The Springdale news., 1918-12-27
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A letter received Wednesday from Fay Stafford announced his return to the United States, having landed Friday of last week at Hoboken, N. J. the point from which he sailed Oct. ober 28. Thirty-one days were spent in France, being engaged in convoy work at Brest He is now station ed at Camp Merritt, N. J., and has no idea when he will be discharged Following extracts from his letter will likely be of interest to News readers
 Camp Merritt, N. J., Dec. 2l, 1918, 3:30 D. m.-Well can you hardly req lize it, can't, back home once again in Gods Country the grand old U. s. A., and when l say that, no one realizes it more than one who has gone through the travelling we have since leaving Camp Wheeler, Ga, Sept 21
 We have just arrived at Camp Mer- ritt, N. J., having unloaded off the "U. s. s. Manehuria," which landed at Pier No. 3, Hoboken, N. J., at 30 D. m, leaving Brest, France, Wednes- day morning Dec 12, at exactly 500 a. m, after being aboard ship ten days.
 In order to describe our reception upon our arrival hese- aid aid justice to the occasion 1t would take one more acquainted with the English language than l. However, will make an at tempt.
 Long before dawn Friday morning the upper deck of the "Manchuria" was filled with soldiers waiting eag- erly for the first sight of land, which is the Statue of Liberty. We were scheduled to sight land at FOO o'clock but We were about two hours late. Now. you can imagine the cheering and "hollering" that took place when a soldier on the bow of the boat an nouneed land Shortly after our entrance into the harbor we were met by the Mayor of New York and his committee, with his private band, all on his special boat, and the police boat of New York City, and escorted into the docks. Of all the blowing of whistles, waving of flags, cheer ing and other bursts of enthusiasm, you never saw the equal. Upon our arrival at the dock we were met by about 200 Red Cross nurses, an army band of about fifty pieces, moving picture men, and several distinguished citizens of New York Escorted by the band we paraded the main street, reviewed by the Mayor and marched to our train for Camp Merritt. This march was an event which will ever be remembered by every man who was a participant It is impossible for me to tell all this on paper It will require a personal description More about our trip back in letter which will try and write later.
 About our trip to France. If you remember l sent you New York newspaper telling of the sinking of the "Americus" in her port here. Well we were to board this ship, in fact we had rolled our packs, left Camp Mills and should the sinking have occurred two hours later 1t would have caught our company There were just 26 men drowned, all of whom were out of artillery, the greatest loss being q million dollar cargo of sugar which she was carry l ing, in addition to her troops. On account of this we were delayed two weeks at Camp Mills, and did not sail until Monday, October 28, at ex- actly high noon. On showing off at the Pier there was absolutely no de- monstration whatever, no yelling or noise of any kind permitted, quite contrast from our return home. we went to France on the "U. $. 5. Rindam" (Rhinedam), Dutch boat, the one on which the Queen of Hol- land took her honeymoon trip. On going over no lights whatever were allowed, no smoking, no loud yelling, the safest thing was to go to bed, and this was not very comfortable when we found out it was orders for all troops to sleep fully dressed and with your life preserver on at all times, day or night. The lights out was on account of the submarines, in fact all this was on their account. It was said a cigarette could be seen as far as five miles at sea.
 Our convoy across consisted of five sub chasers, Ii transports, and one battleship, and when tell you there were between $500 and 4,000 troops on our boat you can figure how many troops were in the entire convoy. In addition to this our boat had a navy crew of 600 sailors. We were