The Mankato free press., 1919-01-10
BATTLE WITH A U-BOAT
CORPORAL FRANK f. HAMLEY
WRITES DESCRIPTION
Letter Giving Details Receive d
BY His Brother William
In Mankato

w. H. Hamley of this city has re
ceived letter from his brother, Cor
poral F. F. Hamley, with the Ameri-
can troops at st. Ciergues. France,
in which is given an interesting and
thrilling description of battle with
German submarines while crossing the
Atlantic. He wrote as follows:
Dear Bill: Your letter dated No
vember IL. reached me tonight, (De-
cember 49, with clippings enclosed
for which | sure do thank you.
never enjoyed anything in my life
like l did that letter and those clip
pings. i would pay a dollar for a
Minneapolis newspaper over here, so
you can imagine how yours was re-
ceived. and if YOU could see the boys
hanging around me trying to borrow
them you would think l was the
most popular man in the company.
The news of the peace celebration
went clear through me, and i could
easily understand how you all felt.
We all felt mighty good over it but
had no chance to celebrate. You
will probably read about celebrations
over here, but the boys who are on
the front lire, and fellows like my
self, who are right behind. all ready
to go into it. are not participating in
any celebrations. | suppose those
stiffs who are around Minneapolis
winning their medals by knocking off
chicken on Nicollet avenue are get
ting all the credit. Well. we will
probably have TO wait awhile before
we get a chance to celebrate but
when we get back in old Minneapolis
down. For the past ten days we have
been expecting to leave for a port
of embarkation but are still here.
However. we won't be here much
longer, and by the way | have il
doped out We will be home some
time in January with the first bunch
back from the front.
Duane Is Major.
"Our outfit is practically Mime
sofa unit. under Major Duane of ST.
Peter. You probably know this, as
Roy Flaig. one of the boys in my
squad. received some Mankato rews-
paper clippings which stated that
Major Duane was our commander and
showed his picture. The anti air
craft battalions were originated by
General Pershirg himself. and they
all have great records. ! sure wish
we could have had a crack at those
Huns, because We have some crack
shots in our bunch. We would have
been on the front November Is, so
you see how close we came to real
action. We are located at St Cier-
cues. five miles from Tangres, which
is in the south eastern part of
France. We left Newport News on
September s. and landed at Brest,
France on September 21. We were
two full weeks coming over. due to
the zig-za course taken to avoid
subs. We had nire transports and
convoy of two destroyers and
cruiser when we left, and when we
were about three days out of Brest
we dropped that convoy and twelve
destroyers took us in.
Encountered One "Sub."
"We encountered one sub with
the first convoy and four with the
second. In each case they were spot
ted and driven off. There was sure
some excitement, especially on one
certain afternoon. We were lined up
for supper when we heard the sub
signal We rushed to our RATS, and
saw a periscope poke it's head up
about 100 feet from our boat. They
fired on it and ore of the destroyers
turned and came right across onr
bow, and going TO beat. The sub
knew where we were so all it had to
do was make a quarter turn and fire
a torpedo, but the DESTROYER came
over like a shot and started dropping
depth bombs. Well, you can imagine
us fellows watching this destroyer
coming over to get this sub. all of
us standing at our RATS. with life
preservers around our necks.
"Guns were firing and depth bombs
exploding and we were all yelling like
mad for that destroyer to get the
Hun sub, and the old boat made good
and blew it all to h. You re-
member that yell that went up when
we put that touch down over on Mich
iigan in 1908? Well, that was whis
per compared to the yell We put up
when we knew we were safe again.
after landing at Brest we lived in
pup tents for week, in mud up Ia
our necks. We then travelled in box
cars to this place where we finished
our training and as stated we were
ready for business wher sthe wal
ended
"The Major likes the boys pretty
well, and as he said after that sub
attack, Damn 'em-they'll do!' he
meant a lot"