The Grangeville globe. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho) 1907-1922, 1919-01-09

The letter reproduced below was
written by Urban Lester, son of Mr..
and Mrs J. +. Lester, residing north of
this city, who entered the navy about
a year and half ago. The letter was
written from naval base IS, which is
located in the northern part Of Scot
land, to Mr.. Testers sister, and sent
on to his mother here.
U. S. Naval Base 1S,
Nov. 27. 1918.
Dear Sister Il will now tell you
my history for the past seven months
You misunderstood me III some of
my letters, l guess. ! told you that we
were going to Italy, but we did not get
to go. We have been in Scotland all
the time. They have lifted the censor,
that is why | am writing this. The
other day they had it over the postof-
flee: Censor lifted, write your whole
history if you want to-
Sister. the kind of work we have
been doing is the most dangerous on
the seas. We made ten trips out since
we have been over here On each trip
we carried over six hundred mines and
in each mine there was enough I. n
I. to blow up the entire fleet W. are
in mine squadron No. l. and there are
ten mine layers. one mother or repair
ship, and four tugs that carry the sup
ply of chow to us. We laid (the Quin-
neburgl altogether, six thousand and
forty-five mines. The whole fleet laid
about sixty, thousand. We had a Brit
ish envoy with us every trip and some
times we had all the grand fleet Our
expenses were three million dolla Is an
hour while we were laying mines
part of the time-that is counting the
wages of each sailor and the price of
the mine and the amount of fuel the
ships burn and everything. Some eX-
penSe, Ell? SO YOU can see we were
doing bur bit. They claim we blpwed
up twentY-three subs. We were out
Oh one trip and there were three subs
sighted. The destroTers started their
smoke screen and made so much smoke
the subs could not see us They went
in circles around us and dropped six
depth bombs and the subs never show
ed up again, They said we got one
that time.
Well, we are coming back to the
States right away; the captain told us
we would he in the States in four
weeks. / will be glad to land there.
We have been using Scotch and Eng
fish money since May, and | tell you
il don't look like L. $. money.
| received your letter last night with
the dollar bill in it, and many thanks
for it. | am going to send you a couple
of watch bills to show you what kind
of watches we stand. After you look
AT them send them to mother and tell
her to keep them until come home. |
will write on the back of them.
Well l haven't the flu yet. There
was only about twenty cases ont of
Two thousand men here at the base.
We never did wear masks. Well, |
will quit now.
Later-Here | am again. | viii just
write a line to let you know that |
have been transferred from the Duin-
ieoofH TO Base Is. A bunch Of us
come here to go on mine sweepers. but
| guess after they have us up here they
will keep us at the base and send pther
ieiloWS on the sweepers that have been
here longer than we have This base
is at INVERNESS. Scotland, on the Gale
DOMAIN canal. located in the northern
part of Scotland. Look it up on a man
| have put in year and a half the
third of this month; just two and a
half years more to go ii is q long way.
believe me. | would like some way to