, are doing How they are doing it
Is only partly told tale, caught here and there
from letters sent home from French ports by
sailors; from descriptions of the trip over "Over
There" recounted by soldiers recovered from the
terrible qualms of seasickness and filed with
a new.found, gratitude and admiration for their
brothers in the navy blue who brought them safe
.ly across.
Let us call her the Ramapo because that isn't
her name. Let us say still further that she was
formerly before she hauled down the red,
white and black and hoisted the Stars and Stripes
the Fuerst Adolph, which she wasn't and one, OF
the crack liners in the German merchant ma
rine, which she was.
ped down the river and out to sea, unobtrusive
In her war paint. Several thousand troops
were in the "troop spaces" below decks.
q The troops were all kept below while the trans
port slowly slipped down the stream and the
shores grew blurred behind her. Then her en-
gines quickened Her bow made Its first curtsey
70 the ominous Atlantic swell, and she was. on
her way across. From now on, for day on day.
. torpedo rightly placed might cause greater
loss than the attack of an army corps ashore.
Down In the troop spaces soldiers were singing
to keep up their courage. In the quarters OF
negro regiment at least hundred crap games
were already In progress. Up In the crows
on the watch for submarines and seeing perl
scopes In every wave top. e45
\ That night, the storm hit them. ~ q 3
All through the night the section on watch
had no time for peaceful thought They pro-
gresSed puss-in-the-corner fashion across the
heavlng decks in the inky darkness, making fast
dayits that were wrenching free with the roll
ing, securing hundred different obJects tnat
atroye to burst away.
The phosphorescence Of the wave tops was the
only light they saw. Save for two or three ex-
ceptions there was absolutely no illumination on
the boat