Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1917 — Interesting Letter From Raymond Dixie, Now at Newport News. [ARTICLE]

Interesting Letter From Raymond Dixie, Now at Newport News.

Midnight, June 16, 1917. Dear Folks: I am on a 48-hour liberty. All the mail you have gotten has been censored and I have been unable to tell you much about what we are doing. Well, in one way we are preparing for battle. We just finished target practice and worked all night last night taking on stores. We will coal ship Monday and hang around for about a week and then I think we will get in the best condition possible and go across to France. The JI on tana is an armored cruiser with torpedo tubes. On board ship we have four 10-inch guns, sixteen 6-inch guns and sixteen 3-inch guns. lam the division clerk. That is the only work I do in the yoeman branch and 1 have found out that the yoeman branch offers nothing to 'the outside because a man knows very little about bookkeeping in the nayy. Tell dad I talked to some English sailors today who are over here. They are on the H. M. S. Antrim. It also is an armored cruiser. I have seen French, English and Russian cruisers and none of them are as good as the U. S. navy has. People on the outside say that the United States has no fleet. If those wise ducks could only take a look at the fleet they soon would change their mind about that. Well, lam going to bed now and will close for this time. .

RAYMOND DIXIE.