TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ASHLEY EAGLE MARCH 14, 1918 P. 4
Editor Eagle:
Feeling that the people of dear old Ashley are proud of and feel an interest in the boys who have enlisted in this great struggle for humanity and civilization I take the _____ of letting them know about ____ whereabouts.
_____ enlisted at Little Rock on Dec. 14th in the Aviation Section of Signal Corps. On that date ninety-seven others enlisted in the same branch of the service. We left Little Rock that night at seven o’clock for Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and reached our destination the following day at ten o’clock. We were marched in body to the receiving barracks where we turned in our enlistment blanks and checked our civilian clothes. Then we were dismissed to wait for our names to be called for examination. There were so many ahead of us that we were not called until the morning of the fourteenth. On that day three thousand were examined for military service. Every train brought more recruits. There were about fifteen thousand there and the post could only accommodate about seven thousand, so there was an awful congestion of men. They slept on the floor or any place they could find with two blankets and the thermometer was playing around zero.
I hoped every day that my name would be called for shipment but all in vain until the afternoon of the first day of January. Four hundred and seventy-two of us were sent to Camp Grant, Rockford, Illinois. This is a selective training camp but as all the aviation camps were crowded we were sent there. There was such a difference in the two places it seemed more like a dream to us. We were very comfortably located in steam heated barracks with a good bed and the food was better than we had ever expected to get in the army. Here we got a month of hard drilling under the leadership of Captain Franforter and Lieutenant Detmer.
Then on the seventh of February we were transferred to this field where we are getting our final training for oversea duty. This is an ideal camp, located about seventeen miles from St. Louis and about four miles from Belleville, Illinois, a city of almost forty thousand. We are very comfortably situated here and will hate to leave when the order comes. Aviators and instructors are coming in and the flying season will open about the first of April. I understand a number of Ashley County boys are already over there doing their bit. I hope that can find some of them when I get over there.
I have had the pleasure of reading a few copies of the Eagle and no one can realize how glad a fellow is to get a letter or paper from home.
I won’t be here long for Germany can’t hold out long with a million Sammies on the firing line. A good by till we ____ them.
David Holloway,
263 Aero Squadron
Scott Field. Belleville, Ill.
NOTES:
TRANSCRIBED BY STEPHANE LECOINTE
Editor Eagle:
Feeling that the people of dear old Ashley are proud of and feel an interest in the boys who have enlisted in this great struggle for humanity and civilization I take the _____ of letting them know about ____ whereabouts.
_____ enlisted at Little Rock on Dec. 14th in the Aviation Section of Signal Corps. On that date ninety-seven others enlisted in the same branch of the service. We left Little Rock that night at seven o’clock for Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and reached our destination the following day at ten o’clock. We were marched in body to the receiving barracks where we turned in our enlistment blanks and checked our civilian clothes. Then we were dismissed to wait for our names to be called for examination. There were so many ahead of us that we were not called until the morning of the fourteenth. On that day three thousand were examined for military service. Every train brought more recruits. There were about fifteen thousand there and the post could only accommodate about seven thousand, so there was an awful congestion of men. They slept on the floor or any place they could find with two blankets and the thermometer was playing around zero.
I hoped every day that my name would be called for shipment but all in vain until the afternoon of the first day of January. Four hundred and seventy-two of us were sent to Camp Grant, Rockford, Illinois. This is a selective training camp but as all the aviation camps were crowded we were sent there. There was such a difference in the two places it seemed more like a dream to us. We were very comfortably located in steam heated barracks with a good bed and the food was better than we had ever expected to get in the army. Here we got a month of hard drilling under the leadership of Captain Franforter and Lieutenant Detmer.
Then on the seventh of February we were transferred to this field where we are getting our final training for oversea duty. This is an ideal camp, located about seventeen miles from St. Louis and about four miles from Belleville, Illinois, a city of almost forty thousand. We are very comfortably situated here and will hate to leave when the order comes. Aviators and instructors are coming in and the flying season will open about the first of April. I understand a number of Ashley County boys are already over there doing their bit. I hope that can find some of them when I get over there.
I have had the pleasure of reading a few copies of the Eagle and no one can realize how glad a fellow is to get a letter or paper from home.
I won’t be here long for Germany can’t hold out long with a million Sammies on the firing line. A good by till we ____ them.
David Holloway,
263 Aero Squadron
Scott Field. Belleville, Ill.
NOTES:
TRANSCRIBED BY STEPHANE LECOINTE