Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1919-01-21
sergeant NORWOOD OF
SALEM CANE ACROSS
Jon NORTHERN PAclf &c
Has Many Interesting Tales
To Tell Of Big Fight
And Trip Across.


the U. s. forces in France. His COM
pany was pushed up to the firing line
in the fall and he saw some of the
hardest fighting of that period. 1t was
during this period that he received
wounds that put him out of military du-
ty. One of the letters was written from
a hospital, shortly after the recover
ing from an attack of diphtheria. He
goes On to say:
81 recovered from the diphtheria and
celebrated my birthday by moving to
the convalescent camp. was there
classified and put into Glass D, which
means that am physically unfit for
military. Duty. My hand is still stiff
from the wound, but otherwise l sm as
fgood as ever. l am to be shipped back
to the states for reconstruction and l
presume they will give me some kind
of treatment to timber up my joints. In
this camp they give us four hours a
day of close order drill just for exer-
else. I haven't seen any pay in four
months, but / II try to get hold of some
dough before leaving France. When |
get paid I'll send the biggest part of
it over for you to take care of.
won't spend it here, for these French
frogs aren't bit bashful about charg-
ing.o
Wrote from New York.
A second letter was written from
New York just after his arrival from
France. In this he says in part:
"I am back again in the good old Unit
ed States and l swear / IL never leave
it again. We came over on the Northern
Pacific, and outside of shipwreck we
had nice trip, There was plenty of
excitement when the vessel struck, and
believe me there wasn't any fun in it
at all. She was run in among the
breakers in such position that the
waves would slap against her sides and
shoot clear over her. A cold shower
| like that, along with zero weather did
not go very nice. She began to list
over on her side until we couldn It
walk on the deck without holding onto
/ a line, and we were afraid she might
turn over any minute. The sea was too
rough to get any of the men off the
first day, but the second day the coast
guards got line across and some of
the men were shot across in basket
But the line was SO slack that the bas-
ket Tipped into the water and everyone
got soaked, s ha
That was too cold for me, so 1 waited
and finally they got the life-boat out
| - nd bnro,, tn fob 4o ba
beach. They had made several trips
when q big wave caught the boat and
flopped its over and two Of the boys
were drowned. That didn t look good
to me either, so | waited for if worse
came to worse | knew | could swim to
shore, which was only about quarter
of a mile away. | stayed on that cuss
ed thing for two days and nights, wait
ing for it to turn over.
Used Sub Chasers.
"The third day at high tide they
got some sub ehasers along side and [
got on one of these and they took us
to the hospital ship Solace. If the
| Northern Pacific had turned over there
would have been lot Of men drowned,
for there were over 500 litter cases on
board, and many of the others were
minus an arm or a leg. The whole
beach was lined with moving picture
cameras when we landed, and you want
to see it when it comes around. l don t
know whether it, comedy or a TRACE
dy, but 1 thought I'd die laughing
while those boys were sliding down the
ropes"
Another letter was written from g.
hospital near New York and indicated
that he ws very comfortably situated,
with nothing to do but eat and sleep,
plenty Of entertainment and sightseeing
in the city. In this letter he recalls
some Of his experiences on the front.
Held Position 20 Days.
"You know where the Alsace sector
is--over next to Germany9 Well, we
hadn u been in France two weeks be-
fore they shipped US up there to relieve
the frogs. We held that position 20
days before we were relieved, and Of all
the hair-raising stunts VIC had there.
Sixteen nights out of 20 was on pa-
I troll on No Man Land. We lost quite
few fellows there, but was lucky
for T never got a scratch; but 1 came
very near being nervous wreck. You
can't reaize the awful suspence it is
to be out there expecting every minute
some Hun would blow us up with a
grenade. I've got good nerves. but it
gets all of them. was glad when they
moved up from there, for it Is lot more
fun to fight in the daytime when you
get a chance TO draw bead on Q, Hun
once in a while.
fFWe moved from there to the Yer
dun sector, always hiking by night and
sleeping in the daytime. We took up
OIL positions back of the lines and a
little later we were over and at them.
The darnedst thing happened there. We
had just gone over the top and hadn y
hardy taken dozen steps when a shell
lit about 90 feet from me and killed
two Of my best pals. It gave me cold
chills and made me pretty blame sick.
Finally Wounded.
ffI had fine luck for nine days; then
they came too fast for me to dodge and
got hit in the hand and in the left
thigh. didn t tel you this for fear you
would think l was all shot to pieces.
When look at some Of the poor kids
here l think I'm one lucky fellow"
Hiss last letter, written january ~,
tod of his leaving Hoboken on his way
across the continent, expecting to ar