Cleveland County herald., 1918-11-14

the steel deck, but was able to crawl on to the turret door. Just as I was about to enter the gun was fired. That particular charge happened to be de fective. The shell split and caused
 back fire and the cordite, fire and gas came through the breech, which the explosion had opened.
 It must have been a piece of cOrdite
 which did it, but whatever it was, it
 hit me in the right eye and blinded it.
 The ball of the eye was saved by the French surgeons and looks normal, but
 1t pains ne greatly sometimes and
 they tell me it will always be sight less.
 was unconscious immediately from the blow and from the quantity of gas which l must have swallowed. This gas did me a great deal of damage
 and gives me dizzy spells often to this day. l do not know what happened during the rest of the engagement, as
 l did not regain consciousness until three days later at sea. But l heard
 in the hospital that the French super dreadnaught Jeanne d'Arc and the light cruiser Normandy were in 1t as
 we'll as ourselves, though not at the
 time l was wounded, and that we had all been pretty we'll battered. The Cassard lost 06 men in the engage
 ment and had AS wounded. Some of our turrets were twisted into all man.
 her of shapes and part of our bow
 was carried away. One of our lieu
 tenants was killed in the engagement. l was told that both the Werft and the kaiserliche Marine were sunk in this engagement. 1 have seen pictures of sailors from the Werft who were prisoners at interment camps.
 When we arrived at Brest the wounded were taken from the ship in
 stretchers and after we had been rest ed for about fifteen minutes on the dock put into ambulances and rushed to the hospital. On the way those who could leaned out of the ambulance and
 had great time with the people along the streets, many of whom they knew, for the Cassard was a Brest ship. And of course the women and children yelled, 'Vive Ia France!" and were glad to see the boys again, even though they were badly done up. Some of our men were bandaged all over the face and head and it was funny when they had to tell their
 names to old friends of theirs, who did not recognize them. AS soon as h0p9 of the Brest people recognized friend off ne would go to get cigarettes and other things for him and some of them almost beat us to the hospital. l do not know, of course, just what the surgeons did to me, but I heard that they had my eyeball out on my
 cheek for almost two hours. At any
 rate they saved it. The thigh wounds
 were not dangerous in themselves and if it had not been for the rough treat
 ment they got later on they would be quite healed by this time, I am sure.
 I really think 1 got little extra at tention in the hospital in many ways, for the French were at all times anx- ious to show their friendliness to America. Every time my meals were served there was little American flag on the platter and always large American flag draped over the bed. I had everything I wanted given to me at once and when I was able to, all the cigarettes I could smoke, which were not many.
 While I was still in bed in the hos pital l received the Croix de Guerre,
 which I had won at the Dardanelles. The presentation was made by Lieu