TRANSCRIBED FROM THE MOUNTAIN WAVE JANUARY 18, 1918 P. 3
Great Lakes, Ills., Jan.
Editor Wave:
The boys are all back in camp again after their holiday leave, and most of them seemed glad to get back. After a fellow once gets used to camp life he is not satisfied anywhere else any length of time. Of course, we like to get off for a few hours or a few days, but we soon want to get back.
I found the weather here quite different than in Arkansas. A big snow and a biting north wind greeted the 2,000 or more Camp Perry jackies that arrived Friday morning, and we were not long in getting to our companies and falling into daily routine, which comes as natural as sleep. When a fellow first enters the station he thinks he is about the worst abused man on earth, because he is told what navy life is and also informed that he had to obey rules and regulations. But he soon learns to do this without question and with pleasure. Regular hours for sleep, drill and study is hard for some to adapt themselves to, especially the city man. We must be in bed by 9 p. m., and be perfectly quiet after “taps,” which is at 9: 05 p. m. In the morning we get up, or “hit the deck,” as we call it here, at 5 o’clock. If a fellow fails to do this he gets a little “extra duty,” such as standing guard from 12 to 4 a. m., or cleaning the barracks all day, which is not very pleasant, and, believe me, there is not much incentive for a fellow wanting to stay in bed after he is told to get up.
From 8:30 until 10 we drill. At 10 we go to school until 11:45, when we fall in for mess at 12. In the afternoon we have the same routine until supper at 5, after which we can do as we choose—wash clothes, write letters, etc., until 8:30, when we have muster.
The “Y” has an entertainment on for nearly every evening and we usually go there to write our letters and to read and hear good music. The “Y” is certainly doing a great thing for the boys of the Army and Navy. No one outside the service can understand just what it is doing for us. It furnishes fine writing paper, books to read, free entertainments, and is ready at all times to accommodate us in any way they can.
Each week we get shore leave and are at liberty to go where we please. We usually go to Chicago, where we have a royal
time. The people there are certainly doing a lot to make us happy. There are dinner parties every week for all jackies that care to go, and we are invited to the best homes and made to feel that our services are appreciated and that those on the outside are ready at all times to help make our camp life as agreeable as possible, which is certainly appreciated by the jackies. Chicago certainly has showed her hand for patriotism in this war in more than one way. It was first in the Liberty Loan campaign, as well as in the Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross campaigns. As it is only 35 miles from the Station we can go out there without scarcely any expense. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and the Chicago, Milwaukee and North Shore Electric furnishes us excellent means for transportation, so we don’t lose any time waiting for trains.
Milwaukee is only about 75 miles from Great Lakes and we also visit it. It has been said that from Chicago to Milwaukee is a city, which is a fact. There are small towns connecting them that act as links between the two cities, where is seems like traveling through a city for three hours or more.
Many of the boys evidently go to Milwaukee in quest of the stuff that “made Milwaukee famous,” but Uncle Sam, with the best interest of the boys in mind, has fixed it so they can’t get any of the “juice of life.”
There are about 25,000 men in training here now, most of which are new men, as most of the men that came here four or five months ago have gone to sea except those that are in school in special branches.
The Navy Department recently enlisted 50,000 men for the Radio as wireless operators on the transport now under constructions. These men stay here until they can receive 10 words per minute, when they are sent to Harvard College for a four-months’ course and then sent to sea. Some transferred out of other branches to this, but it was found necessary to enlist more men for this in order to get them quick.
There are at present several hundred in the mechanical department for the aviation corps, and a school will be opened next week for training them. They will be sent to France as mechanics on the machines as soon as they are qualified.
I expect to go to Harvard College soon for a four months’ course. There will be a draft go out the fifteenth and I expect to be in it.
Hoping this will be available, I am, yours every truly,
Darwin Watts,
Co. G I Radio School, Camp Perry, Great Lakes, Ill.
NOTES: Darwin Spencer Watts was born on January 21, 1895 in Searcy County Arkansas. He died on June 6, 1944 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is buried in the Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City. His military headstone identifies him as a Printer 1CL in the US Navy from Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS
Great Lakes, Ills., Jan.
Editor Wave:
The boys are all back in camp again after their holiday leave, and most of them seemed glad to get back. After a fellow once gets used to camp life he is not satisfied anywhere else any length of time. Of course, we like to get off for a few hours or a few days, but we soon want to get back.
I found the weather here quite different than in Arkansas. A big snow and a biting north wind greeted the 2,000 or more Camp Perry jackies that arrived Friday morning, and we were not long in getting to our companies and falling into daily routine, which comes as natural as sleep. When a fellow first enters the station he thinks he is about the worst abused man on earth, because he is told what navy life is and also informed that he had to obey rules and regulations. But he soon learns to do this without question and with pleasure. Regular hours for sleep, drill and study is hard for some to adapt themselves to, especially the city man. We must be in bed by 9 p. m., and be perfectly quiet after “taps,” which is at 9: 05 p. m. In the morning we get up, or “hit the deck,” as we call it here, at 5 o’clock. If a fellow fails to do this he gets a little “extra duty,” such as standing guard from 12 to 4 a. m., or cleaning the barracks all day, which is not very pleasant, and, believe me, there is not much incentive for a fellow wanting to stay in bed after he is told to get up.
From 8:30 until 10 we drill. At 10 we go to school until 11:45, when we fall in for mess at 12. In the afternoon we have the same routine until supper at 5, after which we can do as we choose—wash clothes, write letters, etc., until 8:30, when we have muster.
The “Y” has an entertainment on for nearly every evening and we usually go there to write our letters and to read and hear good music. The “Y” is certainly doing a great thing for the boys of the Army and Navy. No one outside the service can understand just what it is doing for us. It furnishes fine writing paper, books to read, free entertainments, and is ready at all times to accommodate us in any way they can.
Each week we get shore leave and are at liberty to go where we please. We usually go to Chicago, where we have a royal
time. The people there are certainly doing a lot to make us happy. There are dinner parties every week for all jackies that care to go, and we are invited to the best homes and made to feel that our services are appreciated and that those on the outside are ready at all times to help make our camp life as agreeable as possible, which is certainly appreciated by the jackies. Chicago certainly has showed her hand for patriotism in this war in more than one way. It was first in the Liberty Loan campaign, as well as in the Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross campaigns. As it is only 35 miles from the Station we can go out there without scarcely any expense. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and the Chicago, Milwaukee and North Shore Electric furnishes us excellent means for transportation, so we don’t lose any time waiting for trains.
Milwaukee is only about 75 miles from Great Lakes and we also visit it. It has been said that from Chicago to Milwaukee is a city, which is a fact. There are small towns connecting them that act as links between the two cities, where is seems like traveling through a city for three hours or more.
Many of the boys evidently go to Milwaukee in quest of the stuff that “made Milwaukee famous,” but Uncle Sam, with the best interest of the boys in mind, has fixed it so they can’t get any of the “juice of life.”
There are about 25,000 men in training here now, most of which are new men, as most of the men that came here four or five months ago have gone to sea except those that are in school in special branches.
The Navy Department recently enlisted 50,000 men for the Radio as wireless operators on the transport now under constructions. These men stay here until they can receive 10 words per minute, when they are sent to Harvard College for a four-months’ course and then sent to sea. Some transferred out of other branches to this, but it was found necessary to enlist more men for this in order to get them quick.
There are at present several hundred in the mechanical department for the aviation corps, and a school will be opened next week for training them. They will be sent to France as mechanics on the machines as soon as they are qualified.
I expect to go to Harvard College soon for a four months’ course. There will be a draft go out the fifteenth and I expect to be in it.
Hoping this will be available, I am, yours every truly,
Darwin Watts,
Co. G I Radio School, Camp Perry, Great Lakes, Ill.
NOTES: Darwin Spencer Watts was born on January 21, 1895 in Searcy County Arkansas. He died on June 6, 1944 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is buried in the Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City. His military headstone identifies him as a Printer 1CL in the US Navy from Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS