The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1919-01-04
Cor. Jacob Schiedt, Co. D, Hdqs. Bail.
A. P. o. No. 902, A. E. F.

The following interesting letter is
from John N. Scull, who enlisted June
8 in the Quartermaster's Corps. He
was at Fort Slocum one week and then
sent to Camp Johnston, Jacksonville,
where he stayed until he came TO New
port News to go over. At Jackson
vile he was put in Supply Co. 91S,
@. M. C. The letter:
Chateauroux, Nov. "a.
Dear Dad:
Our newspaper, "The Stars and
Stripes" has requested every member
of the A. E, F. to write to their Father,
so here goes. I'll start At the begin
ming and tell you a bunch of news l
have not been permitted to write be-
fore. They say the censor has taken
the lid off, for a time at least. We
left the barracks in Newport News at
2 A. NJ. and marched down to the dock.
There we waited around till s A. M.
! when we started to get on board the
boat. It was 1890 A. M. before we all
got on. Believe me l sure did feel
homesick about the time l got on
board. 1t was an awful looking thing
to call a transport. 1t sur vas some
dirty, but it was not long before Ue
had it clean. 1t took about n hour
for me to find a bunk, and when l did
find one it was clear down in the eel
lar" and the first bunk in the bow,
right where l would get full benefit of
the waves. We pulled away from the
dock at 11.30, but did not leave the
river until about 2 P. M. We were
well out of sight of land by sunset,
and believe me it did look bad to us as
it faded from our sight.
There were four boats in our bunch,
but when we were out a couple of days
three more transports Joined us, max
ing seven in all. When we started we
thought we had the slowest boat in the
bunch, but we soon found out we were
wrong. We travelled right along, even
though we were loaded down with
100 men and the hold filled with oats.
Our boat had two guns on it, one on
the bow and one on the stern. There
were a couple of times the gun crews
had their guns or something, but it
turned out to be a barrel and a whale
or some other kind of a big fish. I
could not begin to tell you the course
we took. We would go for about five
minutes in one direction and then
would change it. We were always
'zigzagging" and two or three times
turned completely around. The first
time we did that we sure did do some
wondering. We had one small torpedo
boat destroyer for convoy, until we
were about two days off the French
coast. Then a fleet of fourteen torpe-
do boat d~estroyers and captive OBJ
%servation balloon met us and showed
us the way in.
As soon as this fleet met us the 9TH
er convoy started back to the United
States. The first signs of land we had
was a couple of lighthouses which are
on the bay going into the harbor that
leads to Brest, the city where we land
ed. The trip up the harbor was the
prettiest of all, and l guess the rough
est. You should have seen the high
banks of the bay, and they were all
fortified. Brest is listed as one of the
fortified cities of France. When we
got UP the harbor far enough we saw a
bunch of transports, lying at anchor.
Among them the big French liner La
France. We went up to the dock al
most Immediately. This was on the
afternoon of Aug. 9Th, but we did not
leave the boat until the next morning.
On Tuesday morning we landed and
started for the camp, which lies about
two miles inland. Well, they called it
a "rest-camp", but all the resting we