Because the _Leviathan_ was expected to arrive in port on Christmas eve, a regular navy holiday dinner with all the fixings was given to all hands on the day before. This dinner was given complete and went off smoothly with but one hitch. As said before, soldiers have healthy appetites and a strong affection for pie, and, in order to get more pie than their share, a great many doubled back in the mess lines and perhaps more than once, for there were over 15,000 rations of pie served out on that strenuous day. For a while it looked as if we were going to be overwhelmed and that the last thousand troops to go through the mess lines would not get any holiday dinner, but a good substitute dinner was provided and it is recorded that everybody was made happy. All this work was accomplished under such adverse conditions and with the added strain incidental to our first trip through the war zone, that it was with relief we arrived in port and fed the soldiers their last navy meal alongside the landing stage in Liverpool. Each man leaving the ship was given a lunch to stay him on the next stage of his journey and with it went the good wishes of the _Leviathan’s_ crew. The practice of providing a lunch to debarking troops has been carried out in all succeeding disembarkations. IMPROVEMENTS The big feat was accomplished and the rest given by the necessarily long stay in Liverpool was well earned and enjoyed. As a result of the experience of the trip, many improvements were made in the messing organization and galley installation, the most noteworthy of which was the abandoning of the galley forward, moving the kettles, etc., to the troop galley and giving up the two other mess hall spaces for berthing—messing all the troops in the present large mess hall. This brought about a consolidation of the general mess and made the task easier. Subsequent trips saw consistent improvement until a new record was established during the thirteenth trip when about eleven thousand home-coming troops were fed in seventy-six minutes best time and an average time of about ninety minutes. Over 150,000 overseas troops have been fed on the _Leviathan’s_ trips and the good ship’s commissariat has become famous wherever the A. E. F. have gone. The _Leviathan’s_ apple pie has been, to quote a returning wounded soldier, placed second in popularity with the justly famous Salvation Army doughnut.