Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1919-01-06
HOW HUGHES
SAVED 88TH!
Newsy Letter tells how Web
ster City Soldier Saved
Division From
Starvation!
OTHER HEROIC DEEDS
Frank Hughes, A. M. Porter
and Lewis Burkett
Write.


have collaborated in the writing of the
letter, which recites some heroic deeds
participated in by the three men nam
ed. The letter follows:
GonchecOurt, France, December l,
191S.-Friend Roy: The Honorable
Slim Burkett, Mr.. Albert NJ. Porter and
myself, having little spare time this
evening, have decided that you shall
suffer by being the recipient Of this let
ter.
Now that the censorship has been re-
moved to quite an extent, believe it will
be quite proper and fitting to relate
some of the heroic deeds accomplished
by different members of the Webster
City contingent in the organization.
Before relate that, however, l want
to inform you that our address contains
A. p. o. 795, which, as we understand
1t, means Americas Poorest Outfit"
making all the more miraculous these
said heroic deeds.
Also to show how kind and good
hearted Slim is, on the boat coming Ov-
Ell, especially when crossing the chan
mel, he would often divide his meals
with the fish, sometimes giving up all
Of them to the fish, 1t was very thought
full of him to first chew all this food,
making it easily digestible by the fish,
as otherwise they might have been both
cred some by dyspepsia.
Porter Also Benefited.
An instance of how Porter has been
benefited by the army is bestillustrat-
Ell when he got off the boat at Liver
pool. He was gazing ut the wonderful
sights around the docks and accident
ally ran the butt Of his rifle against a
freight car, knocking the car OF the
truck. OF course, these English freight
cars are not exactly the size of Ameri-
can cars, they are more along the lines
OF the first railroad of olden days. New
ertheless, we are all certain that Por-
ter never could have accomplished this
before he came to the army.
Contributed by Porter.)
AS you know, '.modesty" and "verac-
ity' are two natural accomplishments
Of trained soldiers. Therefore, to he in
keeping with both these two excellent
virtues, it is very natural that Hughes,
in the vernacular Of our good President
Wilson,, should be too proud" to adj
nit that he was quite factor in the
conclusion of the war. Therefore, it
has fallen to my lot to tell it.
AS the old saying, "Once a sO-and-sO,
always a so-and-so," SO is it, 'Once an
insurance agent, always an insurance
agent" When Hughes embarked for
the big fighting over here, he thought
probably he might find several boys who
are gambling with death, in receptive
frame of mind to listen to the many
good reasons why they should invest
in life insurance. So he slipped sam
pie policy in his inside pocket. How
ever, as you can readily appreciate CO.,
we have been SO busy killing Germans
that Hughes actually forgot about the
sample policy in his pocket.
Company Cut on"
The other day in big advance we
made, we Overstepped ourselves and
found ourselves cut off from the other
members Of our fighting aggregation.
1t was either surrender or starve aud
we decided, if the tradition Of our Web
ster City forefathers were to he main
tanned, we would rather starve.
SO we were stuck hour after hour,
warding off the enemy but getting so
hungry that our stOmachs began to sus-
p;cion that our throats were cut. FL
nally, Hughesie, realizing that the Jig
was about up decided to re-read the
last letters from those dear to him,
before succumbing to the inevitable.
Reaching his hand into the inside peck
ct for the aforesaid letters, by mistake.
he pulled out the sample policy. Slim
and l stopped feeding the 75's long
enough to gaze ut the policy and by
some iron hand Of fate, we were i'm
PEELED to read it through from start to
finish. And, do you know. it actually
saved our lives! We found SO many
provisions" in 1t that we could have
fed the whole SSth division month on
them.
Let Walt Terrell use this for propa-
ganda purposes and we'll bet our steel
helmets against dime, he will 60 ''Over
the top with record business Of poll
ci6s written!
Contributed by Burkett.)
Now that the other boys have eased
up ON their imagination, ! will tell some