Second Diary Continued

The first two days were uneventful with beautiful water which made our starting look good to the boys. The third day out a cold north wind set in accompanied by a slow drizzling rain which kept every one below. The morning of June 24th we entered the waters known as the war zone:these waters being numerously infested with enemy submarines. However, we were not molested until the morning of the 25th. The day dawned bright and clear the Atlantic appeared to be one large lake of rippling, and there was no evidence of danger, when at 9:01 a.m. we were startled by the shrill blast of the danger signal from our flag ship. We immediately took up battle formation: the two troop ships who had previous to the signaling been traveling on the port side of the group shifted their position to starboard, placing the two freighters between us and the man of war who at the time of signaling was traveling in the center and at the head of the group. All guns swung their guns to port in which direction the enemy had been sighted. At 9:05, we saw a puff of smoke and heard the roar of the 6 inch gun from the man of war. We immediately crowded the upper deck to view our first naval battle, which however proved to be very short. After the man of war fired three rounds the intruding submarine disappeared below the foamy surface. As to the amount of damage done it will always remain a mystery, but fearing we might have missed our mark all ships steamed ahead at full speed the rest of the day. We awoke on the morning of the 26th to find that our long looked for convoy had arrived during the night. This convoy consisted of six American destroyers and the British destroyers, which should have reached us some 24 hours earlier when we entered the war zone, however they chaperoned us safely into the harbor of Liverpool, England arriving at 9:10 a.m. June 28. We lay in the harbor until 3:27 p.m. when we pulled into the dock and debarked. Marching in battalion formation from the docks to the Great Central Railway Station where we had our first view of an English train, these proving to be mere toys compared with our up to date American trains. Here we were loaded 5 men to the compartment in passenger cars and at five twenty departed for Winchester, England, arriving 5:10 a.m. June 29. Here we marched four kilos to a rest camp called "Camp Morn Hill" and our stomachs as usual mourned for good old garrison rations for the English fed us on what the soldiers know as corned willy. At 10:15 a.m. June 30, we marched back to Winchester where we boarded another train for Southampton arriving at 11:55. Here we found a lunch counter where we could buy sandwiches, cakes and etc. with those big pennies we had been carrying since arriving in Liverpool. There was plenty and every body filled his stomach, smoked a fag and forgot his trouble. We rested until 5:10 p.m. when we boarded H.M.S. King Edward. and after dark crossed the English channel arriving in the channel from Hampton Roads at 10 p.m. We were carrying three companies of a battalion and the King Edward was very small therefore, we were badly crowded and when the men stretched themselves out to sleep they found themselves about three feet on the floor, and as the English sailors were not particular where they stepped sleep was impossible. Our boys used their extensive vocabulary of cuss words and were searching the dictionary for more when at daylight we steamed into Cherbourg France.