TRANSCRIBED FROM THE LAFAYETTE COUNTY DEMOCRAT, JUNE 14, 1918 P. 1
USS Comfort,
June 7, 1918
Dear Brother:
I have not heard from you since I left Washington I don’t suppose you got my last letter.
I am now in Brooklyn Navy yards, have been here 17 days and have been ready to sail for the last week for Liverpool, but somehow we are still here. We expect to leave any time without convoys, guns or anything with the side lights burning by night. We are going to test the faith of the Germans toward Hospital ships.
It has been published all over the country and enclosed you will find a clipping from one of the New York City papers, I suppose it is in the Gazette also.
The government is going to stake 348 lives against their faith. Well I am ready to go at any time. Although they are having it out in Congress now as the clipping will state.
This is one of the finest Hospital ships ever built and I am glad that I am one of the crew of nurses, as you know I am doing Bactriological work.
I think we will go before Sunday.
Write soon and give my regards to Ruby.
Your brother
Chester E. Kitchens.
The following is the clipping referred to,
Washington June 6:--Protests against the reported plan of the Government to send the hospital ship Comfor abroad without convoy, without defensive weapons and with lights blazing at night, “to test the humanity of th Hun” was voiced in the House this afternoon by Representative Husted of New York.
“If the Government has any such plan,” Husted said, “Steps should be taken to stop it. It is heads I win, tails you lose, proposition for the American Government from every standpoint. If the Germans refrain from attacking the ship for national psychological reasons, they w convert their action into valuable valuable propaganda. If the vessel is attacked we will lose 200 men and a valuable ship.
The humanity of the Hun, who has attacked British hospital ships and Red Cross hospitals from the air in France, needs no testing. We already know its quality.”
NOTES: Chester Earl Kitchens was on born December 2, 1895 in Columbia County, Arkansas and died on December 31, 1966 in Texarkana, Texas. He is buried in the East Memorial Gardens in Texarkana, Arkansas. He was a medical student when he enlisted in the Navy. He served aboard the hospital ship Comfort in WW I. He finished his medical training and became a pediatrician after the war.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
USS Comfort,
June 7, 1918
Dear Brother:
I have not heard from you since I left Washington I don’t suppose you got my last letter.
I am now in Brooklyn Navy yards, have been here 17 days and have been ready to sail for the last week for Liverpool, but somehow we are still here. We expect to leave any time without convoys, guns or anything with the side lights burning by night. We are going to test the faith of the Germans toward Hospital ships.
It has been published all over the country and enclosed you will find a clipping from one of the New York City papers, I suppose it is in the Gazette also.
The government is going to stake 348 lives against their faith. Well I am ready to go at any time. Although they are having it out in Congress now as the clipping will state.
This is one of the finest Hospital ships ever built and I am glad that I am one of the crew of nurses, as you know I am doing Bactriological work.
I think we will go before Sunday.
Write soon and give my regards to Ruby.
Your brother
Chester E. Kitchens.
The following is the clipping referred to,
Washington June 6:--Protests against the reported plan of the Government to send the hospital ship Comfor abroad without convoy, without defensive weapons and with lights blazing at night, “to test the humanity of th Hun” was voiced in the House this afternoon by Representative Husted of New York.
“If the Government has any such plan,” Husted said, “Steps should be taken to stop it. It is heads I win, tails you lose, proposition for the American Government from every standpoint. If the Germans refrain from attacking the ship for national psychological reasons, they w convert their action into valuable valuable propaganda. If the vessel is attacked we will lose 200 men and a valuable ship.
The humanity of the Hun, who has attacked British hospital ships and Red Cross hospitals from the air in France, needs no testing. We already know its quality.”
NOTES: Chester Earl Kitchens was on born December 2, 1895 in Columbia County, Arkansas and died on December 31, 1966 in Texarkana, Texas. He is buried in the East Memorial Gardens in Texarkana, Arkansas. He was a medical student when he enlisted in the Navy. He served aboard the hospital ship Comfort in WW I. He finished his medical training and became a pediatrician after the war.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT