Ninth Overseas Trip
We left our pier at Hoboken, September 29th and our ninth voyage overseas was underway. The following troops were on board:
Troops, 9,366; 57th Pioneer Infantry; September Auto Replacements Drafts from Camps McArthur, Humphreys, Hancock and Jackson; Medical Replacement, No. 73; 401st Pontoon Train; 467th Pontoon Train; 468th Pontoon Train; Water Tank Train No. 302; 323rd Field Signal Battalion; Base Hospitals No. 60 and 62, Female; Debarking and Billet Party 31st Div.; Major General Leroy S. Lyon, C. G. 31st Div.
Under clear skies we steamed slowly through the big harbor filled with shipping and proceeded straight to sea, stopping only to drop our pilot, Capt. McLaughlin, of the Sandy Hook Pilot Association and who always piloted the Leviathan in and out of New York Harbor. This trip overseas was to be made memorable by reason of the Army epidemic of influenza on board. Many men and several nurses were obliged to leave the ship just before we cast off our lines and everyone felt that we would have a distressing time going over. While the embarkation troops were lined up on the big pier some of the men dropped helpless on the dock. We were informed that a number of men had fallen by the wayside, limp and listless, on their march from the camp to the scene of transportation. Our first death was recorded the next day out. He was a sailor who did duty in the Hospital Corps. He told the chaplain that he did not want to die because of the great need of his help at home. Out of over two thousand cases of influenza and pneumonia on board, this first case and two naval passengers en route to duty in France, were the only ones to die from the Navy. All the other deaths belonged to the Army, 96 in all.
This was not a bad percentage considering the total number of cases stricken, the hardships and restrictions, the weather conditions, the intense nervous strain in the war zone and the tremendous rolling of the big ship while in the storm. Very few people in the sick spaces got much sleep. Everybody helped during the terrible plague. There was work for all. It was pitiful to see men toppling over dead at your feet. It was like some invisible hand reaching out and suddenly taking them away. It was truly sad and depressing.
The standing lights in the big spaces of the ship were kept dim behind colored glass. Not a light was ever visible from the ship at night and this perfect control of the huge and vast electric circuit of the ship affords a well merited tribute to the officer in charge. Officers on the Great Northern and Northern Pacific as well as of the escort of destroyers who were always with us in the dreaded war zone, complimented us upon the Leviathan’s complete obscuration or darkening of ship. Only once did a light ever show from the big ship and that happened to shine from the room of the officer of the deck who was on duty on the bridge. He had sent a messenger to his room for his raincoat and the boy turned on the light to find his way about the dark room and returning to the bridge in a hurry forgot to extinguish the light. A sharp eyed and vigilant destroyer promptly flashed over a warning signal and the light was extinguished.
Rules and prohibitions were minute and precise and were always strictly enforced. A lighted cigarette upon a dark deck high in the air may be seen a half a mile at sea and thus would enable an enemy submarine to radio a lookout warning to another “sub” lying in wait ahead. These pests of the deep generally worked in pairs. To show how strict the rules were one man was court martialed and sent to prison, an officer was court martialed and reduced, and an army chaplain, who was assisting the chaplain of the ship in administering to the dying, was threatened with court-martial because he had opened a port slightly in response to a dying soldier’s request for air. These penalties may appear to be unduly harsh, but where the safety of thousands depends upon the minute obedience of the individual why “the punishment fits the crime.”
The army nurses were like ministering angels during that dreadful scourge. They were brave American girls who had left home and comfort in order to undergo peril and sacrifice abroad. Surely they have earned a place in Heaven. The bluejackets on board were second to the nurses in their unwearying patience and generous self-denial. When the army nurses left the ship in Brest, they wept and bade the sailors an affectionate good-bye.