The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1919-01-10
LETTERS FROM OUR SOLDIER
BOYS

oO ~
southampton, England. No.. 80, 1918
Dear Folks at Home:
Our mail is not censored any more,
SO | guess / can go my limit. Our
ship run from Southampton to LIE
Havre, France, across the English
Channel. We transport troops across,
have made about 36 trips across, and
we carry from 1000 to $500 soldiers.
1t takes five hours to make the trip,
and we used to run at night, but we
run in the day time now. Have seen
several submarines, also have had a
few chases and fights with sub marines
Our ship has no gun IN her, but we
always have what they call convoy
with us, Several Ships 60 over to-
gether and there are from four to
eight destroyers With us. OF course
they do the fighting, but we are the
ones the submarines tries t. get and
when we are on our way across, there
are twelve on watch's, and two Of
them are up in what they call the
crows nest, place something like a
tub fastened to the top Of each mast.
well you have TO stand up there and
keep on the look cut for subs, and tile
other look outs are stationed at dif-
| f'rent places. Well it is hard to see
a sub at night but in the day time
when we go back empty you see them
quite often, and they shoot and hit a.
bout 100 feet and sometimes closer
YOU begin TO think you wish you were
on and, believe me-. They also shoot
these oorpedoes, they skim along un-
der meath the water, but you can see
the wake of the water when one of
them comes. They generally use
them at night, for they have to be
quite near when they fire them. |
was on watch one night, up in this
crows nest, and a torpedo missed the
stern about 80 feet and hit a destroy
er on the other side Of US, but did
not sink her, but put her out of COM
mission. OF course all the fellows on
| watch seen it and so lid the Captain,
| but that is the nearest we ever came
getting hit. OF course this don't
happen every trip we make. One
time it TOOK us eleven hours to make
the trip, we got in nest of sub ma
rines, and the destroyers sure had to
do some fighting to save us, and we
had to 60 SO far out of our way. to
keep away from the subs. When
these destroyers are convoyinga troop
ship across and run into bunch of
subs it puts me in mind OF a dog
driveing COW with little calf, the
calf will run ahead and the cow turn
and fight the dog. l have seen one
English ship sunk, and a lot Of others
crippled up quite bad But there has
been lot of ships sunk in that chan
mel, for the English Channel is noted
| for submarines.
| There are four american troop ships
at this place, all the rest are English
ships Oh, yes! We took twelve hund
red American nurses across from here
one trip, and also have had several
loads ofGerman prisoners to take back
to England. / have few German
souvenirs. such as money, buttons and
post cards, The hoys sure treat them
poor devils rough. We take poke at
them, and if they do not move when
we tell them to, we land them one
along side of the jaw, God, but they
do get mad. Well we sure done oul
bit carrying American troops across
Our ship alone has carried over 90,OO(
troops across, and she is the fastest
ship on the Channel. she make q
knots an hour, anC we always keel
her nice and clean. She Is also tn,
flag ship of the other American ship
here in the Channel.
Well / could write all night, bu
you know how well / like to write
How did you enjoy Thanksgiving
We had scme feed on the ship. w
had turkey, mashed potatoes, dressin
sliced ham, cheese graIey aSparagu