The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-01-18
LIFE ON NINE LAYER
IS FULL OF THRILLS
Yeoman Norton Lebourveau Of Barre
Writes of Some Of the Excitement
and Adds a Reprint from
Chicago Tribune.

Editor, Barre Daily Times The en-
closed extract from The Tribune was
posted on the ships bulletin boards to-
day and thinking that perhaps no other
aside from myself from Barre happened
to be along on the merry cruises Of the
mine force, | am mailing it to you along
with a couple of poems, partly original,
for publication in The Times. I doubt
very much if the people around there
have heard anything that happened along
these lines in the silent navy
A few of the joys such as submarine
attacks, defective mines exploding around
us, poor quarters for the crew, etc,
are not mentioned in this article, but it
does give quite a good idea of the work
we had to do.
] might add that we were attacked by
submarines on three different occasions
and only skillful navigating and smoke
screens, depth bombs and good luck
saved the whole feet from visiting Davy
Jones locker by the sky route Then,
too, there were defective mines exploding
around us sometimes to
the tune of over hundred a minute
pleasant old fashioned Fourth of July, |
assure you. One trip in particular, when
1000 went up and we had to stop lay
ing, was very interesting.
During the later period of the war,
Just previous to the signing of the armi-
stice, we were constantly on the go, We
would come in, load mines, coal if neces-
sary, clean up the ship and shove off
just one continual trip with no let ups,
The crew, when mines were aboard, for
the most part slept on the deck (you
would say floor probably and had to eat
in any corner they could find, either
standing up OF planked down on the mine
tracks.
We had no chance to train before go
ing into action-the first mines we plant
ed were mines, built in the States and
planted c. 0. ID. for the express purpose
of getting German subs. Not that prac-
tice would have helped--it was the little
Aukes that had to be avoided. The first
time we loaded mines-we carry 6l0
when filed to capacity-it took about
nine hours to load them. As the skipper
remarked, They were handled like thin
shelled eggs" Later, however, we got
to be real reckless in a way and banged
them aboard in about four hours. Once
when an elevator dropped suddenly, let
ting two mines down two decks, ! re-
member that several officers and men lost
weight fast. The mines did not explode
though, thank goodness, or we would
have been just an event in history now.
There are million and one other de-
tails of interest that could add, such as
the conveys we had which sometimes
ranged as high as IS destroyers and from
10 to Is battleships and cruisers. The
American battleships were represented
among these ships, too.
! kept quite a complete diary from the
time we left Boston early last year until
the present. Here I'll Just mention the
fact that we got rid of the mine tops"
to-day that we brought back 500 in
number. The 'tops" contain the INT,
and now that they are off we can smoke
in comfort and enjoy ourselves generally
on board this I'll old wagon for the first
time since last May | note that on Dec.
"a we were just leaving the Azores for
the States. Believe me, that was not
my idea of an ideal place to be on Christ
mas eve, though it was very warm and
the U. S. S. Dixie had donated us some
Lul hty lW 0uI AuIlHIHlhS ullubfs anu
that on Thanksgiving day we had ice
cream, the first and only since leaving
the States. Oh, it's great life in this
mans navy, | assure you.
Won't bore you with any more just
now--its LAS a. m. and we just fin
ished coaling ship at about midnight,
preparatory to leaving for "Philhe" soon,
for an inspection with the view of either
putting us out of commission making a
freighter out of her or something of the
kind, That may spell "furlough" for me
or better still discharge" so possibly we
can dope" up few more bits of news
for the folks at home.
In closing, I would advise any of the
Scotch who are contemplating trip to
their 'Bonny Scotland" in the near fu-
ture TO 60 by way of England, / cannot
recommend the North sea, with its bur
den of $4,000 or more mines, as a very
nice place to travel, particularly if one is
pleasure bent.
Norton Lebourveau,
Engineers Yeoman, Z. S. S. Saranac.
P.S. If you do print this, few copies
would be a welcome addition on the
ships bulletin boards,
Extract from Chicago Tribune of Jan.
3;
Fort Monroe, Va, Jan. 5.-Lying at
anchor in Hampton Roads off Old Point