World War I Letter
Afton Enterprise, August 22, 1918
The following in a letter from Lawrence Slater M.M. of the U.S.S. Transport Madawaska written from Newport News, Va., after his seventh trip to France.
Newport News, Va.
Aug. 1st, 1918
Dear Mother,
We are in the U.S. once more feeling good and enjoying it as well as ever. I am sending a few things home. The sweater is a French sailor's and the other clothes I drew on board ship.
I was sorry to hear about Lloyd [Silvernail]. I was in Brest, France, when the crew from the U.S.S. Covington were brought in. They were about four hundred miles out and had to rig sails and make their way to land. They didn't sight another ship until just outside of Brest, when a torpedo boat took them in tow and towed them to the dock. They were in open boats a few days and were in hard shape--broken arms and ribs, and without clothes or money. We gave them all the money we had with us.
[Compiler note: The USS Covington was a transport ship for the United States Navy during WWI. The transport was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 1 July 1918 and was scuttled the next day with six men killed. Lloyd H. Silvernail of Bainbridge, Chenango Co., NY was one of the six.]
I talked with some of them. The firemen were caught in a coal bunker. the water tight door went down before they got out. They didn't know how many were lost at that time.
I am going to Washington tomorrow with another M.M. from Oregon. We have a 72-hour leave. I don't see any prospect of coming home very soon as the soldiers are as thick as -?- down here. There were eighteen or nineteen ships together on our way over, but we came back back alone. We carried fellows from N.Y. City, but a fellow told me that the U.S.S. Mercury had fellows from around Binghamton. She was with us going over but I couldn't get a chance to see any of the soldiers after I found it out.
On some of the cards I am sending home is a picture of an old castle, founded 60 years B.C. and completed by Caesar. We went all through it. there were dungeons, passages and tunnels all over Brest, and down under the sea. One room was 20 ft. long, 15 ft. wide and 10 ft. high. There was a shaft in the roof of the building, 60 ft. high and just long enough for a man to go through endways. All prisoners who were condemned to death were dropped through this shaft, feet first, and landed on knives and spikes which were supposed to kill them, then when the tide came in from the sea, it came in under this building and carried the body out to sea.
We were in a dungeon where a British prisoner was confined for 12 years in Napoleon's time. He was a spy and only lived 7 months after being released. The door was filled with masonry and food was lowered to him through a hole in the ceiling.
Another place was a "Chamber of Torture." The victim was placed in a machine and his head crushed if he wouldn't confess or tell what they asked him. It cost us 50 centimes apiece for a guide and took half a day, but it was worth a trip to France.
We saw no "subs" this trip and the ocean was as smooth as a piece of glass a good deal of the time. We saw a good many shark and flying fish.
Perhaps I can see some of the Covington's crew next trip and find out more about it.
I must close now.
With love,
Lawrence.
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