Milford chronicle., 1918-12-27

- 49, A@NA ~ 2NNA 4hNNNAhN
er for Delaware, has received the fol-
lowing letter from his son, who is with
the Delaware Regiment (now the 59th
Pioneer Infantry in France. The let
ter follows:
SOrcy, France.
Nov. gath, 1918
My dear Father:
This is the day every soldier Of the
A. E. F. is supposed to write TO his
Dad, telling him of the brave deeds
he has performed, the number Of Ger
mans he has captured, etc. In other
words, we are allowed to tell things
that heretofore have been considered
as military information. Also. if we
know OF fathers whose sons have made
the supreme sacrifice, it is requested
that We write to those parents. Per
sOnally, l am very glad that it is not
necessary for another soldier TO write
to you, for l assure you it gives me
quite a feeling of relief TO know that
this war is now becoming but a mem
ory and / am still as good physical
condition as the day we landed in
France-probably weigh a few pounds
more.
l believe the Publicity Bureau al
lowed you 10 know that we came over
on the worlds greatest transport, the
"Leviathan", formerly the 'Vaterland" f,
interned in New York. The designers
of this great ship had very good rea-
son to be proud OF their work. for she
is truly a floating marvel Our trip
..ya II &C..
the weather was pleasant with the eX-
cepton Of one day. and that made little
difference to the "Leviathan" Two
or three times the 6-inch guns opened
fire on a suspicious looking object, and
on one occasion a depth bomb was
dropped. Due TO the great speed of
our boat. submarines had little chance
with her. However, / will long remem-
ber the trip. for we had 20 be contin-
ually on the alert. wearing our life
belts al all times. You may get some
idea of the size of the "Levtathau'
when say that there We're apprONi-
mately 1900 soldiers, hoo sailors and
300 nurses on board besides the ship
crew Very near four times tile pop
ulatjOn OF Dover We landed aI Brest.
France. Saturday evening September
7th entering very pretJy harbOr.
After seven DAYS on the water .due
10 our Zig-zag c0urse) YOU can mag
inc we were delighted TO again set
foot on mother earth. We Went direct
TO q camp on the outskirts OF Brest
and pitched our dog tents" This was
supposed TO be a res, 90 camp (the
boys called il by an entirely different
nance. It rained practically the en-
tire time we were there, which was
seven days, so you can readily see the
boys were justified in wondering why
il was called a rest camp. This being
our first stop in France we were natur-
ally short on food, so during our So
journ there our meals usually consist
ed Of bacon and potatoes for breakfast,
potatoes and bacon for dinner, etc.
However. the boys entered into the
new life with the proper spirit so we
got along very well. We were all glad
when the order break tents" was
given, although could we have forseen
the future probably we would have
been contented to stay where we were,
for after leaving Brest we were on the
road for four days travelling in box
cars. This trip, while tiresome, was
interesting to me, for I was getting
my first glimpse of France. No one
Knew where we were going. but final |
y we arrived at Foulain, and we were /
not long getting out of those side-door |
Dullmans. This time we thought we /
we're in luck. We pitched tents on the |
iide of hill, near which was a stream /
# clear running water. II was a beau /
iful day and we were all in high /
pirits. But the next day it began to
ain and rained each day we were
here. At Foulain Regimental Head |
quarters was established in a vacant
ouse, so / spent most of my time
round Hq. Still no one knew where
re were bound or what we were to do.
u course. all kinds Of rumors were
float. Finally we were ordered to
repare to move and again loaded our
elves into the side-door pullmans.
his time our journey was snort, as
70 Travelled for about hours, arriving
{ Sorcy, Meuse, a village of about
500 inhabitants, and It was generally
nderstood that this was to be our
location. Then we became
ven more anxious as to what we were
, do. We did not have to wait long,
n our companies were soon ordered
} different places-some to do camou-
age work, some to do road oonstruc- !
on, others 10 lay water pipes, ETC., !
Id we we're classed as an engineer
hit Some Of the companies have 9
zen very close to the front line
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