The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1918-08-12
Sergt. Tompkins
Writes His Parents
OF Life AbOardAn
Army Transport

land Highlands, has received a very
interesting and unusual letter from
his son who is now in France. The
letter is unusual inasmuch as it is
written in the form Of diary from
day to day aboard ship going over,
and tells more Of the actual life
aboard ship, the number of trans
ports, conveys, etc., than is found in
most letters. AS the letter was o.
r. by the censor, we see no reason
why it should not be published, and
give it herewith:
st. Nazaire, France,
10 a. m. Thursday,
June 9th, 1915
Have been waiting to get Your let
ter so that l could answer it along
with the news. 1t is now 10 o'clock,
which is about o'clock where you
ARE. When you sit down to break
fast, we are eating dinner. There are
so many things that we can't mention
in our letters and so few things that
we may mention, that one hardly
knows what to write about. 7 don't
like to write whole bunch of things,
which | know will be blotted out by
the censor, because he is certainly a
busy man. If | had to read all these
letters l would get tired of my job.
We left Philadelphia at 6 a. M, Sat
urday, May 25th, and went aboard the
Z. s. S. , a tremendous big
ship q am going to take you folks to
see it some of these days.. The follow
ing day at 6 2. m. we started for
France. 1t was a very nice trip but
rather cold and crowded. When we
got out to sea few hours we an
chored over night and left again the
next morning. The weather was very
foggy and cool. Had several ships
with us and it certainly is sight to
see all these ships, all going the same
direction and for the same purpose,
and all loaded with material to do u
good job. All the way across we had
good music during meal hours and
in the evening after supper. We had
boxing and wrestling matches every
night and plenty of good books to
read. | recall one good one in par
ticular There was big negro who
seemed to be able to whip nearly ev-
cry one he boxed with. One of our
men put his hand up back in the
crowd and said he thought he could
whip him. He did! The coon slept
for nearly an hour.
The Hospital Corps was very nice
bunch and treated me very nicely.
Had good bunk the first two nights
but owing to humps case / was
obliged to get out slept in a ham
mock the rest of the voyage.
On the 2Sthy we sighted some mere
ships which fell in with us for the
trip. There were IA huge liners in
all, carrying about 5000 soldiers each
On this date we were each supplied
with life preservers and canteen of
water with orders to wear them at all
times, When we entered the danger
zone we had to keep our clothes on all
the time. On the goth, we hit squall
and you never saw such sick bunch
in all your life. Every corner was
full of sick soldiers who did not care
whether we sank or not. These fe,-
lows are the draft army and ! don't
suppose they ever saw the ocean
much less ever rode on it. We were
very watchful. The gun crews kept
oiling and cleaning their guns and
testing phones, etc. May Both was a
holiday which was celebrated on the
Atlantic as it is back home. Plenty
of good music and services. We had
with us one of those famous destroy
ers you have heard about. She ia
very speedy. She stops every ship
and other objects. Everything, no
matter how small, from the size of
soap box up, she goes after It. She
even slammed into barrel to see IL
there was periscope under 1t. l
wish l could go into details and tell
you more about this war game but
Il is against the rules. But / car
say that, from the general look of
things, sub has just about as much
chance around here as that old his
toric SNOWFALL you have heard of.
On June 1st we had target practice
We made a periscope which was
Itawed by one of the other ships
while our ship fired at it. | don't
know how many thousand yards It
was but the gunners made some good
hits. One 5-inch gun crew made ten
hits out of 10 shots in less than one
minute. Another, 9 hits in 10 shots.
This ship had about Is guns. don't
know what the others had We we're