Month: November 1943

Also a follow-on, probably November 30

November 28, 1943
Fort Benning, Georgia
Sunday Eve.
Dear Folks,

I am writing by candlelight tonight. Therefore I will write a very short letter. Confidentially this is about the worst Sunday I have ever spent. I didn’t even have a chance to go to church.

We started at noon yesterday and marched till almost dark. Then we pitched our tents, dug shit trenches, ate C (combat) rations and went to bed. Then to beat it all it rained in the night. We got up in the dark this morning and rolled our packs. A pack is hard to roll in daylight and 3 times as hard to roll in the dark. We got here at about 10:00 and ate breakfast. We have been working almost all day at such jobs as cleaning up around here.

We live in tents with dirt floors but we do have beds to sleep in. Tomorrow we go out on the range but I don’t know exactly how or what we will fire.

I had my first experience firing on Friday. We fired the carbine but not for record. I got by but didn’t do anything outstanding. The worst part of this are is the lack of water. We have to get along on a canteen full a day. We must wash and shave, etc. in it. For this reason I may have to start drinking coffee. That is about all they furnish us at meals and when I have to furnish my drink out of my canteen it soon runs out. 

I am not going to say this often but frankly I will be glad when this basic is over.

I can receive letters & packages out here but don’t send anything that will be too big to take back. Keep praying and don’t worry.

Love, Donald

December 1, 1943
Wednesday
Dear Folks,
I am OK but am too busy and tired to write. We have been firing our rifles so far this week. This will let you know I am still here. I am including a letter I wrote Sun. but didn’t even have time to mail. I am in better spirits now.

Love,
Donald

Thanksgiving
Dear Folks,

Well I guess this is the first Thanksgiving that I ever really had to work. At home it might not have been unusual to work but it was either for pleasure or of your own free will. Today we spent all morning dry firing with our rifles and this afternoon we spent 3 hours learning the mechanical functions of the carbine (pronounced car-bIne) and one hour listening to a lecture on military sanitation and first aid. Our afternoon was easy enough that maybe that was our Thanksgiving vacation.

Tomorrow we go out to the range not far from here to fire the carbine. Of course I won’t be firing near all the time and I will be doing one one of the many jobs connected with the range. This will be my first taste of real firing and I will have to tell you more about it after it is over.

I suppose you want to know what kind of Thanksgiving meal we had tonight. We had a very nice meal. Some of the officers and non-coms had their wives here and the fellows acted decent for once. We ate at 8:00 and dressed in our best clothes. The mess hall was decorated a little and there were tablecloths on the tables. We had turkey and dressing, buns, peas, corn, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, salad, oranges, cookies, pumpkin pie, lemonade and ice cream. We were all very full when we got through but as usual it was all cleaned up. There are very few times when there is anything left after a meal.

We are busy getting all of our clothing equipment etc ready to go out on the range. We leave Saturday noon for two weeks of real experience.

I got your air mail letter today. I won’t be able to see Glen for a while but I will write to him. Maybe after I get back from the range I can see him if I get a chance and can find him.

About my sweater: it is something that (I) can use but there is no real hurry for it. You can knit it yourself and it will be quite alright with me.

I haven’t got your Thanksgiving package yet but we can expect poorer service as the Christmas season nears. The match pocket you sent me in the letter was quite alright except that I put a button on it. It was my first experience working a button hole so you can imagine how fancy it is.

It would be alright if you want to send me Christmas cards if you can get them here in a week or so. But I had figured on only writing letters so if you don’t send the cards it will be alright.

Well that is about all for now. I am so full of turkey that I am going to bed before long.

Love,
Donald
What have you done about the Readers’ Digest?

Tuesday Night
Dear Folks,

After wallowing in Georgia sand all afternoon trying to learn to shoot the rifle, I had to take a shower tonight. I also had to shave, etc. and then had to tear my rifle all apart to get Georgia out of it. Therefore this will be a short letter so that I may get some sleep before morning. This may seem like the same thing I always say and that is just what it is. Your rifle has to be cleaned every night and also you don’t dare miss shaving for one day. I skip it on Saturday night though because we don’t have any formations on Sunday.

So far this week and we will continue to do for the rest of the week except for one or two hours, we have been dry firing on the rifle, mortar and machine gun. I will certainly be glad when the next 3 weeks are over.

We are also supposed to learn the mechanisms of and fire the carbine before this week is over.
Richard asked me (I was looking over last weeks letters last night) how I broke my glasses. Well I broke one of the lenses. It was cracked in a thousand pieces but it stayed in the frame.

I hope you are all OK and everything is coming alright. You will have to imagine that this has been a letter. Its main purpose was to let you know that I am OK.
Love,
Donald

Thursday Nite

Dear Folks,

Have I been working tonight! We ate supper about 7:00 and since then I have taken a shower, washed my hair, shaved, polished shoes, cleaned my rifle and a few other things. I still have a few minutes before lights out and since we will have to scrub up the hut tomorrow evening I will write a short letter now.

Since I last wrote we have spent about all of our time working with machine guns and dry firing our rifles. That dry firing is really something too. You get into a strained(?) position and hold it in an attempt to get used to it. I am getting sore muscles from it and especially sore back muscles.

We will continue on our dry firing for the rest of this week and next and then we will spend the next two on the range.

This Georgia weather certainly is funny. There is about a 30* to 40* change in the temperature every day. Indiana weather with snow would be very interesting to me.

Richard’s description of hunting a rabbit gave me a thrill even though I wasn’t there. I was also happy to hear that Alexandria won her first basketball game. That is about as good as she did all last year.

Oh yes, we spent about a half day yesterday learning how to put up barbed wire entanglements and barriers. There is a certain way to do everything in the army even down to stringing wire entanglements. They are put up in definite patterns. My eye is still kind of blood shot in the corner but outside of that you can hardly tell there was anything wrong with it. I’ll bet you will never notice it unless you look for it.

I am still coming along alright. Good night.
Love,
Donald

Letter to Samuel Tappan

Sunday
Dear Grandpa and all the rest,

I never have written Grandpa a letter and I realize that he gets benefit from all my letters but this will be his letter. I must begin as  usual by making apologies for not writing but I was so busy the last part of last week that a letter to Grandpa Carver which  I started on Wednesday didn’t get finished until this morning. We got off early yesterday afternoon and I might have written then but I went to the barber shop and had to wait 2 hours to get my hair cut so my afternoon was shot. I don’t know whether we have to get haircuts like the navy boys do. Well a lot of fellows do get them because they are a lot less trouble but they aren’t required and I haven’t got one. My hair is cut about as usual except the hair in front has been shortened so that it won’t fall into my eyes. We have to pay for our own haircuts but they only cost us 40cents, the same as Dicks.

Here is how I have spent my evenings instead of writing for the past few days. On Wednesday we were out until 11:00 on a night problem on the use of the compass. Thursday night we had to scrub out the barracks for inspection and on Friday night we went to a lecture. At this program a Catholic priest, a Jewish Rabbi and a Protestant minister spoke to us. The purpose was, of course, to encourage religion and a cooperation between those of different religions. A lot of fellows didn’t want to go but I heard several of them actually bragging on it after it was over.

I went to chapel again this morning then came back and got your package at mail call. I might have got it last night if I had been here instead of the barber shop. You sent the exact kind of towel that I wanted but was afraid I hadn’t explained well enough.

This week we have been taking a good bit of mechanical training on the trench mortar and the light machine gun. We will fire these on the range sometime before our basic is over. The mortar is interesting  to me to work with but I may not be very good at it. You have to be pretty good at judging distances to be accurate.

We were also issued the rifle that we will shoot. We have been carrying World War I rifles up till now to learn how to drill with rifles. The rifles we have now are like the ones used in combat but of course the aren’t new ones. They are known as the 30 caliber M.I. I don’t know whether you have heard of them or not.

Well yesterday made 2 months for me in this army. In 2 more months (8 weeks) I should be through my basic training. There has already begun to be a lot of speculation and anticipation about where we will go to school. That is a good ways off and I have got a lot of things to do before then. I just hope I can get through this basic alright. I haven’t done anything outstanding yet but as far as I know I am doing satisfactory.

You asked if our barracks are heated. Well there are stoves in them and heat doesn’t feel so bad when the temperature gets down about freezing in the mornings, but we have to keep them so clean that we more often go without a fire. Anyway we want to get used to the cold to prepare us for the time when we will be out sleeping in our pup tents. We are supposed to spend 2 weeks out on the range living in 6 or 7 men tents and 2 weeks on bivouac ( or practice maneuvers) living in our pup tents.

I believe I told you about wanting you to put my plastic chain(?) up and I can find it sometime. Well I am sending it now.

I want to read my Sunday School paper and Readers’ Digest and am running low on news anyway.

Love,
Donald

Those Rice Krispie things are really good. My appetite about runs away with me. I am spending too much on candy and am going to have to slow up considerably. I would like for Richard to give Mr. Rayment my correct address. They are getting it all wrong.

Note: Started Wednesday, the 10th, continued, Friday and finished Sunday the 14th

Wednesday
Dear Folks,

I will start a letter today but I am not making any promises as to when I will finish it. We are going to go out on a night problem for about 4 hours tonight so we have 2 hours free time this morning.

It rained all day Sunday and Monday and it was so muddy that you would sink in an inch or so with each step and cars got stuck on these sand roads. But the water soon runs off these sandy hills and this morning you can barely tell there was any rain. Since the rain it has turned cold and we had to wear our overcoats this morning. The temperature now seems to me to be about the same as Indiana temperature for about this time of year except in the afternoon. It generally warms up in the afternoon to a temperature where a light jacket makes you comfortable. I was out the other evening and the temperature was so much like an Indiana night in late October or early November that it made me almost homesick.

We spent yesterday afternoon digging again. This time I helped dig a hole 5’ x 5’ x 5’ for a mortar emplacement.  The ground was like hard clay and it took 5 of us about 2 hours to dig it.

___________

Well I will start again on my long delayed letter. It is now Friday noon and maybe during my noon hour and tonight I can finish it. I want to tell you about the dinner we had on Wednesday. We had pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy and spinach. The beauty of it was that we had all we could hold. Usually when we have something especially good there is just enough to go around. But this time there was even extra meat. I had 2 big pork chops and some of the fellows with big appetites had 4 or 5. Then to top it all off we had ice cream for dessert. Boy what a meal.

On Wednesday night we practiced what we had been learning about walking quietly at night, use of the compass and how to get along at night without lights.

Sunday Morning
It has taken me half a week to write this letter but surely I can finish it today. We have been so busy during the last part of the week that I haven’t even had time to write to the folks. Church isn’t till 11:00 this morning and I am already except for putting on my tie and coat so now I will start writing again.

I told you about Wednesday’s dinner so now I will tell you about today’s breakfast. We always eat well on Sunday mornings because since we don’t have to get up only about half of the fellows don’t go to breakfast. We always have pancakes on Sunday morning and since they make enough for the whole company we that do eat always have a feast. But this morning besides all of the pancakes we could hold they also gave us each a grapefruit and bowl of cornflakes. It sure pays to eat breakfast on Sundays! You can tell by my descriptions of meals that eating is one of the greatest pleasures of my army life.

Besides our regular work this week we have also begun learning to parts and mechanics of the trench mortar and the light machine gun. We will learn to shoot these guns before our basic training is over. We were also issued the rifles that we will shoot on the range. Next week we will begin learning the principles of firing our rifles but it will be another week or so before we actually shoot live ammunition.

We have been having fairly nice weather down here for the past few days. The temperature at night gets almost down to freezing but it warms up some during the day. Of course a freezing temp. Seems kind of chilly but it is a lot better than zero and you can keep warm in it if you work hard enough.

Is everything alright in Orestes

Love and keep writing,
Donald

Wednesday Morning

Dear Folks,

We had a hard day yesterday and I knew that it would be 12PM or after before I could get to bed tonight so I went to bed at 9:00 last night. We have 2 hours free time this morning to make up for the time we will spend on a night problem tonight.

Yesterday we started learning about the 60 millimeter mortar and we also had 2 hours of it this morning. Yesterday we also did some more digging. Some of the fellows dug fox holes but I helped dig a mortar emplacement. These holes were 5 ft square by 5 ft deep and the ground was so hard that it took 5 of us about 2 hours to dig it. You would think that sand would be easy to dig in but after you get down an inch or so you have to use a pick and it is like cutting through dry clay.

Yesterday we learned to set up the mortar and the names of its parts and this morning we started to learn the use of the sights. The mortar is like a real small cannon that sets right on the ground. The sights on the thing remind you of a small camera and are supposed to cost about $400.

On our 2 hours free time this morning we all took a smallpox vaccination. Three doctors vaccinated 200 men in about an hour.

It rained all day Sunday and Monday  and it was as muddy as everything when marching on Monday and Tuesday but the water soon runs off these sandy hills and it is hardly muddy at all today. It has turned cold after the rains and we had to wear our overcoats for our 2 hour period of work this morning.

THe officers have been tightening down on the inspections of the barracks and it seems that you have to spend about all your spare time cleaning up. Every morning the hutment must be perfectly clean, the beds must be made perfectly and the equipment must be clean and be arranged in perfect order. Ben talked about the navy being so clean but I don’t suppose it is much cleaner that the army when it really tightens down. We have had inspections ever since we have been in the army but they haven’t been as tough as they are now. Besides the regular inspections we have to display full field equipment (toilet articles, underclothes, packs and all field equipment) on our beds once a week usually on Saturdays. The worst part of this is everything must be in one exact spot and only there. There is even a special place for each separate toilet article.

I wish I could have been there to see Ben while he was home but of course I wasn’t. I suppose I will just have to think about and write to him after the duration.

The inevitable happened Monday, someone ran into me and broke my glasses. It was my shell rimmed pair so now I am wearing my others. I don’t know what I will do yet but after my head gets well I may try to get G.I. glasses. My “wound” hasn’t bothered me except that my eye turned out to be a real black eye and the eyeball is kind of red in one corner. The stitches are to be taken out tomorrow.

I am still coming along alright.

Love,
Donald

Not in an envelope, so possibly wrong date , but not too long after being assigned to 16th Company, and mentions his black eye so probably either the Sunday after his fall, or the following Sunday

November 7, 1943
Fort Benning, Georgia
Sunday Evening
Dear Folks,

I am getting low on paper but have several envelopes left so I will use a mixture. It has been a rainy day and I have been lucky enough not to have any extra duty so you can guess how I have been spending the day. I went to church this morning and have spent the day sleeping, reading and eating popcorn. I got your package yesterday evening, I believe. The popcorn tastes like a Sunday afternoon at home but of course it is not quite as crisp and tasty as it is when fresh.  In the future when you send packages could you wrap them a little more securely. One corner of each of the last two boxes have been bursted and leaking. They take an awful beating so the paste-board boxes are mashed and  the paper bursts. Either put them in more secure boxes, or what would be easier and maybe better, wrap them in good tough paper.

It has been raining all day down here. This is the second time it has rained since we have been here and we certainly needed one. You can imagine how dry and dusty roads and fields of plain sand can be. They say it rains almost continually down here in the winter and scarcely ever snows, so by the way it looks today winter may be starting.

Daddy asked several questions, which I am very glad for you to do, so I will try to answer them. (1) I will be very glad for you to subscribe for the Reader’s Digest for me. (2) As for my hut mates: Some of them are nice and some not so nice. There is a lot of rough language thrown around and a few of them like to drink, but these kinds of things do not appeal to me and I hate them more than ever. Several of them come from different parts of New York, two from Kansas, one from Chicago, and where all else I don’t know. There are fellows from all corners of the country in our company. Since our company is made mostly of the last of the alphabet of the other 3 companies it seems that half of the fellows have those long foreign names, many of them ending in “i”. All in all I think they are pretty normal fellows except one which is 6’5” tall.

As to how I like the 16th Co., I have got used to it and I imagine that after all I like it as well as I would have liked the 13th. It is impossible to have any real close buddies but I have found a couple I like and can trust. In the 13th Co. there was one that went to church with me and I liked and really hated to leave him. But since I have been in the 16th I have got acquainted with a boy from Kansa that has come to be my chum. He goes to church with me (he is a Methodist himself), does not have any real bad habits, is a good worker and works with me whenever possible. However I more often have to work with another fellow who is next to me in the squad. I like him well enough and can get along with him alright. My best pal’s name is Taylor.

You wanted a list of things I need and I will start on this tonight but may not finish it in time to enclose it in this letter.

Jim asked me how we eat in the field and this brings me very nicely to my next point. Usually when we eat out a truck brings a meal that was cooked in the kitchen and we have as good or better meals than when we eat in the mess hall. But yesterday we ate Type C combat rations. Of course the object of this was to give us experience. Here is what these meals consisted of. They were put up in 2 little tin cans a little bigger around than the no. 2 cans but not quite so tall. They must hold about the same space as a no. 2 can. One can was clear full of either vegetable stew, beans and meat or some similar kind of main dish.  You know that a no. 2 can of eats is almost a meal in itself. The other can contained 5 biscuits to use for bread. They were as big around as the can and about ⅜ of an inch thick. They were about like thick graham crackers in looks and taste. Besides this the can held 3 pisces of hard candy, three lumps of sugar and powder that dissolve in water that makes either coffee, cocoa or lemon aid. Mine was for coffee so I only made a small amount. You have to furnish the water from your canteen so you might as well drink water anyway except that it is flavored. You are satisfied after eating one of these meals and our whole platoon of almost 50 men fed from 2 little boxes about the size of no. 2 cartons.

Yesterday we spent about 3 hours marching and the rest of the time we spent practicing map reading in the field that we have been learning.

They gave us week-end passes to go to Columbus. Columbus has a poor reputation and is always filled with thousands of soldiers so I stayed here.

I don’t know what all we will do next week but I do know that we start working on machine guns and mortars.

I wrote Mrs. Morris about 2 weeks ago and this week I got a package from her. She sent me cupcakes and popcorn balls. In my letter to her I didn’t know for sure whether Duane was in this camp or not so I imagine it sounded crazy when I mentioned him. By the way I lost his address and would like for you to send it to me again.

I suppose you saw the write up in the paper about me. Several of the other boys got similar clippings so I suppose they must have sent the information from here. One of the forms that we filled out asked for our hometown newspapers. It said that a lot of instructors have had actual battle experience but I  only know of one corporal and one sergeant that have. The truth of the matter is that we have good non-commissioned officers but not for this reason. All but very few of them attended officers candidate school but failed to get their commissions.

My eye is a little blue today but I am not having any trouble with it.

It seems that I am not going to get to do much Christmas shopping so I wish Richard would start thinking about this. I am going to send home some money before long.

Instead of getting used to being away from home it seems that I am getting more home-sick as time goes along.

Love,
Donald
I keep my eyes open for stamps on letters and packages that the other fellows and I get  and I think that I am making more progress on my collection than I did at home.