New Britain herald., 1919-03-05
GRISWOLD RELATES
 HISTORY OF lO2D
Praises Valor Of New Britain
 Boys in Great War

cans who have been helplng III very way during the war rega ardless Of po- 1itical belief have taken down t1o1r i axes and are beginning to grind them for the merry political battle next ] month. The first gun was fired at the 1 first dinner of the Second Ward ke- i publican club since the war which was held in Bardecl1s hall on Arch street last night.
 The club had intended to have on its list Of speakers Lieutenant Gov ernor Wilson but because of con 1 ference in Washington he was unable to be present.
 Capt GriSwoId ChccrCd. The principal speaker of the eve i ming was Captain Alfred II. GrisWOld. ToastnaSter Reginald Towers intro duced Captain Griswold as a local soldier who had been through the wa. Before the captain could speak he was given three long and hearty cheers and applause lasting for sev- eral minutes.
 The captain started his remarks by saying he was not a man to make a speech but he could talk and he would try and take them with him in their minds from the time the sol dierS were mObilized in this city. He mentioned the hours around the local armOry when he was in charge of Company l. He told of the hours of guard duty at Norwich which he termed kind Of interesting" Entraincd Sept. IS, 1917. l From there we went to New Hay en-" the captain con tinued. "Whero we were stationed for some time It tharo h2t int the 102d Infantry Some of the off, cers of the national guard troops lost | their commands and I was among 1 them. l was transferred from Com l panN I to Company C and sailed as | leader of that company. On Septem- l Der IS, 1917 we left New Haven on l the great adventure. There was great 1 secrecy about our movement as there were only about 50, 900 people in the city. We were marched up to the railroad yards at Winchester's and there, about , o'clock in the after 1 noon. we entrained. We came up this way and going through Berlin we could see the outlines of this city in l the distance, the outlines Of the city which we were to be away from for a ] year and a half and which many 1 were not to return to after that jour- ney. We continued up through Hart | ford into Massachusetts and right ! straight north until we reached Can | ada. Our vessel was the first to paSG beneath the new Quebec bridge. At first it seemed the vessel could not dc the feat, but the captain took a chance as the soldiers learned to do after they arrived in France.
 Sees No Submarines.
 we laid over in Halifax waiting for a convoy and at last S \ sail across the water arriving in Liverpool on Oc- tober 10th without having seen a submarine. The ships crew thought one was sighted and fired a shot right into it to find it was a barrel.'
 Captain Griswold spoke of rest camps in general after mentioning the fact that the men were sent to a "rest' camp outside of Southampton. From his description there was not much rest in the so-called rest camps. He also spoke of the trip across the channel to France "1he wind waa blowing about 90 miles an hour and the ship we were on was rated at , knots an hour. The ship. when it came up on top of a huge comber, in stead of lowering itself into the trough of the wave would jump right over to the next one. I had a state
 
 time the ship jumped that way would come up hard and I was not the only thing that came up.''
 Finally We landed on French soil at Havre, starting out on journey which we could never forecast. We travelled via the side-door pullman route to Neuf Chateau. The side dor pullmans are for 10 men or eishy horses. We arrived at the destination , I to which we were billed and had to hike several kilometers back to our camp. The French are peculiar in l that way for we passed right through our camp on the train but because we were billed to another point the train would not stop until the destinatiO ; was reached and as a result we had 7 the nice long hike.
 'tWe went into training with the 167th Regimen remaining during the fall with them. The 167th was one : of the best of the bunch. 5000 men and 2,000 officers passed through it's ranks and the regiment saw much service.
 , The boys Of the t02d proved them selves eager to learn warfare. They were not satisfied with the French who were training them. Their meth ods were not all right and so the 102d boys adopted some of their own. The French later adopted many of these same methods from the Y. D.. They s trained with the French as their in structors during November, Decem- Der and January.
 1 Start For the Front. . "February Sd we left the training