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From Charlie Wright
The following letter
received by Geo. Wright from his brother Charlie, who is in the United States
Navy was handed us for publication and will no doubt be of interest to our
readers.
New Port
News, Va. July 13, 1918
Mr. Geo. Wright Dear
Brother, as we have just gotten here this morning, I will try to write you, I
am well and hope you are too, I will try to tell you of our trip as we had a
very thrilling one. We left an Altantic port Saturday, June 15, at about 10 Am
with about 4,000 troops aboard, We had the 118th regiment of the 29 division.
They are New Jersey boys. President Wilson's boys, you know. There are a jolly
bunch. Everything went well through Saturday and Saturday night, though we knew
that subs were in our vicinity. At 7:30 Sunday morning, June 16, a sub was
sighted by our ship, the alarm was given, we all got to our guns and within 20
minutes there was one German sub less and a great possibility that there were
two less. It was great sport even if one does get a bit shaky about the knees.
Our guns accounted for one, that is a postive fact. And the destroyer claims
that we have gotten one. Our guns only fired two shots making a direct hit with
the second, but to make sure a good job was done the cruiser that was conveying
us ran over the spot where the sub and dropped depth charges, and to give you
an idea of what one of these charges will do, just think what an ordinary stick
of dynamite will do, then imagine the charging of T.N.T. the highest explosive
known weighing <?> pounds. will do? They jar <?> or
around a radius of a mile. The Sub fired two torpedoes at us but made a miss,
one of our guns <?> from her round and cut <?>
knocked the gun Capt down but we could well afford that of one sub to our
credit. I have this much to say that if the Kaiser thinks that the people,
especially the soldiers and Sailors of this country will become awe stricken
because of his sub activities, he is very much wrong. It only inspires them to
do more and when on goes to France and sees what the real condition is among
the people and beliece me, I have seen very little, I am sorry that I can't get
to go further inland and see what is going on near the front, and I certainly
would like to see what the fighting has done to the country. I feel very much
convinced that we are carring over a very bitter pill for the Kaiser and when
he faces that 113th that we carried over on our last trip, he will know it, and
I am sure that the entire American army has the same spirit. After our
Sunday morning fight we proceeded without further trouble, and landed at a
French port on the morning of June 27, just one month of the day from the time
we left, there on our return trip. We stayed there until July 1st and left
about 11 AM of that day there were eight transports convoyed by eight
destroyers. Everything went well until we were 10 hours out just at dusk,
everything was progressing as peacefully as could be expected when the
Covington who held a position on our port side and just a little forward of us
was struck by a torpedo, She was struck on the port side in the engine rooms
and of course stopped at once, the explosion made her list, fearfully to the
starboard but with in a very short while she righted herself and began to
settle slowly. She stayed afloat 18 hours sinking the next day at 3:30 PM.
Well you have often heard it said that " Its an ill wind that blows nobody
good" so there is very little doubt that if the torpedo that struck the
Convington had missed her it would have hit us. The Covington was a good ship
and a hard loss to this country as she needs all of her transports very much.
She was a German ship and the first German to go down. So I guess the Germans
were very much elated but I think their elation will be very short lived. To
see a ship proceeding as peacefully as if she was human hit and become
helpless, thrills you with a feeling of sympathy that is hard to describe. The
George Washington and the DeRalb stood her while the rest of us made knots and
believe me we made all we could. Standard speed was forgotten for a while and
the ship that could run the fastest came out ahead. After the excitemnet was
over we proceeded together for three or four more days and then each fellow
beat it all alone. We had no further excitement just two more incidents worth
mentioning and that was a break down while in the sub zone off the American
coast which lasted for several hours and last was a waterspout as they are
common but as you well know is a cyclone. We came very near firing into it. We
had orders to stand ready to fire when the word was given. Wish they had let us
fire for I would like to have seen what effect it would have had. Well here
comes the worst part of the whole trip. As you might think, we all wanted to go
to New York for we can have a great time there, and this place and Norfolk is
the last place in the world for a sailor so yesterday morning at ten o'clock we
pulled into the North river, We passed Coney Island, the Statue of Liberty, New
York, Brooklyn and Hoboken. We were all glad so here comes an officer and asks
an Executive Officer what his orders were and he answered that he had none, so
the officer said to stand by until he came back and says you will proceed to
New Port News immediately. Well I won't tell you all I heard said by the crew
and officers. Will close for now, hope to hear from you when I get my mail.
Write me soon.
Your
Brother, Charlie Wright U. S. S. Princess Molika,
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