The Cordova daily times., 1918-07-26

! The following excerpts from letters to Cordoya friends, written b. our former townsman. John w Jones. a private in the United States marines. now somewhere in France" will prove most interesting to Daily Times readers:
 Aboard Ship, May 27, 1918.
 At last am off of good old '. $. soil ana bound for France. The weather 50 far k fine except for a little fog We are aboard a fine ship built for marines We have good quarters and the boys are in the best ot spirits. We left Quantico four days ago; We were up at 3 d. m. and were escorted to the train by the band There were number of moth CTS and swecthearts there to say good bye to their boys.
 "Wc stopped at Washington, D. C., and were given an early morning treat by the Red Cross. l saw the capitol building and many of the public buildings from distance would have liked to have had chat with Woodrow, but no doubt he was having breakfast and would not have cared to be interrupted
 The people along the road from Washington to the port we departed from were all much more patriotic than in any of the states that we trav- eled through since leaving Mare Island. l never at any time saw so many flags The Red. White and Blue, iservice flags, Red Cross flags and Lib |erty loan fiags-every house had more or less flags to show their patriotism
 'l met some people at certain port, down near the wharf, who, after talk ing to my pal and l for q couple Of hours, went home and brought us | some good eats, which consisted of two bundles, one for each. Mine con tLincd twelve packages of cigarettes. three boxes of matches. two nice boxes of candy. six oranges. six ba nanas, four chicken sandwiches and half a homemade cake My lal also had about the same. Of course We only had q small portion of it. as we divided up with some of the boys who | were not so lucky. l have to go to quarters now; will write more to- morrow.
 June 2.-Why didn't l wri' the next morning? Well, it was Il ttfffie rough. and was also on watch on the bridge deck-four-hou watches every twenty-four hours. l have not been bit sick since leaving am really enjoying myself Of course this boat don't rock like the Victoria and some Of the rest, but it has been req, amusing to see how sick some of the boys get Many of them are from the Central states. and never ! saw q steamboat before
 ! "Yesterday was my first experience ! seeing a heavy gun fired, and it wa'
 really exciting. The target was { dummy submarine which was being lowed about five hundred yards astern another boat which was about a mile off our port side We could
 not see the target with the naked eye
 as it was only the dummy periscopt in sight. The gun crews scored sey. eral hits.
 "Well we shot for records at QuantiCO. but l lost out as expert by six points, but made sharpshooters by q good lead; that means $3 more d month-not much. but can buy cig arcttes fell down in rapd,hrc which l was so sure of had been doing well in that, but was over, confident After shooting for record, all who qualified Tor expert and sharp ''ii''''i N'L' put blI tue NHN ana | .'''lr yard range. At S00 | scored Gl and at looo, 7i out of a possible loo. some ot the experts .ored as low as G and points on these ranges
 "We will be in the war zone in about three days, and perhaps about two days going through so you see we hay" some travelling ahead ol us yet. We will meet the convoy that takes Us through most any time now
 June I.-Weu, We have been in the war zone about twenty.four hours and had expected to see little ex- citement, but everything is sailing along fine. We now have our convoy with us, and it is q great sight to most of us. We have our drills regu- larly night and day, and if We should be struck by torpedo We have plenty