438th AAA AW BN
APO 230 % Postmaster, N.Y.
Germany
19 October, 1944 1415
Dearest sweetheart –
Talk about your dark, dull and dreary days – we’re having one today! I figure each bad day as setting us back about 1 week. But that is hardly a professional estimate, dear, merely my own. Rather than hang around this a.m. I thought I’d get out in the rain and see a few of the gun sections. Gee – it sure can get muddy around here – and I was in it most of the morning. I got back a little after 1300 and I’m now where it’s warm and dry. How long it will be before I’m disturbed I don’t know, but here I am anyway.
Last night after I finished writing you dear, I had a couple of things to take care of and then the dentist and I played a couple of games of Casino with two of our sergeants. We then listened to the news – at this stage my radio is playing well by the way – and then to bed again. That radio – incidentally – has been a problem ever since I got it, and although it cost $80.00 when I bought it, I figure it is now worth about $150.00 – what with all the new G.I. parts, consultations with radio men in 2 Divisions, 3 Signal companies, and 2 Army radio repair men. That’s the truth, dear; for one reason or another the damned thing would play for awhile and then stop; then it would play with one battery and not with another of the same voltage and so on. I think it’s all solved now and it’s playing fine. One thing we can get is batteries – all sizes and strengths.
I got a couple of good laughs in your letter of Oct 2, dear – first because of your energy in copying the cartoons and secondly in the cartoons themselves. What I enjoyed the best was the one of the little boy and his mother – buying some sort of breakfast cereal and wanting to know if there wasn’t one that would make him sluggish. You do like to draw, though, don’t you sweetheart? I’m positive now that one of our children will be an artist. That will be fun – ‘cause then I can go up to his studio and see the models. Now! Now! I really feel sorry that I haven’t saved all your letters, dear, but honestly, it would have been an impossibility. I do have all that you wrote me – up to the time that we left Sherborne. They’re in my trunk – which is still in England and which I hope to get after the war.
Once in a while I think back to those days in England and particularly Sherborne which is a lovely English town. We really had a pleasant 10 or 11 weeks there and we hated to leave. We did leave, by the way, a few days before D day – I guess it’s all right to mention these facts now – and went to the vicinity of a Port – stayed 48 hours and then proceeded to the Port of Southampton. We landed on D+9 – in case you’ve wondered, sweetheart. Not too early but early enough to realize what a beach-head meant and to see how little room there was to maneuver in. Everything you’ve read about and perhaps have seen in the movies – I saw and I’ll never forget it. The German dead had not yet been cleaned up and they lay in great numbers along the sides of the dirt roads; and seeing them made most of us realize for the first time that we were really in a war – although we were quite tense coming across the channel, too.
Well – what got me on that track, I wonder – oh yes – my mention of England – and your letters – which have meant so much to me, darling. Letters have been so important in their ability to keep us in contact and I guess on the whole – we can’t complain too much of the service. As long as they carry the message to me that you love me, sweetheart, I’m satisfied and I know you feel the same.
I’ll close now, dear, – have to interview a soldier for question of Sect. VIII discharge. Hope to hear from you tonite. Love to the folks and so long for now.
Talk about your dark, dull and dreary days – we’re having one today! I figure each bad day as setting us back about 1 week. But that is hardly a professional estimate, dear, merely my own. Rather than hang around this a.m. I thought I’d get out in the rain and see a few of the gun sections. Gee – it sure can get muddy around here – and I was in it most of the morning. I got back a little after 1300 and I’m now where it’s warm and dry. How long it will be before I’m disturbed I don’t know, but here I am anyway.
Last night after I finished writing you dear, I had a couple of things to take care of and then the dentist and I played a couple of games of Casino with two of our sergeants. We then listened to the news – at this stage my radio is playing well by the way – and then to bed again. That radio – incidentally – has been a problem ever since I got it, and although it cost $80.00 when I bought it, I figure it is now worth about $150.00 – what with all the new G.I. parts, consultations with radio men in 2 Divisions, 3 Signal companies, and 2 Army radio repair men. That’s the truth, dear; for one reason or another the damned thing would play for awhile and then stop; then it would play with one battery and not with another of the same voltage and so on. I think it’s all solved now and it’s playing fine. One thing we can get is batteries – all sizes and strengths.
I got a couple of good laughs in your letter of Oct 2, dear – first because of your energy in copying the cartoons and secondly in the cartoons themselves. What I enjoyed the best was the one of the little boy and his mother – buying some sort of breakfast cereal and wanting to know if there wasn’t one that would make him sluggish. You do like to draw, though, don’t you sweetheart? I’m positive now that one of our children will be an artist. That will be fun – ‘cause then I can go up to his studio and see the models. Now! Now! I really feel sorry that I haven’t saved all your letters, dear, but honestly, it would have been an impossibility. I do have all that you wrote me – up to the time that we left Sherborne. They’re in my trunk – which is still in England and which I hope to get after the war.
Once in a while I think back to those days in England and particularly Sherborne which is a lovely English town. We really had a pleasant 10 or 11 weeks there and we hated to leave. We did leave, by the way, a few days before D day – I guess it’s all right to mention these facts now – and went to the vicinity of a Port – stayed 48 hours and then proceeded to the Port of Southampton. We landed on D+9 – in case you’ve wondered, sweetheart. Not too early but early enough to realize what a beach-head meant and to see how little room there was to maneuver in. Everything you’ve read about and perhaps have seen in the movies – I saw and I’ll never forget it. The German dead had not yet been cleaned up and they lay in great numbers along the sides of the dirt roads; and seeing them made most of us realize for the first time that we were really in a war – although we were quite tense coming across the channel, too.
Well – what got me on that track, I wonder – oh yes – my mention of England – and your letters – which have meant so much to me, darling. Letters have been so important in their ability to keep us in contact and I guess on the whole – we can’t complain too much of the service. As long as they carry the message to me that you love me, sweetheart, I’m satisfied and I know you feel the same.
I’ll close now, dear, – have to interview a soldier for question of Sect. VIII discharge. Hope to hear from you tonite. Love to the folks and so long for now.
All my sincerest love,
Greg.
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