Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1918-05-02

0k9EH ANY have told of the deeds of the de-
WGAj stroyer men, for the exploits of those
I%"1 who drive the swift war boats
H8N to their double task of Staying and
fEXOW saving makes fine and joyous telling
IAHEI To the credit of the killers of the u
boats and guardians the convoy let
1t be said that half of the splendid tale has
not yet been told.
The men of the lean hunter craft are the pick
of the navy and their ships close be-
ing the best in the world. They know it. their
countrymen know it, and Fritz the submarine
is learning it his own sorrow.
Much honor pa1d to the men of the
grand Heet-the bluejacketS who waiting at
some unnamed rendezvous for a chance to
loose the destruction their great guns upon
the ships of Wilhelm lord of the Kiel canal.
These buckler, and our shield. They
man the first line of the nations defense. They
fighters. skilled in their appointed tasks, and
eager for that battle that they believe cannot
be far off now.
No tells of their brethren of the trans
port service Only the brief official announce
ment gives their history, and this but
rarely. Occasionally the powers at Washing
ton lift the curtain of secrecy that hangs be-
tween our coast line and the Atlantic to
nCunce that troops have been landed to
mentioned number at an unnamed port in France.
Only far has named the ships that car
rfed those troops
To the average American mind the transports
leave shores and reach those of France, and
that is all there is to it.
There is much more. Most of this probably
will be told. The endless chain of ships,
most of them built in Germany, that carry
men and supplies to the immediate of the
war, and then return for more, have his
tory.
Yet the history there. latent and waiting
for birth. The fate of Americas part in the
war, perhaps the fate of the itself, rests
the blue-jumpered shoulders of the transport
men. Their business is not to fight, unless
| nered Their task is not to defend so much as
| to evade. They responsible for the lives of
| thousands of temporarily helpless soldiers. They
and their ship play a desperate game of tag. in
which every U-boat the kaiser is ST. and
they and their vessel the lone and unhappy tagee.
Day by day they come and day by day they go,
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 their duty. And they are doing their
| work. They getting the men across up
to the time this written. 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. it
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. doing. How they are doing 1t
| is only a 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 filled with
| a new-found gratitude and admiration for their
brothers in the navy blue who brought them safe
| ly
| Let us call her the Ramapo because that isn't
her name. Let say still further that she was
formerly, before she hauled down the red,
|
the Fuerst Adoph, which she wasn't, and one of
the crack liners In the German merchant ma
| rine, which she was
| In the dusk of winter afternoon she slip
ped down the river and out to sea, unobtrusive
| in her war paint Several thousand troops
were in the troop spaces below decks
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
| to the ominous Atlantic swell. and she was on
her way across. From on. for day on day,
a torpedo rightly placed might cause a greater
loss than the attack of army corps ashore
Down in the troop spaces soldiers were singing
to keep up their courage In the quarters or a
negro regiment at least hundred crap games
were already in progress Up in the crows
nests lads only few times at sea were already
on the watch for submarines and seeing peri
scopes in every top
That night. the storm hit them
All through the night, the section on watch
had no time for peaceful thought They pro-
crossed puss-in-the-corner fashion across the
heaving decks in the inky darkness. making fast
dayits that wrenching free with the roll
inc securing a hundred different objects that
strove to burst away.
The acknowledgements of the wave tops was the
only light they Save for two or three ex-
, ceptions there absolutely no illumination on
the boat