WWI 1918 Letter from Sailor on USS M.J. SCANLON - In Commission just 4 mo SCARCE

Description

2 pg. letter, approx. 6-1/2" x 10-1/4", written at
Newport News, Va.
, and datelined
"U.S.S. M.J. Scanlon, Oct. 13, 1918"
, from David E. Losey, to his cousin, Miss Kathleen Parr, at Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Letters from the USS Scanlon are very scarce, as she was only in US Navy commission for 4 months, and made only 1 voyage from the U.S. to Europe
. The USS M.J. Scanlon was a US Navy cargo ship, completed in Sept. 1918, and acquired by the Navy on Sept. 22, 1918. In her first and only Navy voyage, she departed Norfolk, Va. in mid-October, 1918, and steamed to NYC  to join a convoy to Europe, loaded with US Army supplies. She departed NYC on Nov. 1 and reached France on Nov. 18th, one week after the Armistice that ended the war. She was decommissioned on Jan. 27, 1918 (4 months after she was acquired by the Navy), and entered the private sector. In World War II, as the SS Minotaur, she was torpedoed and sunk by a German sub off of Surinam on Jan. 9, 1943, with the loss of 6 lives.
Good content, written when about to set off on the ship's only voyage in US Navy service.
The letter includes:
"We are at Newport News, Va. at the present time, but of course can tell nothing about how long we will be here, and anybody that is unlucky enough to stay around here any longer than the time it takes to get away, can never expect to have anything to write about...
I heard that Charley Proctor was stationed down here on coast patrol work and I sure feel sorry for him if he feels the way I do about this section of the country, and especially the cities of Newport News & Norfolk...."
Very Fine.
COMBINED SHIPPING FOR MULTIPLE ITEMS.
[V]
NO SHIPPING OUTSIDE OF THE U.S.