13 April, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

13 April, 1944       0900

My darling fiancée –

At last I can call you that! Officially, sentimentally, actually – you are now my honest-to-goodness fiancée, and I can hardly believe it. Yesterday p.m. I got a letter from you written April 5, stamped April 6th and just think – I had it on the 12th! Well I’m missing some before that – and in reading along in your letter, dear, – I come across the sentence “tomorrow will be a week that we’re engaged or that I’m wearing your ring” – and I jumped up with the realization of what I was reading. Here I had been engaged for about 12 days and I didn’t know it. At that – Sweetheart – I ordinarily might have had to wait longer than that if it hadn’t been for the amazing speed of delivery of that letter. Well – I stopped reading, shut my eyes and tried to imagine you with a ring on your ring finger – left hand. I had often wondered what it was like – placing an engagement ring on a girl’s finger. I had seen it in the movies, read it in books – and when I hear from my dad – I’ll still be reading about it. Well – when I get back – I’ll take it off your finger, kiss you – and put it right back on. Incidentally, darling – I hope you like the ring and I hope it was something along the lines you wanted.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Wilma looks at her engagement ring

I’m thrilled, darling, that you are proud to wear it. I’m proud to have you wear it, believe me. I sat dreaming last night – a sort of recapitulation of the events leading up to our engagement – and all in all, I came to the conclusion – that it was perfectly normal – except for the actual ceremony. Had I been home, dear, things would have gone on just about the same. We started writing about it late in December and three months later – bingo! – we’re engaged! Considering the distance, the necessity for awaiting replies etc. – I think we did very well. So eight months after I met you, darling, you become my fiancée – and I never wanted anything more in my life than for that to happen. And to have it materialize with me away – is almost too good to be true. Again, sweetheart, I must give a lot of credit to your folks – who are now mine, also. I think they were extremely broadminded, cooperative and understanding to have given their consent – and I shall always remind them of it and try to show my appreciation. As for being their son – that is going to be so very easy, dear, I know. I liked your folks immediately and I know that when I get back – we’ll take up from where we left off and have some grand times together.

I got a sweet letter from Lawrence – yesterday – in which he first offered me his congratulations and then went on to tell me what a good choice I had made, pointing out your various attributes. It was a really nice letter. One also came from Stan – and somehow he certainly has changed towards me. He wrote about his work and his social life. The latter he says consists of “a nice string of appealing females to keep things from getting dull”. I feel sorry for Stan, dear, because I know he’d like to settle down and he just hasn’t met the right girl yet. I hope he does because I know it will make him be his old self again. He added he had seen you “last week” – and that you looked “exceptionally well.” Gosh darling, there you are looking exceptionally well for everyone to see and I have to close my eyes to get a real picture of you. But how I can possibly complain – with all the wonderful things that have happened to me – despite the handicap of being away, is beyond me. I’m actually so very thankful – and in my prayers – I have made that fact clear.

Darling – you now belong to me – really – and you must take good care of yourself for me. I’m doing and shall continue to do the same for you. If it’s at all possible to love you more than I do now – well I’m doing it darling. I’m very happy and contented and I’m merely taking a little thing like the war – in stride.

My best love to the folks and my many new cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmothers – etc. To you, sweetheart – my sincerest and deepest love for now and always.

Your loving husband-to-be –

Greg.

12 April, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

12 April, 1944        0815

My dearest sweetheart –

I’m getting off to an early start today, although I may not be able to finish this until later in the day. I expect to be fairly busy this morning – for a change. Darling, I’ve been going batty hanging around here with nothing to do and if I can help it – I’ll not stay with a rear detail again. It’s not even restful – because the last few nights I have hardly slept at all. I was awake at 0330 this morning for no apparent reason – except that I guess I wasn’t tired. I dozed intermittently from there until 0730 when I arose. I’ve just had breakfast – and honestly, dear, I actually feel tired. I’ll get some exercise again today and maybe I’ll really get tired enough to sleep tonite. I am getting in shape again, though – and that’s a help – because when you’re in shape you’re that much better able to take care of yourself if there ever be a need for it. I’ve been running around the squash court like a man possessed of the devil, darling – and the stamina is fast returning and increasing. Were I able to hug you and kiss you now, Sweetheart – I have no doubt that would be one continuous kiss of say – a half-day at a time – without coming up for air. Boy! Wouldn’t that be something though – a nice long, thorough, really hard kiss!

Yesterday, dear, there was no mail again. I got a couple of N.E. Journals of Medicine and a letter from my fraternity – Tau Epsilon Phi. I hadn’t heard from them in some time. The same old pep talk and hard luck story. Fraternities are really taking it on the chin these days, though. The day was very long. I listened to the radio most of the day and evening – interspersed with some reading of the journals. I’ve sort of fallen behind on my medical reading, as has Charlie – and we’re trying to catch up. In the evening I heard Hit Parade – and maybe you can get an idea of how late the programs are. On this Hit Parade – No. 1 was “My Heart Tells Me”. “Duffy’s Tavern” was also on – and that’s really a good show. Herbert Marshall was guest star and there were quite a few laughs.

By the way, darling, I meant to ask you before – how is Les making out with his ASTP? I understood that some branches of it were still to be continued – or at least a certain quota. If he isn’t kept in it – what you write about the Infantry is probably true – because almost every other branch of the Army is pretty well filled. It just goes to show what the vagaries of war can be. I feel sorry for them, too – but they never seemed to realize that it was actually the Army that Les was in and that you can’t gamble on the Army. Well I hope all works out for them eventually as they want it to.

Sweetheart – I wonder how things are developing at home. I wonder it all day, all evening and when I awake in the middle of the nite. I’m not worried – or anything like that dear – because I know we’ve proved to those concerned that we love each other and that we’re willing to wait for each other. I’m just anxious to find out when you start wearing my ring and become officially my fiancée. You can understand, my feelings, can’t you, darling? Gosh I love you and miss you so – and all I can do is tell you by letter – But you must know how strong that feeling is. Even if I didn’t write it – the air waves should be oozing with it from me to you. Do you feel it – darling?

I’ll have to stop now, dear. My love to the folks and

All my love to you, sweetheart

Greg

* TIDBIT *

about the Army Specialized Training Program


The ASTP Patch
Lamp of Knowledge
crossed with the Sword of Valor

Greg wondered how Wilma's friend, Les, was making out with the ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program), guessing that he may soon be in the infantry. It was an educated guess.

The Army Specialized Training Program was a military training program instituted by the United States Army during World War II at a number of American universities. Its primary purpose was to provide the continuous and accelerated flow of high grade technicians and specialists in the areas of engineering, foreign languages and medicine. ASTP was approved in September 1942 and implemented in December.

High school graduates were offered a chance to apply, though the majority of participants were already active duty soldiers. Entry requirements were high; minimum IQ was 115 (later 120), which was higher than Officers Candidate School. All new soldiers were required to complete 13 weeks of infantry basic training before being assigned to a college campus. Col. Henry Beukema, a Professor of History at West Point, was named Director of the program. He was responsible for sending 200,000 soldiers to 227 land-grant universities around the country at cost of $127,000,000.

The Army Specialized Training Program included intensive courses, approximately 25 class-time hours per quarter, in engineering, science, medicine, dentistry, personnel psychology, and 34 different foreign languages. Students were expected to complete the program in 18 months with a four-year degree and a commission. This included many volunteers from the civilian echelons who were at least 17 but less than 18 years of age. While in academic training the soldiers were on active duty, in uniform, under military discipline, and received regular army pay. Recruits marched to class in groups, ate in mess halls located in the barracks, and trained in the fields around a campus. The soldiers' week was made up of 59 hours of supervised activity, including at least 24 hours of classroom and lab work, 24 hours of required study, six hours of physical instruction, and five hours of military instruction.

By November 1943 the Army recognized that its replacement training centers were not producing nearly enough new soldiers for the Army Ground Forces, particularly in light of the impending invasion of France. General Lesley J. McNair felt ASTP took young men with leadership potential away from combat positions where they were most needed stating, "...with 300,000 men short, we are sending men to college." Manpower planners calculated that more infantrymen would be required in advance of the planned invasion of Europe. ASTP was not only one of the easiest programs to reduce or eliminate, it also provided a large pool of ready-trained soldiers. In February 1944, about 110,000 ASTP students were told they would be transferred to combat units. From a wartime high of 150,000 students, ASTP was immediately reduced to approximately 60,000 members. The remainder, having already completed basic training, were sent to the Army Ground Forces.

A large number of its trainees, almost overnight, became infantry privates. They could not be used immediately to meet the need for more intelligent non-commissioned officers because of their lack of military training and experience, and because most units, with their privates withdrawn as overseas replacements, had at least a full complement, and sometimes a surplus, of non-commissioned officers. It was desired and expected that ASTP trainees would soon show their superiority over the older non-commissioned officers, win ratings, and become leaders of small units. For its trainees, the ASTP was a series of dis-illusionments. Some, had they not been sent to college, would undoubtedly have gone to officer candidate schools, to the advantage both of themselves and of the Army Ground Forces.

In the spring of 1944 ASTP levels were further reduced at the direction of the Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall. Later, when the defeat of Germany was in sight, and the testing of the new atomic bomb successful, the apparent need for potential junior officer replacements disappeared and the final ASTP groups were largely disbanded. Major General Henry Twaddle wrote, "The underlying reason for institution of the ASTP program was to prevent some colleges and universities from going into bankruptcy. From a strictly mobilization viewpoint, the value of the program was nil." Indeed, a secondary benefit of ASTP was the financial subsidy of land grant colleges, whose male student bodies had been decimated by the diversion of about 14 million men into the various armed forces.

Although considered largely a failure, an unanticipated benefit to the Army of the ASTP was the softening of university resistance to lowering the draft age from twenty to eighteen. Another positive contribution was the number of men exposed to college who might not have attended otherwise. After the war ended, four out of five surviving ASTP alumni returned to college.

Known alumni and positions they have held include the following:

Robert Dole, U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader
Edward Koch, U.S. Congressman, New York City Mayor
Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State, Nobel Prize winner
Gore Vidal, author and politician
Andy Rooney, radio and television commentator
Arch Moore, Governor of West Virginia
Frank Church, U.S. Senator
Roger Mudd, TV newscaster
Mel Brooks, movie actor, director
George Koval, Russian spy in Manhattan Project World War II

Click here to read the US Army Center of Military History's "Birth and Death of the Army Specialized Training Program," written in 1995 by Louis Keefer and stored on JSTOR.

11 April, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

11 April, 1944 1045

Dearest one –

There was no mail yesterday so I’m missing out on the day to day episode of our engagement. However – since I have a good imagination – I fill in what I think must be happening – and then I’ll have your letters to see how far from right I was.

I was thinking yesterday how surprised some of my friends will be who don’t know you or rather had no way of knowing about us; for although several of my friends do know you – I never let them know how close we were getting from point of view of an engagement for the simple reason – something might have gone wrong, or been delayed. So I’m going to get a big kick out of spreading the news. It’s been different with you, dear, being home. Everyone I know is going to pop with curiosity, I’m sure, about who you are, where I met you, where you’re from etc. – and it’s too bad we’re not around to meet them all – but look at the fun we will have! And I’m so sure, darling, that everyone will think you’re ‘swell’ and will be glad for me that I was able to find so charming a girl. Gosh – those will be exciting days when I finally get back! There’ll be so many things to do, and places to go – and with all that there’ll be the important business of getting my practice started – finding a place to live and a hundred other things. Great day in the morning – we’ll make up for all these lonely days away from each other, darling! I won’t let you out of my sight for a moment – you can believe me, dear – because we’ll be far behind in knowing each other – and we’ll have to catch up.

Enough dreaming for now, A.! Yesterday was another quiet day – broken up a bit by a squash game in the p.m. This time I played with a “Leftenant” Stevenson of the British army, home on leave with his family. I met him thru the Reverend and he is as typical a British officer as anything you ever read about or saw in the movies. His father is a physician – a retired Colonel in the Indian Medical Service. When we were thru playing, he asked me up to tea at his house – and we spent a pleasant hour or so up there. I’m playing with him again, tomorrow, Wednesday. He has seen service in N. Africa and Italy and had a good many interesting stories to tell about fighting the Germans.

In the evening, after bathing, I straightened my room and listened to the radio. Bing Crosby, Sinatra and D. Shore were all on one program – really good; I also listened to Radio Theater’s “Men in White” – which I saw on the stage several years ago; and also to Joan Doves and Jack Haley and then, sweetheart – it was time for bed and dreams. As always, I still do my best dreaming and thinking when the lights are out and before I fall asleep. As always now – darling – my thoughts are about you, us, and the future and the thoughts are so aggravatingly pleasant. Oh well – we can sweat it out – can’t we?

That’s all for now, dearest. Love to the family and until tomorrow –

All my deepest love

Greg

* TIDBIT *

about Lux Radio Theater and
Men in White


Studio audience gathering before a live production

Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast live on the NBC Blue Network (1934-35), CBS (1935-54) and NBC (1954-55). The series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences. It became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s. Cecil B. DeMille took over as the host on June 1, 1936, continuing until January 22, 1945. Lux Radio Theater strove to feature as many of the original stars of the original stage and film productions as possible, usually paying them $5,000 an appearance.

In Men in White, Spencer Tracy plays Dr. George Ferguson, a dynamic young intern whose brilliant future seems assured. In addition to planning to study in Vienna, then to serve as the assistant to his mentor Dr. Hochberg, Ferguson is slated for a socially prestigious marriage to wealthy Laura Hudson. But when Laura begins expressing displeasure over Ferguson's dedication to his work, he enters into a brief affair with student nurse Barbara Dennin. Upon finding that she's pregnant, Barbara desperately undergoes an illegal abortion (a plot point made larger in the movie version, but merely alluded to in the screenplay). The botched operation results in Barbara being rushed into emergency surgery, where her life is in Ferguson's hands. In a third-act climax that would not have seemed out of place on TV's Chicago Hope, Laura finds herself a witness to the operation -- and to Barbara's deathbed "absolution" of Dr. Ferguson's sins.

Here is the first segment found on YouTube, as done by Encore Theatre, starring Robert Taylor.

10 April, 1944 (to her Mother)

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 c/o Postmaster N.Y.

England

10 April 1944

Dear Mother B. –

Your most recent letter to me was as sweet as could be, and as I wrote Wilma, I don’t see how a fellow could possibly acquire another Mother and Dad more easily and with greater pleasure than I have.

I have no doubt about my being able to love, admire and respect my new parents as I do my own – for the fact is you have already created those reactions in me. All we need now is a little closer contact to further those feelings.

I am so glad that you feel I have been able to make Wilma happy. The Lord knows that is just what I wanted to do. I know what she means to you, and I guess you must know what she means to me. She has made me a very happy fellow – happier than I’ve ever been before believe me – and I can think of no greater happiness than a future with Wilma as my wife.

I must repeat what I believe I wrote in an earlier letter. I am gratified in your confidence and faith in me, and your trust in my ability to make a good husband for your daughter. I know you must have given it considerable thought, and I’m glad you didn’t find me wanting.

That’s all for now – except to say that in calling Wilma’s parents – and mine-to-be – Mother and Dad, the pleasure and honor is all mine – and shall always be so. Love to the rest of the family.

Your loving son –

Greg

10 April, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

10 April, 1944       0930

Dearest Sweetheart –

Again yesterday – I received two up-to-date letters – one from you written March 29 and one from your mother – the same date. Your mother – and mine-to-be is a perfect darling in the way she writes me – and if anyone were ever made to feel welcome into a family, dear, your folks are certainly making me feel that way.

Your own letter of the same date, Sweetheart, only shows how confusion must result when a principal party involved is not around – meaning myself. Were I around, dear, I should have known what you liked and gone about getting it for you in my own way. If things have been confused, darling, and I gather that they have been, excuse it – as I know you are. Why in the world my mother should suddenly suggest that you look for a ring yourself – is beyond me – particularly when my father had written me what he had intended doing. The only possible suggestion for her action was that she wants you to have something you’ll like and she must have figured that was the best way to do it. I hope by now that something has been accomplished – and by my father, without the necessity of troubling your folks – dear – because that’s the way it should be.

I was amused at your reference to Barbara and Steve – and their being excited about us. I keep thinking of them as mere kiddos – and actually they’re growing up to be real people – to wit – they are actually picking out names for our children. Their selections weren’t so bad at that – although I’ll bet several other factors will enter the situation when the blessed time comes.

Wilma with Greg's nephew and niece, Steve and Barbara

Yes, darling, I am excited – and unfortunately I can’t share it with anyone, not really, anyway. For the fact is that every one in the Army has his own particular worry or pleasure or problem – and anyone else’s is fundamentally not his concern. My excitement really comes in reading your letters in detail and reconstructing every possible scene in my mind’s eye; and in letters from your folks and mine – because, darling, I’m really living in Massachusetts and not in England, or so it seems anyway.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a very quiet day and I didn’t move out of the Castle all day. I read Time Magazine, some old funnies, a couple of articles in some medical journals and listened to the radio. I don’t really know what I’d do without the latter. Besides keeping us up to date with the news – no other single factor except for your letters, dear, has made me feel that I still belong in the U.S. Yesterday, for example, I was able to hear – at different times of the day – and much like a Sunday at home – Sammy Kaye, André Kostelanitz, Baby Snooks, Frank Morgan, and Jack Benny – and they try to put these programs on the air as close to possible to the times we used to hear them. If you sit back, close your eyes and dream – you can easily be carried back home – and darling, that’s what I do all the time – and without the radio. You are always in the picture – waiting for me and it is therefore perfect. Now that I’m to be engaged to you, darling, I don’t know how I can tell you more forcibly that I love you and miss you – but if there is a way, dear – I’m trying to do just that. I’m the happiest guy in the E.T.O. and you’ve made me so sweetheart.

My love to the folks – and to you – a special brand of love for always, darling

Greg.

* TIDBIT *

about The Baby Snooks Show


Fanny Bryce as Baby Snooks

The following was excerpted from The Baby Snooks Show page on Wikipedia.

The Baby Snooks Show was an American radio program which began on CBS September 17, 1944 and aired on Sundays at 6:30pm. The show starred comedienne and Ziegfeld Follies alumna Fanny Brice as a mischievous young girl. Hanley Stafford was best known for his portrayal of Snooks' long-suffering, often-cranky father, Lancelot "Daddy" Higgins, who ended most shows by gently spanking his daughter for her misdeeds, such as planting a bees' nest at her mother's club meeting, cutting her father's fishing line into little pieces, ripping the fur off her mother's coat, inserting marbles into her father's piano and smearing glue on her baby brother.

Brice began doing her Baby Snooks character in vaudeville, as she recalled many years later: "I first did Snooks in 1912 when I was in vaudeville. At the time there was a juvenile actress named Baby Peggy and she was very popular. Her hair was all curled and bleached and she was always in pink or blue. She looked like a strawberry ice cream soda. When I started to do Baby Snooks, I really was a baby, because when I think about Baby Snooks it's really the way I was when I was a kid. On stage, I made Snooks a caricature of Baby Peggy."

By 1934 she was wearing her baby costume while appearing on Broadway in the Follies show. In 1940, she became a regular character on Maxwell House Coffee Time. In 1944, the character was given her own show, and during the 1940s, it became one of the nation's favorite radio situation comedies.  Here is a recording from 4 November, 1943.

09 April, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

9 April, 1944       1030

Dearest darling Wilma –

Easter Sunday – and a bad day here. It’s really a shame, too, for there have been so many nice days recently. Easter Sunday – and the war in Europe is still on – contrary to prognosticators, seers, dreamers, et al. We’ve now passed Christmas and are passing Easter and I wonder when the next time limit will be announced. There’s only one hope I have of an unexpected break in the war and that is the way the last war ended. Right up to the end – no one suspected anything – and then suddenly it was over. Maybe the same will occur this time.

Meanwhile, sweetheart, in the midst of all this waiting and lonesomeness – I am completely happy, content, satisfied and relaxed – and it’s all due to you, darling, and to what has happened to us in this past Summer, Winter and Spring. To have dreamed that it could happen would have been truly only dreaming, and I still have to reassure myself, dear, from time to time that things are as they are between us. It almost doesn’t seem possible that we could have met as we did and then carry on just as if I were still around. And yet when I think it over – as I am doing continuously it seems – there’s no doubt in my mind that all this would have happened had I stayed around. I knew I loved you when I left and I would have followed up that love to its natural conclusion. And that’s what makes our becoming engaged so real, sensible and natural – despite its unusual aspect.

Sweetheart – I got your letter of March 28 – yesterday – which is the first time in a long while that the mail service in this direction has been so good. I also heard from my dad – letter written on the same day – and both letters were the ones I had been waiting for. They told me what I wanted to know – and believe me, dearest, last month was really a long long month for me.

I don’t know how to describe my own reactions. It’s all so new to me. For the past half dozen years or more – all around me my friends were getting engaged, attached, married etc – and I just seemed to be by the wayside – watching the passing parade. Nothing was happening to me. Now that it is, I can hardly make myself believe that it is I who is involved this time. I would undoubtedly find it novel and exciting were I home to enjoy its realities; you can imagine then, darling what a mixture of emotion I’m having when my fiancée, mine, mind you – is 3000 miles away, and when I don’t have the pleasure of being with her, or of seeing the happiness of her folks and mine. But your letters, dear, are vivid – and I’m getting the picture of what’s going on back home – and I can repeat only – that I’ve never been happy before – the way I am now. To have our folks feel the way they do about the whole thing – is added blessing. From my father’s letter it is obvious that they’re thrilled and happy. I believe they always worried about what would happen to me – alone in Salem, and to have me meet and become engaged to as lovely a girl as you are – must make them feel beside themselves with joy. I hope, darling, that your folks are as pleased about it as my folks are.

What follows from here, darling, is detail. By now I know my dad must have purchased a ring. I don’t know his taste. I hope only that it is one you like and will be proud to wear. I don’t know either when you will start wearing it. Darling – when you do – know this: that for me it signifies all that is good and noble between two people who are pledged to marry, that it is my promise that I am for you alone, for always, and that in my mind and heart it is a token of my desire to be your husband – one day – and to assume the loyalty, responsibility, devotion – and love that a husband should have for a wife. For me, dear, the ring is a symbol of all that’s to come and may the Lord bless us and help us fulfill what I feel.

So long for now, Sweetheart; be well, my love to the folks – and by our engagement – whenever it is – you have made me enduringly happy, no matter what lies ahead.

All my truest love –

Greg.

08 April, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

8 April, 1944        0930

Darling Wilma –

Well the first day of our being alone here passed by rather uneventfully. There just wasn’t a darn thing to do around. Being Good Friday – the town was closed up in its entirety. After lunch I took a nap for the first time in a long while – I mean a real nap. The net result was that despite going to bed for the night at about 2330 – I didn’t sleep too well. One thing, darling, you’ll not have to worry about – and that is sleeping away the time. I’ve always felt that it’s really a great waste. I’d much rather be up doing something. Of course, sweetheart, that’s from a single man’s point of view.

When I got up – I washed and decided to ride down to the Dispensary on my bike. On the way down – I passed Mrs. Whitfield – who was also on a bike. She is the woman who was trying to get us ration coupons – presumably for Mother’s Days gifts. She had tried to contact me to tell me that her efforts were unsuccessful but that she and a friend of hers would like to give Charlie and me some of their own. I of course refused. Anyway – she invited me to supper at her house tonight at 1930. She wants me to meet her son – you remember he was the fellow who went to the Rivers School in Brookline while she was traveling in the U.S. So I accepted – although I wished she had asked me to come over another night. It means, dear, that I play squash in the p.m., then have tea with the Reverend and his wife and then dinner. What a way to fight a war! It will be a full day – but I’ll have nothing to do the rest of the week.

After supper – the four of us went up to one of the rooms to play bridge. I hadn’t played in a long time although I’ve tried not to get rusty by reading Culbertson’s problem hands – a column presented daily in the Phila. Inquirer which Charlie gets.

All would have been well, sweetheart, but from nowhere one of the fellows – Bruce – produced a full bottle of Haig and Haig Scotch. Paradoxically – it’s rarer in this country than at home. We kept drinking – for me it was the first hard liquor in some time – and playing, drinking and playing and then drinking and drinking. When the bottle was finished dear, my partner – Bill Bowman – and myself were down – two rubbers to one. So we decided to go downstairs to the main drawing room and play the games off in ping-pong. You can imagine what a game of doubles we played. We ended up winning two and six ($.50). By game’s end we were all running around downstairs in shorts, whooping it up and running all over the place. Try and imagine 4 guys a little bit tight running around in a place this size. And that’s how I spent the first night of Passover, darling, – not very religiously I’ll grant you – but what could I do? It was a good escape mechanism – that’s all.

I got mail yesterday, dear, one V-mail from you – written March 22 and I can gather now why there was so much delay in our exchange of letters. Apparently something went haywire around the middle of March – and just when we wanted to hear from each other most – there were days on end of no mail. If I hadn’t received your dad’s cablegram – I’d still be hanging around on thin air – so thank him again darling for sending it. Now I’m waiting to hear what has followed. It’s so nice to be in love with you, dearest, and to know that you are really going to be mine. It makes my missing you a mixture of satisfaction and patience – and you must know what I mean. Sweetheart – I do miss you so much – it’s hard to measure – but I can wait for you as you’re doing for me and when we have each other – it will all have been worth it. Best regards and love to the folks – darling and remember sweetheart that my love is only for you and for always –

Greg.

* TIDBIT *

about Whitby and Whitby Jet

In yesterday's letter Greg mentioned that most of his unit went to Whitby to do what they did in Wellfleet. Earlier letters identified that activity as firing practice. He said he was sorry he wasn't going. Here's "That little sea-coast town" that he missed.

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE

The Route of the Question Mark mentioned "Whitby Jet". Whitby Jet, a hard, black, shiny gem closely related to coal, was undoubtedly one of the earliest gemstones used to create artefacts and items of jewelery and has a cultural heritage that extends back to early tool making man. This history can be charted from the Bronze age, through the Roman occupation and Viking invasions and onwards to its meteoritic climb to fame in the mid 19th century Victorian England. During the Victorian period, when the ritual surrounding death and the long mourning of Queen Victoria made black fashionable, jet became hugely popular. Although jet is found elsewhere in the world, it is the jet from Whitby that excites collectors to such an extent that even jet jewelry manufactured elsewhere is often called Whitby Jet.

Jet Mourning Brooch

Whitby Jet's geological history starts in the middle of the Jurassic era, some 150 million years ago at the bottom of the Liassic Sea, which then covered much of England. Fossil evidence from this fascinating era is abundant and easily detected in the cliffs and on the beaches that adjoin Whitby to the North and South. Jet is the fossilized remains of the Araucaria tree from the Jurassic period and is only found along a seven and a half mile stretch of the North Yorkshire coastline centered around Whitby. (The common name of the Araucaria tree is the Monkey-puzzle tree or Chilean pine.)

On the floor of the sea there had already been deposits of materials that subsequently became the Main Seam Ironstone, and on top of this there were deposits of mud being washed down the rivers from adjoining landmass, forming an ever-increasing sedimentary layer. The Araucaria trees formed a significant part of the vegetable debris washed into the Liassic Sea and gradually became waterlogged. The accumulation of mud plus the weight of sea above produced enormous pressures and the individual trees were flattened into narrow 'seams'. The glutinous nature of the sedimentary layer completely sealed these seams and pockets of wood and an anaerobic fossilization slowly took place. Thus the new stratum of rock then being formed contained a plethora of these trees, scattered entirely at random. Jet is usually found in seams ranging from 5mm to 50mm thick and in a variety of lengths.

More about Whitby and Whitby Jet can be read where much of this information was gleaned, The Whitby Jet Heritage Centre web site. The following video of master carver and Whitby native restoration artist, Hal Redvers-Jones, was found there.