Donald V. Tappan

With several other letters from Feb/Mar in an envelope postmarked March 6

Tuesday Evening (probably February 29, 1944)
Dear Folks,

I have about 15 minutes before supper so I’ll start my letter now and have part of it finished before I have to quit. The main thing on my mind right now is that I am so tired it isn’t funny. We took a 22 mile march today and just barely got back. This is one of the feats that must be accomplished in the 13th week. On Thursday we are supposed to make a forced march of 4 miles in about 40 minutes. On a forced march you run and then walk to rest yourself.

We started on our march early this morning and even though 22 miles doesn’t sound like much it sure is. Besides just covering the ground, of course, we must carry about 40 lbs of pack and 9 pounds of rifle. Even the steel helmets which we wear weigh 4 or 5 pounds. The worst part of the march is climbing the hills. There are hills around here that compare to those of Brown County and we sure spend a lot of time going up.

My feet have taken a lot of babying the last couple of weeks but so far they have been ready to go when the time arrives. I soaked them last night and put on clean sox and powdered them good this morning. They sure feel like a soaking again tonight, too. We can’t send laundry any more so I think they will get plenty of water on them while I am washing clothes under the shower.

Yesterday we had 6 hours of tests on things we have learned during basic. Three of the hours were spent in practical tests such as operation of different weapons and the other three hours were written tests.

(After chow) I am afraid this is going to be a pretty hard week so I’ll be glad when it is over. But I sure wish I knew what is next. There are some pretty strong rumors that we will be leaving out of here next week and that we will likely be sent to Louisiana to an infantry outfit. This sounds anything but interesting to me.

I wonder if you got moved Saturday. I don’t quite understand how you are going to get along. Are you staying with Grandma Carver’s?

I got Dady’s letter yesterday. I was sure glad to get it. I won’t make any promises but I’ll try to get a letter written that can be read to the class. I would sort of like to know what I should write about. I don’t want to paint too dark a story but I don’t feel like bragging on the army. Maybe if you give me some ideas, I won’t have to paint either kind.

I would like to get home as well as you would like for me to but I don’t think there is any chance. Keep your chin and hopes up.

Love, Donald

With several other letters from Feb/Mar in an envelope postmarked March 6

This mentions the Magnolia leaves from the envelope postmarked March 1, so possibly it belongs with them

Sat. Eve
Dear Folks,

Well I hope that today you are getting your moving done. Maybe by this time the worst of it is over with. At least I hope so.

We finished up our bivouac at about 7:00 this morning. We finished up a week of night problems with an all night march coming home. We left the bivouac area at 10:30 last night and then instead of marching straight home, we marched all over the country (a good bit of the time not on roads) for approximately 8 hours. We had had 8 hour night problems last week but never before had they been devoted entirely to covering territory. We were so tired when we got here that it was sure not funny. We ate breakfast and most of us went to bed before we had even had a bath. You can’t imagine how good it felt to sleep on a bed after two weeks of lying on the ground.

Since I wrote you last we had a couple 4 hour night problems and a couple that lasted 8 hours. For two nights the 11th and 12th companies attacked the  9th and 10th companies and then for the next 2 nights the 11th and 12th were enemies while the 9th and 10th attacked.

I got your box this morning that contained the stationary, handkerchiefs, Reader’s Digest, etc. That sure is a nice box of stationary and I am thankful for everything in the box. I guess you must have sensed my wishes for a Reader’s Digest even before you got my letter asking for one. It has already helped me a lot in catching up on my relaxation today. Of course I slept most of the morning and then this afternoon I made a break for the barbershop (which we all must have done by Monday). Afterwards I gathered up my Reader’s Digest and paper and came off into the woods behind our company area. Some of the fellows went to into town to get away from it all but I can think of better ways to relax than getting drunk.

I have spent most of the afternoon sleeping but I got in an article or two before I dozed off.

Richard asked if I found the woods down here about like those at home. The woods all winter down here have reminded me of fall. Everything is brown except the pine trees which make up a good percent of the trees. Of course then because of this instead of the ground being entirely covered by leaves, part of it is spread with pine needles.

In our bivouac area there was one green tree besides the pines. It is the magnolia. I would like for you to look in a tree book and find out what time of year it leaves out and if the leaves stay on all winter. I brought back a sample of their leaves which I’ll send you one of these times.

You can begin to see signs of spring already. Some of the underbrush is beginning to leave out and there are a few spring flowers. I have seen a few violets and something that reminds me of bloodroot. We have also run into a patch or two of wild plums in bloom.

Well I have a lot of clothes I want to get washed tonight so I’ll stop and get busy at that.

Love,

Donald

I am including the magnolia leaves. They are so different from anything at home that maybe they will interest you.

With several other letters from Feb/Mar in an envelope postmarked March 6

Friday AM (probably February 25, 1944)
Dear Folks,

Again even with the morning off from training there is so much to do that I must hurry. In fact if I wasn’t afraid that I may be too busy to write at all on Sunday I would not write today. We go back Sunday to wash u but with ourselves, our clothes and our equipment in such bad shape we likely won’t have much spare time.

As you probably guessed by my being off this morning, we had another night problem last night. We were given practice in walking silently at night through woods, through bushes, up hills, through swamps, through gullies and over any other imaginable obstacle.

All in all I really had a great day yesterday. To start with I got up at midnight and pulled guard (or as we call it out here “listening post”) from 12 till 3. Boy did it rain too. It rained for the entire 3 hours and was I wet. Then from 3 till 6 I slept. We got up at 6 and since we had a night problem till midnight, I got exactly 3 hours sleep in 24 hours.

So far it hasn’t been cold out here but it rains almost continually (off and on) so our biggest problem is keeping dry.

Well I’ve got some news to tell you that isn’t so pleasant. From what we are being told now, we have about one chance out of ten of going to school. ASTP is being almost completely eliminated. Most of us will be sent to combat outfits probably infantry with the rest going to wherever they are needed.

We will just have to hope and pray that I can get into something that I can do. If it is some outfit bound for overseas I just hope that I can take it and help get this job done.

I hope you get your moving done tomorrow and have decent weather for it.

I hope all is well back there.

Your son & brother, Donald

With several other letters from Feb/Mar in an envelope postmarked March 6

Wednesday (probably February 23, 1944)
Dear Folks,

Now I am living in the woods. You should see where we are bivouacked! It is really a jungle. It is pretty heavily wooded and just covered with bushes. And on top of this all of the area is full of holes and ditches of every imaginable kind. You can hardly get through in daylight and boy what a job of it at night!

We took all morning Monday to get out here then on Monday afternoon we each dug us a fox hole by our tent. Everyone must have a fox hole in order to protect himself from a tank attack (under combat conditions so we must do it).

Monday and yesterday we had the most beautiful weather you could want. But it rained some last night and it has been raining off and on today.

I had the honor(ha!) of being on K.P. yesterday so I wasn’t out with the company. But of course they let us off to go on the night problem last night. The night problem consisted mostly of a march.

We were supposed to get this morning off to rest up from last night but since this is the first time we have had daylight to even wash we aren’t resting much.

I have spent the morning mostly on details with just enough time off to wash, shave and clean my rifle. It is just noon now and I am expecting any time to have to stop writing.

I got 2 letters and a package from you on Monday night. We can’t have lights out here so the batteries won’t do me much good for the next two weeks but boy the candy bars sure will. I may not get much of the reading done but I am going to grab every second I can.

I am still well and coming along O.K. and I hope you are too.

Pardon my scribbling.

Love, Donald

I forgot to tell you that they cook the meals back at camp so we rode back there to do K.P.

Letterhead – 5th Training Regiment – Army Specialized Training Program – Fort Benning, Georgia
Feb. 20, 1944 – 5:00pm

Hello,
Once again I am about ready to set out for the woods. There is very little doubt in my mind but that we will have some cold, wet weather but for some reason I am not worrying about it. The main reason I guess is that it wouldn’t do any good. We leave at 8:00 tomorrow morning and we are supposed to come back in next Sunday to get washed up and then go back out again.

Because of our night problem Friday night and, of course, because of next week we were off both yesterday and today. Yesterday I spent getting straightened and cleaned up. Of course I also found time to do some reading and write a little.

Then last night I did something very unusual for me. I went to the movie. I did it just to be doing something to break up the monotony but I really enjoyed it. It was definitely one of the comic order. In the previews the story of “The Bridge of the San Lois Rey” by Thornton Wilder was scheduled to play today. I had studied about this in literature class and since it was such a good book I decided to see it this afternoon. It was a very good story but a trifle hard to follow.

This morning I  went to church. It was the first chance I had had to go in several weeks. I don’t know but I doubt if I’ll get to go next Sunday.

I answered Richard’s question about my arm patch but I forgot to answer those about qualifying as a sharpshooter. Here is how the points are counted. Five points are given for a hit in the bull’s eye, 4 in the next ring, 3 for the next, 2 for the next and 0 if you miss the target. If you hit all bull’s eyes you could get a score of 210. Well I can’t remember just how many of each one I hit but I hit enough 5’s out of the 42 shots to overbalance the 2’s and 3’s that I got to make the average considerably over 4 points for each shot.

There are medals that are sometimes issued for sharpshooters but I don’t know whether or not we will be issued them. In fact I sort of doubt it.

Well I want to finish packing and go to bed early so I’ll sign off. Don’t expect anything from me for a while but I’ll do my best.

Here is a lead penny I ran on to and have been carry(ing) for a good while. I don’t know how plentiful they are around there but if you don’t want it just drop it into my stamp collection or someplace where I can find it. 

I’ll be seeing you, Donald

Did you receive my letter with the (?) in it?

With several other letters from Feb/Mar in an envelope postmarked March 8

February 15, 1944 (probably)
Tuesday Eve.
Dear Folks,

Well so far so good. I just hope that I can continue feeling as well as I do now if I get through in good shape.

We haven’t been working to hard this week and I have been getting along fine. So far we have been firing the machine guns and mortar. I have about forgotten all I knew about them but I am picking it up as I go along well enough to keep up. We finished mortar today and tomorrow we finish with machine gun.

I am living in exactly the same area as I did before. This is because I have been in the fourth company of the battalion both times. There have been a few changes made out here but as a whole it seems very natural. Boy I hope this is the last time I have to be here.

I heard from my letter I wrote to the company in Marion about my medal. They said if it was a fault in the workmanship they would fix it for nothing, but otherwise they didn’t know how much it would cost. The only catch to it was that they couldn’t fix it before April. But, I am going to write  them sometime in March and jog their memory so they won’t book ahead of me. REmind me if I forget about it.

I am a supply room man again tonight. West (I don’t know whether I have mentioned him or not but he is the Pfc. assistant to the supply sgt.) is sick tonight and Sgt. Steele went home so they called on me to stay down here this evening and then sleep here with West.

I sure can’t promise you a letter like this very often so if you don’t hear from me you will know that I am alright but busy.

I got the cookies from the church the day before yesterday. They all tasted so good that I couldn’t even tell which ones were Mother’s. 

How are you getting along. It sounds to me like things are happening around there.

Your son and brother,

Donald

Letter to Grandparents Alfred and Grace Carver
February 15, 1944 (Tuesday)

Dear Folks,

I sure owe you a letter by this time but I have been so busy that you will have to excuse me. I lived out on the range in tents for the last two weeks and I could hardly even find time to write home. I am trying to get caught up on my writing this week because I will be living in the open for the next two weeks and I doubt very much if I will be able to get much writing done.

Boy you sure can’t imagine how good these old huts looked after we had been living out in the tents. The electric lights and the stove were a lot better than no heat and candles to read by.

We all slept well enough out there because we slept on cots with plenty of covers but the really hard part was getting up in the cold.

We have been having some rainy and cold weather down here but today is about as nice as you could ask for. The sun is shining brightly but the temperature is just cool enough to make you feel like working. I understand that you have been having some real winter weather in Indiana lately. I wouldn’t mind being back there getting in on some of it.

Today is Richard’s birthday and one week from today will be Jimmie’s. I guess this is one time I won’t get to be in on such fun as giving them birthday spankings, etc.

Well February is a little over half gone now so it sure won’t be long before the folks move again. I hope that they can get moved in time for Uncle Paul to get a good start on his work.

Saturday (February 19, 1944)
As you can see I got side-tracked again. I got busy and this is the first real chance I have had to get started again. I suppose that I will have news enough to make the letter a little longer at least. We had a night problem last night so we have a little time off this morning to catch up on our rest. Of course, we are all trying to get our clothes, etc. ready for next week and there are dozens of odd jobs to do so there is very little rest that we are getting.

We have been doing a lot of physical training this week and since it has been so long since I have done any of this kind of work, it has been pretty hard for me to keep up. We have also been getting considerable tactical training and also training in airplane recognition and recognition of tanks. We must be able to recognize whether the airplanes and tanks are those of our own country or an enemy country.

The last few days have been pretty rainy and wet. I sure hope that the weather clears up before next week when we get to sleeping out on the ground.

I was sure sorry to hear the news about Mr. Davis. It certainly was al lot of bad luck that they had at Rigdon.

Well this will possibly be the last letter I will get to write you till I get back from bivouac but I certainly will be thinking of you.

Love, Donald

[Date unclear – probably February 13, 1944]
Sunday Morning
Dear Folks,

I am now again at the middle of the range. But this time I am not feeling miserable like I did on Sunday before.

It is sort of a miserable day today but we have had a fairly nice week. The only day last week that it rained I was lucky enough to work in the pits of the rifle range where I didn’t get too wet.

I guess our important qualifying with weapons is over so now I won’t have to worry about that anymore. We worked in the pits while the 11th company fired on Thursday. Then we fired on Friday for practice and yesterday for record. Again I didn’t do anything extra but I did do a lot better than I did before. I fired 163 before which only lacked 2 points of being a sharpshooter but this time I fired 175. Of course, as you might know this lacks only five points of being an expert. But I have a feeling that being a sharpshooter is just as good or better for me than being an expert. I am not in the lowest bracket and if I ever see actual combat too much responsibility might be placed on my ability as an expert riflemen (that is if I had become one).

Maybe since I had shot before I should have shot expert but I did my best and I feel better than I would have had I cheated a little to pick up those extra five points that I lacked.

I suppose that next week will be spent doing combat firing etc.

I don’t know whether I told you about our record firing before or not. We fired 4 shots at 200 yds from the sitting position, 4 shots from the kneeling position and 4 from standing. Then from 300 yards we fired 4 rounds from the prone position and 4 from sitting and at 500 we shot 8 from the prone. We also shot rapid fire 9 rounds from both 200 and 300 yards. This is about right anyway whether it is perfect or not.

Incidentally our rifles shot shells or rounds as we (the army) call them the same size as those Richard and I picked up after the graveside services for John Flemming. Only our rifles are alot more modern than those they fired that day. The ones we shoot are semi-automatic which means that we insert a clip of 8 rounds and all we have to do is aim and pull the trigger 8 times. It loads each round and extracts the empty shell automatically.

Whether you have heard tales about the army rifles kicking or not, the kick isn’t anything to worry about. They kick a little worse than a 12 gauge shotgun but they teach you how to hold it so that the kick is absorbed by your shoulder and you don’t feel it at all.

My shoulder after firing about 150 rounds in the last two days feels no worse than it would if it had been a year since I had fired. Maybe Richard will be interested in this anyway.

I just got your package yesterday and have been getting your letters regularly. That little flashlight will do me more good out here than anywhere else and I am grateful to Richard or whoever is responsible for it. Those pictures you sent me were sure welcome. I don’t suppose I’ll get to send you a picture of me till after basic but I’ll send one as soon as I get a chance.

By the way did you ever get those shoes I sent home. I have never heard of them.

About the Spectrum, I would sure be glad to see one but I would want to send it home after I have thoroughly absorbed it. Do as you like about buying one for that purpose. I might get to come home about that time anyway.

So far I haven’t heard anything about church services today so I suppose I’ll have to miss another Sunday. I sure am glad though that I don’t have to be firing out in the rain.

Well I hope everything is OK back there. I hope Dady’s ear doesn’t give him too much trouble.

Love,

Donald
P.S. Thank you for the little extras in the package!

Sunday Night
I had this letter sealed but just for fear that it might be a good while before I get to write againI decided to write a little more.

The main thing I wanted to tell you was to be sure and have my Gruen taken care of. Thanks for reminding me of it. By the way, how has it been acting?

Well I have sure spent a lazy day today. I wrote your letter this morning then took a nap. I spent almost all afternoon catching up on my newspapers and reading the Sunday School papers. I maybe should have written a few more letters but I didn’t feel in the mood and the relaxation sure did me good. I am going to hit the hay

February 8, 1944 (Tuesday)

Dear Folks,

Well I finally have one more day of training to my credit. It took me exactly 9 weeks to go from the first day of the 9th to the second day. And as yet  I am still going strong.

So far this week we haven’t been working too hard and I think that maybe the rest of the week won’t be too bad. Most of this week has and will be spent in the range firing.

It has been on the rainy side today but the temperature has been fairly warm. I don’t think it will be too cold tonight either.

I got daddy’s letter today that he had written at school. Little newsy chats like that make me feel more like home anyway.

A week from today (if today is the 8th) will be Richard’s birthday. So if this is the last letter you receive from me before then I sure wish him a happy birthday.

Candle light is hard to write by and I am tired anyway so I’ll close. You can imagine this is a letter anyway.

I’m still coming alright and hope you are.

Donald

February 4, 1944
Friday Night
Dear Folks,

Well I’ve got to be on duty in the supply room this evening so I am going to use some of my spare time for a good purpose. We have a lot of ammunition in here and we are going to load machine gun belts tonight. The work isn’t going to be done in here (supply room) because of the limited space and my job is just to watch things as there will be people going in and out all evening.

I shouldn’t ell you the number but you would sure be surprised at how many rounds of machine gun ammunition this company will use on the range. And they all have to be loaded into belts tonight.

It sure won’t be long now before I’ll be out on the range again. It doesn’t seem long since I was out there before but I guess it has been around seven weeks. I’m not sure but I don’t think I’ll have to make the march out there this time. There are a lot of things that will have to be taken out in trucks and Sergeant Steele says that I will possibly help on that.

We had our little bivouac last night as planned. We ate C rations for supper and then came back to the company for breakfast. It was kind of damp but the weather wasn’t too cold. I wrapped up good and warm and spent a fairly restful night.

I am not exactly dreading the range but it has been so long since I had any dry firing with the rifle, machine gun or mortar that you can easily see why I’ll be glad when it is over.

In your letters you talk about moving and I sure would like to be in a position to help you out. Not that I especially am cut out for the work but it sure hurts to think of just not being able to lend a hand. It seems that for some reason or other I have been a lot more homesick than usual. I guess I am just dreading the range and need someone to tell my troubles to.

I suppose you are able to keep things going alright without my asking about them every time so I’ll not ask this time. 

Love and keep praying,

Donald

P.S. I wish you would tell me a little about my watch. Its recommendations, no. of jewels, where it came from, etc. I sure appreciate it and especially when I am out such as last night where I wake up several times during the night.