Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1919 — RAYMOND DIXIE WRITES FROM BREST, FRANCE [ARTICLE]

RAYMOND DIXIE WRITES FROM BREST, FRANCE

Raymond Dixie, Rensselaer boy, who enlisted in the navy at the outbreak of the war, aYid who has made many trips across the Atlantic, writes as follows : Anchored in’the Harbor of . • l— Brest, France, Dear folks at home:— We arrived in Best this morning at 9:30. This afternoon- I took my diary and figured up some things of interest, and now that the war is over, there is nothing to stop us from making things public. During the year just passed I think we did our share of the convoy work that was done. We spent two hundred and nineteen days out of the year, steaming a distance of fiftyeight thousand, one hundred and sev-enty-eight miles, making ten convoy trips and convoying safely one hundred troop ships. During all these trips we did not see or encounter a single Hun submarine. During the year we spent one hundred and fortysix days in port. During that time we spent twenty-seven days in the navy yard. We coaled ships on thir-ty-seven different days. The crew got liberty on one hundred and fourteen different days, so that means that each man of the crew was ashore fifty-seven days, which you see is not a whole lot, giving you three hundred days on board ship. We were in the following named ports at different times: New York, Norfolk, Va.; Newport, R. I.; Boston, Portsmouth, N. H.; Halifax, Brest, France, and Tompkinsville, N. Y. Will close with love and —best for all at ~