eover, was the goal and the real range practice was left as
a matter of course for over there.

All activity centered on getting ready to depart. The battery
carpenters and painters were kept busy making boxes and labelling
them properly for the "American E. F." Harness was being cleaned
and packed. The time came for the horses to be returned to the Remount
station. Supply sergeants were busy as bees supplying everybody with
foreign service equipment. It proved a common occurrence to be routed
out of bed at midnight to try on a pair of field shoes. All articles
of clothing and equipment had to be stamped, the clothing being
stamped with rubber stamps, while the metal equipment was stamped with
a punch initial. Each soldier got a battery number which was stamped
on his individual equipment.

On June 28th, Joseph Loskill, of Hazleton, Penna., and William F.
Brennan, of Hazleton and Philadelphia, Penna., were assigned to
accompany the advance detail of the regiment. Lieut. Arthur H. McGill
was the Battery D officer to accompany the advance detail, which left
Camp Meade about 7 p. m., proceeding to Camp Merritt, N. J., for
embarkation. The advance guard arrived at Jersey City the following
morning at 6 o'clock, where they detrained and marched to the Ferry to
get to Hoboken. There the detachment was divided, the officers
boarding the S. S. Mongolia, the enlisted men the S. S. Duc d'Abruzzi.
The ships left Hoboken at 10:30 a. m., May 30th, bound for Brest.

Battery D was filled to full war-strength during the first week of
July, just before departure, when the outfit received a quota of 150
men who came to the regiment from the Depot Brigade. Five hundred and
forty came to the regiment from Camp Upton, N. Y., and Camp Dix,
N. J., and fifty from the signal corps in Florida.

In the front door and out of the back of 019 the battery passed in
alphabetical line in rehearsal of the manner in which the gang plank
of the ship was to be trod. Departure instruction likewise included
hikes to the electric rail siding to practice boarding the cars with
equipment.

The last few days in camp were marked by daily medical inspections,
also daily inspections of equipment. Everybody had to drag all their
equipment outside for inspection. The men were fully and newly
equipped with clothing and supplies upon leaving. Two new wool
uniforms, two pairs of field shoes, new underwear, socks, shirts,
towels, toilet articles, and a score of oth