Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 242, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1918 — WHERE YANKEES ENTER FRANCE [ARTICLE]

WHERE YANKEES ENTER FRANCE

Vivid Word Picture of Port of Debarkation for American Troops.

HUMAN SIDE IS DESCRIBED Miracles Worked Here In a Year by American Energy—Mystery Surrounds Flight and Return of Allied Sea Craft By GERTRUDE LYNCH. A French Port. —This is not only a port of debarkation for our troops, it is a port where many men gre permanently stationed in various military and naval duties. It is a center of aviating and seaplane stations, for welfare and hospital activities. Dock work is done by labor battalions, numbering many men. Here the shore days of men of the patrol and convoy fleets are spent. ' How is this port to care for such an Influx? American energy can answer the question. American energy does. Cinemas and vaudevilles are plentiful, a theater leased by the Y. M. C.A, providing the best entertainment the town can boast.

The principal street is lined with shops where Parisian products are censored to suit provincial tastes. To these have been added a multiplicity of goods to tempt the keepsake and souvenir wants of the strangers. Along the streets that lead from the gates to the suburbs are “baraques,” or covered pushcarts, extending for a mile or more, where glmcracks are sold to sailors, free with their money and not too well-endowed with the powers of selection. Along the streets, the ever-vatying, never changing war procession! Officers of the army and navy, marines, English Tommies, men and women of the Y. M. C. A., and the Red Cross, convalescents, casuals, Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese, sitting in rows with nodding fezzes and Hashing teeth, peasants from many provinces, each with a distinctive dress, fighters and monks.

Over the sea wall is always a curious crowd of onlookers.' In less than a year they have seen first a few, shiploads, then more and still more, until now the weekly debarkation of thousands causes little comment. Let Heinie Look Out. Hear the conversation of two, an American soldier and a French Poilu who lean over the wall and look down to the landing places where a smart naphtha launch is bringing to shore an admiral and his staff. The American speaks: “Suppose the Helnles do get Paris, what of that? If they get London, what of that? Hope they don’t, for I’d like to see the old burgs before I go back to the farm, but that won’t make any difference; so long as we have a foothold in the harbor, that’s all we ask. Let Heinie look out. Paris and London—they aren’t the war. Not on your tintype.”

The French Poilu who understands all the English but the tintype allusion, looks amazed, then relieved. He had the provincial idea that Paris and London were the war. Over the seawall the observer looks down on the harbor town. The wpy leads by winding stairways of stone and slanting roofs. From it rises the tang of brine mingled with the odors of warehouses, oil and naphtha—those thousand and one smells that are as much a part of the port as are storage warehouses, docks and quays, basins and breakwaters. Beyond, the eye travels far to "the beauty and mystery of the ships and the magic of the sea.” Descend by one of these many routes. You find yourself overwhelmed with dirt and confusions. Here thousands of negro stevedores work like a colony of big, black ants. There are squads of Ammannites and Portuguese. Sailors’ oaths strike the ear. It is a babel of foreign sounds. Every inch of this water front is covered with' energy, docking, construction, loading and unloading, transportation, repairs. America has worked miracles here in a year. Inside and outside the breakwaters

are fleets of fcceap traffic, transports, convoys, torpedo destroyers, patrol and fishing boats, sail-steam auxiliaries—craft of every possible relation to the sea. One day you may count scores of ships, and the' next hundreds. Mystery covers the flight and return of these Interallied shuttles of steam and steel. . Follow the splendid roads to Brittany, by fragrant pasture lands. You will find air stations where America!? flyers are hidden, guarding the entrance of the English' channel, helping with convoy and patrol to make the U-boat menace a nullity.

Welfare Work. On the way back, stop at one of the clearing houses of the troops. Let us choose “The Barracks,” familiarly called. There are 12,000 men here. It has housed troops since Napoleon’s day and before. As you stand at the door of the Y. M. C. A. canteen, your view takes In a vast, field, all In .monotones, brown earth, brown tents, brown men against a background of green, under a bowl of silvery blue. The American flags are flying free over the French casernes. Men, glad to stretch their sea legs, are drilling, playing ball, running, walking. The bands play gay melodies. So great is the rush for the canteen supplies that the doors have to be closed frequently to facilitate the waiting. A bugle note sounds high and clear. Instantly every man on that immense parade ground is at attention while “La Marseillaise” and “The StarSpangled Banner” are played. Fathers and mothers ask what welfare work is being done at this port for their sons. The Y. M. C. A. is busy. It aims first to attract and then hold the boy until corrupt influences are nullified.