The Cordova daily times., 1918-09-10
LANDING TROOPS FROM AMERICA
 ACROSS OCEAN

night, all lights out ashore and atOat, . heavy rain squalls sweeping out 10 sea, and this great port dark and si | lent as the latest fleet of American | transports and convoys-13 monster ships. 10 destroyers, 3G.o00 fighting men and 5000 crew-creeps in from the Atlantic.
 With an American army escort we had climbed to high point on the sea front to get glimpse of this first | process in the gigantic military mi 1. grafton from America to Europe, the ! greatest the world has ever known, ! and then to follow it, step by step, as its vast and intricate activities un- 1 folded up to the arrival of the men on | the fighting front.
 The wireless station had received a ! cipher message giving warning of the 1. approach of the fleet. It had been hoped the arrival would be in day | light with flags flying, bands. playing | and the sun shining as the American fighting men got their first glimpse of Europe. But this is no dress parade, . said the admiral. and there is no time for stage effects.
 And so at midnight in the rain and darkness, with signal lights showing for the first time since they left the other side, the huge fotila moved in a long line of lights to the sheltered roadstead There was the creak of windlass and chains as the anchors gripped
 And yet this midnight arrival in the darkness and rain is only one of the steady succession of great anna das coming every three or four days, in the colossal American military in Aux which Secretary Baker gives at 275, 600 men for single month. These 5000 men just in are the population of good-szed city-twiCe as many men as we sent to Cuba for the Span ish-American war. about half the force Napoleon had at Waterloo, when the destinies of Europe were in the scale.
 And while this is one Of the record part of that mighty stream coming in from the West It is the unprece- dented magnitude of such military movement. across the ocean, in the face of submarines. that has thrilled the allied world and broken the spirit of the adversary.
 IL was a stirring scene in the har- bor the morning following as the transports unloaded their 36,o0o men. The sky had cleared and the huge hulls Of the transports loomed out of the mist, their tunnels pufting black tastic camoufiage. and their decks ris- ing like terraces crowded with khaki. clad Americans in their broad brimmed sombreros. The destroyerS had drawn off and were lying punched ten across. They looked diminutive | beside the big ships. but their power l showed in the glint of guns and the l long. lean build. like a greyhound | stretched for action Further back 1 were the French warships.
 All about were innumerable small 1 craft. army and navy tugs, lighters, 1 with their nets hanging to dry like | huge sails of lace. Back of this water | scene stretched the huge American 1 warehouses, sprung up like mush- 1 rooms. until the whole front was black with buildings and the skeletons ot ] more buildings. Already the lighters ! were alongside and the soldiers came 1 tramping down the gangways to go
 ashore.
 The Americans found this port 1 without any system of big docks. A l few Of the smaller ships can come . lb itit ubNhS, bhl lIipNt LII lut uliIpt'd~ 1 ing from the deep-draught ships must ! hc by lighters The American com
 manders are planning to change all
 this. and soon the long breakwater | will be linked to the land by bridges, 1 thus creating at stroke huge dock.
 ing systems by which the American
 troops will march straight ashore l from the ships.
 A lighter was now pushing ofi. with l 800 troops packed on it like the crowd | at holiday procession. The men
 were feeling gay, for they were about ] tC step on solid ground again, and to have their first look at France; and
 besides, they had the regimental band,
 which was sending The Star-Span. | cled Banner" echoing over the water. 1 Every head was barred as the strains