Norwich bulletin., 1918-11-20
GEORGE c. SMITH IN
 ATTACK ON puRAZZO

H
 George e. Smith; son of MT. and Mrs. Frank c. Smith of 214 Laurel Hill avenue. who has been on a sub- marine chaser in foreign waters since early spring. has written home a de- seription of a naval action in which he participated in Austrian waters. Although. the censor cut out the name of the Austrian port which was at tackled it is plain to see that 1t was the attack on Durazzo on Oct. 4, when the American submarine cflasers play ca such conspicuous part. His let ter was written the day afterwards and was as follows:
 October 5, 1918. Dear Mother and Father.-It isn't very pleasant day today as it is raining hard. I imagine that it is the. beginning of the rainy season and it ont be very pleasant from now on. received two of your letters, those of Sept. 3 and 10, and was glad to hear that everyone is well. I am feel ing fine and dandy.
 We'll, here goes for little news which I think will interest you all. Last Sunday we prepared for sea. No one knew where swe were going, but | There were quite few different ones, too.
 We arrived at a port ill Italy but were allowed no liberty. We showed off from there in the early morning l hours. We soon saw our destination which proved to be -, an Aus | trian naval base. We kept on ad- vaneing slowly to our position in the l bombardment and all we could see was a large smoky screen on the horizon which was made by our allies, the Italians and English. It didn't take them long to reach us once they came in sight. All the time they were com ing up in the rear we were being fired upon from the shore. The shells feil short. but we figured that in about five minutes they would get our range and then it would be good night, but all seemed in our favor.
 The Italians and English were soor up with Jus and we took our position right in front of the battleships be.
 tween the two fires watching for sub
 marines. It was certainly a fine sen
 satieh to have the shells Whistlin! over your heads.
 It lasted for about an hour an( } three quarters all together. Of cours there were air raids going on all tn time. We sunk three submarines ant 3 probably destroyed two which wer
 
 l destroyer sunk and also 8 torpedo boa l and two merchantmen. One merchant s man was on fire when we left. Tn y town was also set on fire and wa r burning the next day. Just as " n were leaving there was an aeroplan T raid and they blew up an amnunitio 0 depot
 = I forgot to say that we also sun S some floating mines and captured tn e hospital ship Baron Karl and took he d to sea, but finding nothing on her bu e what she was supposed to carry, le y her go. She immediately made fu e speed to the northward to get bac
 to port again.
 !. During the bombardment the aero IL planes were reporting the success ( s the hits. Once we saw the shells ia 5 into the water as it looked to Us {t e' course suppose one or two dld) an the next thing we saw the boat wa Il listing and she listed fast too The over she went and it was geodnigl n to her.
 All the way over to this place 1t WE l. rough as it could be, but just as N e arrived and were waiting for the oth. l battle wagons it calmed down and ws s. calm al! during the engagement bl ., nc sooner had we left it ocean 'i raugher than when we were goir
 there.
 forgot to mention the fact tn
 Norwich was well represented as the
 were five of us in the engagement o, American boats were there first al , we were the las ito leave. ~ We'll I think I have written eneus ,S3 so will say au revoir and hope. V 11r arc as well as this leaves me. Wi 7 99- love from
 lld GEORGE Q. 'u Remember me to all.