Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-10 | Page 3 | Salt Laker Youth Tells of Fighting

JACK NAYLOR, son of Raymond C. Naylor, who writes from France of two occasions when he was in action asainst the Germans. ii ! -1: ' SILT LAKE YOUTH TELLSOF FIGHTING Jack Naylor Sees Action After Just Two Weeks in France. Having been over the top twice and being nearly stunned by a high explosive shell the second time, Sergeant Jack Naylor, acting first sergeant in the chemical chem-ical warfare service with the American expeditionary forces, writes of his experiences ex-periences to his father, Raymond C. Naylor, Nay-lor, who resigned as county treasurer and is commanding the United States, guards at Jacksonville, Fla. Young Naylor. who is a little moro than l i years old, enlisted en-listed unknown to his parents at Fort Douglas last April. Transferred shortly afterward to the engineer corps at Camp Humphreys, Va, he volunteered for the chemical warfare service, was promoted to sergeant, sent to France in the, late summer and is acting act-ing first sergeant of his company. He. was in France just two weeks when he was first engaged with the enemy. During Dur-ing the Spanish-American war his father commanded a section of the Utah battery. bat-tery. Mr. Naylor's letter to his father follows: "October '2. "Dear Dad: I just got down from the line today and am taking this opportunity opportu-nity to write. . "'I've been under fire now and to my knowledge I've got it on you.' for, accord-, ing to your stories the stuff I hit has got yours beat a mile as far as war is concerned. "I'll admit Sherman was right, for it sure was hell while it lasted and it lasted for three and one-half days. "Speaking of dashing gallantly 'over the top,' It was altogether different, for wo crawled like Indians and when we got to Fritz's trenches we let loose. I don't know whether or not I got any Bodies, but I have a pretty good idea that I didn't make any misses. "The return trip was a veritable hell, for the Boche artillery opened up and for on hour after we got back they shelled that whole sector. "The other time I went over was when we (chemical warfare service) had our own business. At ten minutes to zero we started from the third line trenches. Everybody Ev-erybody was working like a dog, carrying four Stokes mortars and their base plates, also twenty rounds of gas shells for each mortar. We hit the first line at two and one-half to zero and got a little rest, and at the time set over we went, and as soon as we got out of the trench it was wonderful won-derful how our load lightened, for we sure worked like lightning. "We laid our plates and then Fritz opened on us with every kind of a gun he had. Then we set the mortars (projectors) (projec-tors) and you can take it for granted we didn't take long to fire the twenty rounds apiece. The mortar I had charge of was the last to cease firing and pull out, but we weren't far behind (about three-fifths of a second). We headed for our trench, but we were prone and were pulling our mortars and plates on the ground behind be-hind us. "One of the fellows dropped his part of tho mortar in excitement and it seemed die couldn't manage it, so I started back to help him, but never got to him, for a Boche high explosive shell struck about two feet from him and that was the end. It knocked me flat and I had a peach of a nose bleed, and I coudhVt hear a thing, but that didn't hinder my speed to the trench. I must have passed about twenty machine-gun bullets on the way. "Well, dad, I'vo had my baptism of fire and I like it to a certain extent; that is to say as fi?r as excitement was concerned, con-cerned, for it sure was exciting. "Dor.'t be backward in writing and let mo know how you are. Don't worry; for Tom Homer has got it doped out right they can't make a German bullet with my number on it!"