100 Years Ago: Departure Orders Received

"Packing Up" July 2, 1918
Red Cross Base Hospital 50 Photograph Album, 1918-1919, pg 18.
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, PH Coll 387.

During the month of June, the Unit received several tips from the War Department to be in readiness for orders to depart. On July 1st,  Brigadier General Joseph Leitch, Commanding Officer of Camp Fremont, inspected the Unit and gave a farewell address to the officers and wished them "Godspeed." Finally, on Tuesday, July 2, 1918, orders were received to pack up and prepare for their long-awaited overseas deployment.

Their departure set was for July 4th, which proved to be a very busy day. Camp was broken and tents and camp equipment were packed up and turned over to the Camp Quartermaster. At noon the Unit marched to a special train at the Remount Station. The train consisted of a combination observation and sleeping car, several sleeping cars, a baggage car outfitted as a commissary, a cook car, and freight cars for baggage. In addition, there were flat cars for ambulances and an automobile, crated and ready for overseas shipment, which had been donated by the people of the Seattle.

Goodbyes were said to families and friends, many of whom had followed the Unit to Palo Alto while they were in training. The schedule called for the Unit to be on board and ready to leave at 1:00 p.m, however, one of the wheels on the cook car was discovered to be badly cracked, requiring another to be sent over from a nearby train yard. Finally, about 5:00 p.m. the train steamed across the head of San Francisco Bay and proceeded through Oakland. Six months after their initial training meeting in Seattle, the Unit's eastern journey had begun. As noted in the Unit's history the train traveled over "the Central Pacific Railway to Ogden, thence over the Union Pacific Railway to Chicago, thence over the Michigan Central to Buffalo, thence over the Erie & Western to Camp Merritt, New Jersey."

Railroad in the United States, 1910
Maps ETC, etc.usf.edu/maps [map #02089]

References:

1. United States. Army. Base Hospital No. 50. The History of Base Hospital Fifty: A Portrayal of the Work Done by This Unit While Serving in the United States and with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Seattle, Wash. : The Committee, 1922. Page 65.