1144 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



CAPT. JOHN B. WOODS 



FIRST LT. RISDEN T. ALLEN 



FIRST LT. ROBERT L. DEERING 



civilization. All but a few of the men who enlisted in the 

 various forest battalions reached France. Among those 

 who were destined never to arrive were 91 who went 

 down on the ill-fated Tuscania when she was torpedoed 

 off the Irish coast by a German submarine. Aboard this 

 vessel was the 6th Battalion. Excellent discipline pre- 

 vailed, however; prompt assistance came and most of 

 the men were saved. 



In describing this disaster, Thomas P. Reid, Yale 

 Forest School, '13, wrote: "I had just finished supper 

 and was back on deck, life belt on and all prepared, 

 when the crash came. A tearing and a heavy thud, fol- 

 lowed by a tremendous fall of water, left no doubt as to 

 what had happened. An instant of silence, darkness and 

 a great shouting as the fellows ran to their boat sta- 

 tions. Boats were lowered, some in good order, others 

 in bad shape, and as one end fell faster than the other 

 or went down with a crash, capsized and spilled all the 

 men who were in it." After telling how eleven men got 

 into a broken boat by jumping from the deck above, a 

 good thirty feet, he adds: 



"One of our fellows became chilled. We were all 

 pretty wet, but not too cold to whistle, or chew tobacco, 

 and even smoke cigarettes. We rubbed the chilled one, 

 pounded, stood him on his feet, and 'cussed' him to make 

 him 'hot,' and succeeded, for when a trawler finally picked 

 us up about midnight, he was in pretty fair shape. 



"Six hours later we were landed, 500 of us, somewhere 

 in Ireland, where nothing was too good for us. Seemed 

 like the whole town just spread themselves ; tobacco, 

 clothes, food, candy, money was almost forced upon us 

 all. There were entertainments by the Naval Base Red 

 Cross, and so forth. There will always be the warmest 

 of spots in our hearts for the people there. Withal it 

 was really wonderful how so many were taken from the 

 ship in almost perfect order." 



Major Wade, in command of the 6th Battalion, was the 

 last soldier to leave the sinking Tuscania. 



While none of the other members of the forest regi- 

 ment were compelled to go through an experience as 

 gruelling as that which befell those aboard the Tuscania, 

 nevertheless there was excitement and adventure aplenty 

 almost from the moment the various battalions entrained 

 at American University Camp, ready for the long jour- 

 ney, right through to the end. There were new experi- 

 ences to satisfy the most venturesome. The story of the 

 trip across of the two battalions composing the 10th 

 Regiment, the first to sail, may be taken as typical of 

 similar experiences by those who followed. Here is the 

 interesting account of that journey as related by Major 

 David T. Mason, professor of forestry in the University 

 of California, who hepled to organize this first forest 

 regiment and went with it to France. They sailed from 

 New York on the Cunard liner, Carpathia, leaving there 

 September 10. Major Mason continues : 



"There were the usual scenes at the port of embarka- 

 tion; a ferry boat carried the regiment from the Penn- 

 sylvania terminal to the pier where the Carpathia lay. 

 For many of the men this was the first glimpse of New 



SECOND LT. JOHN W. SELTZKR 



CAPTAIN DORR SKEELS 



2nd LT. STANLEY H. HODGMAN 



