Category: Grandparents

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

                                               Christmas Afternoon 
Dear Folks,
   This is Christmas but it is sure different from my other Christmases. I wonder how you folks back home are spending your Christmas. I hope it is possible for you to enjoy it.
   This morning I went to a Christmas church service and I came away feeling a lot more like Christmas. At noon we had a very good meal and of course we all enjoyed ourselves. I have spent the afternoon just being lazy, reading and otherwise enjoying myself.
   I suppose the folks told you that I spent a few days off duty trying to get rid of a cold. Since you must get all of the training in order to complete basic, I was supposed to be put into another battalion that was just at the same place in their training where I lost out. But instead of doing this they put me into a battalion that is just in their second week of training. This army sure does funny things sometimes. Since I am about 6 weeks ahead of this battalion in my training, I am just doing extra duty around the company area here until they catch up to the place where I left off. This will mean that it will take me an extra 6 or 7 weeks to finish my basic. I hate this and don’t understand the necessity of it but if the army wants me here, I guess that it is the best place for me.
   Right now I am spending my time doing all kinds of jobs. I spent one half day helping haul coal, another part of an afternoon cleaning up the area, part of a morning working in the kitchen and a couple of days working in the supply room. In the supply room I helped with the equipment and also did some paperwork. It takes a good bit of bookwork to keep track of all the equipment of a company of soldiers (250 men).
   This is a pretty uncertain life not knowing from one minute to the next what job I am going to be put on, but I am not going to let it worry me. Of course, the worst part of it is that I am spending time that if I had been put into the right outfit could have been used to finish my training.
   It is a cold, nasty, rainy day outside. I suppose that if I were up north this cold rain would be snow and then I would have a white Christmas. Anyway I am glad that I can be inside today instead of being out in this slop.
   I hope things are coming along at least as good as usual back there. I would surely have liked to come home for Grandpa Tappan’s funeral but the army thought otherwise about it. I tried to get off but it couldn’t be done. They said that the death had to be your immediate family before an emergency furlough could be given.
    It takes a good bit of time for mail to start coming to a new location so I haven’t got any mail for over a week. Therefore I don’t know how things are coming back there. I hope OK.
           Love and keep writing,
             Donald

My new address:
Pvt. Donald Tappan 35893186
12th Co. 5th Trng Regt. ASTP
Ft Benning, GA

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

From Ward C-13 Station Hospital

                                                       Dec. 15, 1943
Dear Grandparents
   I am not intending this to necessarily be a newsletter. The reason I am writing it is to wish you a very “Merry Christmas.” Of course I won’t get to be there for Christmas but you know where my heart and thoughts will be.
   I don’t know how I will spend Christmas day but I have no doubts but what I will have something special to eat. There is also a chance that I might get the day off from our usual work.
   I would sure hate for those at home to spoil their Christmas just because some of us like Ben and I can’t be there so be sure and have Christmas.
   I hope everything is coming along alright back there.

              Merry Christmas and 
              Happy New Year,
                Donald

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

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

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

                                                       Thursday Nite
Dear Grandparents,
   I will start a letter tonight but I am pretty tired and I don’t suppose I will get a half dozen lines written. I wrote a letter to the folks tonight so I am getting tired.
   Well we have been working hard and learning much during the last week. You would be surprised how many different phases of fighting are taken up in army training. We are learning to
Friday
fight with all kinds of weapons and even without weapons. We also spend a lot of time drilling, taking exercises, learning camouflage, etc, etc, etc
   Yesterday I had a little accident on the obstacle course. I slipped on one of the hurdles and hit my head. It raised a nice little bump and burst open a place a little over half an inch long by my right eye. The doctor put two stitches in my head but the whole thing couldn’t stop me. I only lost a little over an hour's work altogether. It didn’t hurt much and I can hardly tell it today so I don’t want you to worry a bit about it.
   Tomorrow we are supposed to go on a ten mile march and spend the whole day in the field. While we are out like this we spend our time learning tactics, camouflage, scouting, etc. For our dinner on days like this a truck comes out from the kitchen here and brings it to us. Sometimes we even have better meals when we eat in the field than we do in the mess hall.
   The folks tell me that you have been having old Topsy as a regular visitor lately. I guess the first time she did this was when Richard and I stayed there just before I left. I was glad to hear in your last letter that you are getting some of the things accomplished at the school that you wanted to get done, such as waxing the hall floor and getting the flag pole up.  I would like to see how the floor of the hall looks with seal-o-san on it. I suppose that it is cold enough that Grandpa must be getting acquainted with the furnaces by now.
   I wonder if you had any trouble in Orestes with the Halloween boys this year. Halloween was like any other and you hardly realized what day it was. In civilian life, even if you don’t have a celebration, you at least talk about what day it was and the little things like this are what make military life a little hard to endure.
Friday night
   Well I will try to finish this letter tonight. This is the third hitch at it but surely I can finish it as I have about an hour before “lights-out”. I will tell you what we did today since I can hardly remember what we do from one day to the next. This morning we practiced with bayonets and dummy hand grenades and this PM we had a lecture on field fortifications and dug one man trenches. The trenches we dug today were 2 ft. wide by 2 ft. deep by long enough to lay down in.
   I got your letter today at noon. It sounds like you are getting some things done at the school house. I know just about how big a job it is to clean those down-stairs rooms and to wash the windows. 
   Well I want to get a good-night’s sleep for the march tomorrow. So, 
            Love
             Donald

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

                                                October 28, 1943
Dear Folks,
   I have a very few minutes this morning so I will start a letter now as I won’t have so much time to write tonight. Well almost 3 weeks of my basic training are over. They are going faster than I expected they would but 10 more weeks seems like a long time.
   We have been working pretty hard this week. We are taking a good bit of physical hardening exercises and we are starting to study military tactics. We took a three hour march some time at the first of the week and we were out about 3 hours after dark last night. We spent about an hour and a half of that time marching and the rest of the time studying night tactics. We are also supposed to have a night class tomorrow (Friday night). I guess in real combat a lot of work would have to be done at night so they want to prepare us for it.
   We are preparing to move again. This time we are going to a place in this camp about 8 miles from here. Our new place is known as “Harmony Church Area” and we are leaving Saturday. We are spending all of our spare time getting out things packed for the move.
   We had a little extra excitement in our company tonight. Our company commander was raised from the rank of first lieutenant to a captain. You should have heard the undertone when he came out for formations tonight wearing his captain’s bars.
   Well I hope everything is coming along alright in Orestes. I have about run out of news. So.
            Love
              Donald
  As you might have guessed at the place in the letter where I sharpened my pencil I started writing tonight.
   Oh yes. You wondered if I could turn over in bed without falling out. I don’t have to worry about this because I sleep in a regular bed not a hammock. And about my laundry. I don’t have to do all of it by myself. What I can do without for a week while it is being cleaned I can send to a laundry here on the post. I can send all I need for only $1.30 a month. Of course what I can’t do without I have to wash myself.
                             Write when you can,
                                Donald

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

                                                    October 19, 1943

Dear Grandparents,
   Well my basic training now has a good start. So far I have been busy all of the time but I haven’t had to work too hard.
   We haven’t spent all of the time drilling as you might expect. A good bit of time we have spent in learning by the classroom method, only out of doors. For instance we spent all but an hour this afternoon listening to lectures and watching demonstrations on battle tactics.
   We have been learning to handle our rifles but haven’t shot them yet. We have also learned to use our other equipment such as to pitch our tents, use our gas masks, etc. Tomorrow we are going to practice using our gas masks in a gas chamber. This chamber will contain real gas but it is the kind that won’t hurt us. By wearing them in harmless gas we will be used to them if we ever have to use them in poisonous gas.
   We have taken two or three short marches but they have hardly been long enough to call marches. They are just building us up gradually to the time when we will march for long distances.
   The army does one thing that I like very much. Of course it wouldn’t be practical in battle but it helps us out in our training. This is that we work 50 minutes and rest 10 minutes of every hour. This makes it possible for us to accomplish as much in 50 minutes as we would otherwise in 60 and still not be so tired when the day is over.
   Do you remember when Ned Trice first entered the army and was complaining about not getting paid for the time he spent at Fort Harrison. Well I want to clear up that question. You don’t get paid while you are there but you get paid for the time you spent there when you get to your next camp.
   I hope that everything is coming along alright in Orestes. I suppose that you will take advantage of the vacation at the end of this week to catch up on the school house work. 
   Well it is almost bedtime.
                 Your grandson
                    Donald

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

                                                   Oct. 11, 1943
Dear Grandparents,
   Well my first day of basic training is over. We had to wait till enough men came to form the whole battalion before the training could officially start. I couldn’t see any difference in basic training and what we had been doing so I don’t see why I can’t come out on top of it. It will get harder as time goes on but I will be more used to it then and able to take it.
   Last week I did both K.P. and guard duty so I won’t have to worry about these for a while now. My turn won’t come up again for two or three weeks, I hope.
   We are sure going to be real soldiers when we get through with this. Today we started learning to tear apart and reassemble our rifles. Tomorrow we are to start learning the use of our gas masks. The way we are going you can see what kind of training we are going to get.
   Mother reminded me in a letter that I got today that Wednesday is your wedding anniversary. Of course, I wasn’t thinking about it and even if I had tried to remember when it was I probably couldn’t. Since it takes so long for letters to get there, this one will probably be a little late for your anniversary. Anyway it will have to stand for me visiting you for a time anyway.
   I hope your work is coming along alright and that maybe it has slowed down a little by now.
   Since I last wrote to you my address has changed a little. Maybe mother has told you about this but anyway my correct address is:

Pvt Donald Tappan 35893186
16th Co. 6th Tng Regt. ASTP
Ft Benning, Georgia

Write me whenever you can and I will try to stay in touch with you.
          Love
           Donald

Letter to his Grandparents, Alfred and Grace Carver

                                                 October 3, 1943
Dear Grandparents:
   I suppose you know by this time that I am at Ft. Benning, Georgia. This is a good way from home since it took us 27 hours to come from Ft. Harrison. I suppose with good connections I could make it home in 30 hours. I was surprised when I looked on the map to see where Ft. Benning is. It is almost on the Alabama line. If you want to see where it is, it is close to Columbus Georgia.
   This will be my home for 14 weeks. After that if everything goes alright I may be sent to school somewhere.
   We started at noon on Thursday from Ft. Harrison and got here at about 3 PM on Friday. We came through the states of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. It was dark when we came through Kentucky and Tennessee but when I looked out of the windows I could see high hills against the skyline. I don’t know what cities in Ky. and Tenn. we came through but we came through Indianapolis, Franklin, and Batesville in Indiana, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Athen and Columbus, Georgia. We ate supper in Cincinnati and the rest of the time we ate on the train. 
   The part of Georgia that I saw is very hilly. Most of the homes are only shacks and a great many people are negroes. The land here is all red clay or sand. The land around Ft. Benning is all sand. When you look at the bare ground you think that sand has just been hauled there but even the ground that is covered with grass is only sand.
   You don’t have to walk around but about ten minutes and your shoes are so dusty that they look as if they never had been polished. There is a little corn grown here but the main crop is cotton. I only saw one field of tobacco and then I am not real sure that that is really what it was. The cotton is now ready to pick. You could see the white bolls all over the field. In many places you would see negroes and sometimes whole negro families out in the fields picking cotton. Your cotton plants seemed to be a good sample of the size of the cotton plants. 
   I have not been here long enough to be real sure about the schedule but we don’t have to get up as early as we did at Ft. Harrison. Here we have a mess hall for each company. Since we can all sit down at once we don’t have to wait in line for hours to eat as we did at Ft. Ben.
   We started in yesterday to learn principles of marching and by this time next week I expect to know a great deal about it. 
   I got to go to church again this morning. I have not missed a Sunday yet since I have been in the Army. We have very nice church services even though they only last an hour. They are short so that one chaplain can conduct more than one service during the morning. I am sending you the program of our service this morning but of course the best part of it, the sermon, is not given.
   In Indiana we were wearing our winter uniforms but here we are wearing our summer uniforms again. It gets cool at night but is warm during the day. I could notice on the way down that the leaves of the trees changed from their bright fall colors to green. Here you can hardly tell it is fall except for the fact that the crops are getting ripe.
   In Fort Harrison we had about 75 men in each barracks, but here the barracks are much smaller and we only have 6 men to each one. I like it better since things are much quieter and you can do more as you like. In each barracks (they call them hutments) there are 2 single beds and 2 double decker beds. I sleep on the top bed of one of the double deckers. 
   I suppose the carpenter work at school house is about finished now and things look pretty nice. I hope that things are coming along OK. I am always glad to hear from you so write whenever you can.
                 Love 
                  Donald
My address:
Pvt Donald Tappan 35893186
16th Co. 6th Tng Regt. ASTP
Ft. Benning, Georgia