Donald V. Tappan

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.

(Ward C-13 Station Hospital)
December 12, 1943
Sunday
Dear Folks,

This is one letter I will write in which I have nothing to say. All I know is that I am still here. As far as I know all that “ails” me now is a chest full of cold and boy am I coughing up gallons from it. This by rights should mean that it is breaking. 

This has seemed to be a very long week to me. The longer I stay the harder the job of staying gets. The worst part of staying here is my appetite. They serve pretty good meals but I have lost all desire for eating. I think the greatest reason for this is the awful feeling the medicine leaves in your stomach.

I got your package the other day and read all it contained. I tasted the candy and it sure reminded me of home but I couldn’t relish eating much of it. I couldn’t even interest those around me with it. That doesn’t need to worry youthough. When I get back to the army again it will certainly be welcome.

They are doing one thing for me here that I am really happy about. You remember that I said that my bump on the head left a red place in my eye. Well shooting a rifle didn’t help it but caused it to spread till about ½ of the white part of my eye was covered. I asked the medical man (not a doctor but more of a first-aid man) back at the company a couple of times about it but every time he would say it would heal up in a few days. Of course it never did and the doctor here took an interest in it. He said it was a ruptured blood vessel and told the nurse to get a certain kind of medicine for it. They have only been putting the medicine in for 2 or 3 days and already it is helping. About half of the redness has cleared up. 

If it doesn’t clear up any more I will be satisfied but now I have hopes that maybe I won’t always have to wear around a bloodshot eye.

I have about decided why I should get sick just after they gave us those pills which were supposed to keep us well. They told us that they were supposed to kill disease germs by raising the “temperature of our body” slightly. I imagine that just that little bit of fever lessened my resistance enough to let “whatever I have” set in.

Well I wish I knew what to ask you about that is happening back there. About all I can think of is “How is Richard coming with his job?”

I guess I have gut a little letter written anyway. So –

Love
Donald

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.

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 dn’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

Thursday Nite
Dear Folks,

I want to get a long night’s sleep tomorrow night since we are going on a 10 mile march Saturday so I will write tonight. Last night’s guard duty convinced me that this idea of extra duty is a matter to be expected from now until my basic is over. I walked 3 to 5 this morning. They gave us flashlights to miss all the ditches and gullies around here and it reminded me of carrying morning papers. This is the hilliest region around this area that you ever saw and you should see all the gullies that you can run into at night.

I had my first real accident today. Don’t worry about this since it is all over but I will tell you about it. On the obstacle course I was jumping over a hurdle over which you are supposed to jump using one hand. Well, my hand slipped and I hit on the side of my face. I burst open a place by my right eye and raised a nice bump. The corporal took me to the dispensary and they took 2 stitches in my head to close up the burst. It didn’t hurt much and I don’t think it is going to give me much trouble so don’t worry.

There is a couple of things I want you to send me as soon as possible. They want us to have a set of new toilet articles to use for inspection only and save them so we will always pass inspection. I can round up everything except underwear, towel and shaving brush. You can send me my shaving brush that I asked for before. For underwear I need ordinary white summer underwear. The regular army shorts are like the muselin striped shorts that are common only they are white. Get the nearest thing to this you can but regular white shorts will do. The towel should be white and the size of a face towel. If you can find another kind it would be better if it wasn’t made of that tufted cannon material. They try to call every towel made up of this material bath towels.

I would like for you to send me these as soon as possible but I can get by without them for a week or more. A couple more pairs of any kind of white underwear would be appreciated but they don’t have to be sent now.

I hope everything is coming along alright back there. I will answer your questions later but will quit tonight so I can start a letter to Grandma Carver.

Love, 
Donald
I forgot to tell you that I didn’t break my glasses when I fell and that GI underwear shirts are like the ones we always wore.

Note: As far as I could tell, this envelope had never been opened

Wednesday
Dear Folks,

I wanted to write last night but couldn’t get time. I had to attend a night class to make up for K.P., clean my rifle and polish my mess kit so it was bed time before I could write. 

I brought this paper with me to the field this morning and am going to try to write in the rest period between periods. You will excuse the writing as I am working on my lap.

We worked hard yesterday and are starting off hard again today. Besides our usual work we are now specializing in hand grenades and bayonets. Yesterday we threw dummy grenades and today we are supposed to have 2  hours of practice with them.

Yesterday and today both we are having 2 hours of bayonet practice. Last week in bayonet practice we just learned the different strokes, thrusts, etc. by striking at the air. But today we worked on dummies to make it more realistic.

Well it is noon and I found out that I have guard duty tonight. I will have only 2 hours of it so maybe it won’t kill me. I want to mail this letter before I go back to work. So,

Love,
Donald

Oct. 31, 1942
Dear Folks,

Well tomorrow I  will have been at Fort Benning a month. During that month I have had to settle down three times. Yesterday afternoon we moved to the Harmony Church area. Since we were still straightening up this morning, we could not leave the company area and thus could not go to church. I might have known that I would have to miss sooner or later but I am still going to go as often as I can. 

We live in barracks that hold 15 men out here. We are set in a woods and are located with the rest of the ASTP units. Since our whole battalion moved together my address does not change a bit.

I got my package yesterday evening. It came just a day later than your letter. I liked the article in the Scholastic about the ASTP. In fact I read all the stories in the Scholastic and in the S.S.paper instead of writing letters as I should. Speaking of letters I hope you are still writing to Ben. Uncle Everett’s write to me about once a week and these letters certainly do help.

Just think if I had gone to the navy I would be getting a furlough already. I don’t know for sure when I will be getting one. I may get one when my basic training is over, but I may not come until I have had a term of college. This would make it about April before I see you.

You asked if I still get the tribunes. I get them regularly 2 or 3 days after they are published and read them all through. I kind of lost out on my Reader’s Digest for November. I thought I could get one at the PX when I got here. They are all gone now and if I am lucky I may be able to get one next month. I think that if it is still possible I would like for you to send these to me. At least you can send me the one for Nov. when you are through with it and can let me know about the future.

I am glad that you didn’t buy that $22.50 watch that you saw if there was a chance that it wasn’t any good. I want you to use your head when and if you buy one. At least I can use my Gruen while I am in school.

I had K.P. again yesterday morn; they seem to come about once a week. Since they were getting ready to move, I don’t think I missed much so maybe I won’t have to work very hard to make it up.

Well so long for now and keep writing.
Donald

Friday Morn
Dear Folks,
It seems that I never have time to write a long letter any more but maybe I can squeeze this one in between times. I have 4 or 5 minutes now and maybe I can start.

Well I have really been working the last few days. My muscles are getting sore now for the first time since I was in Ft. Harrison. Maybe the tetanus shot I got Wed. helped. I have got 5 shots| so far and at least 2 more to come.

We have been having a good bit of bayonet practice and even though this may not look hard it gets very tiresome.| We have also been taking several marches and on Wednesday night we went on a night march and study of night tactics. Tonight we are going on another night march.
They must figure that in real battle a good bit of work would have to be done at night.

We had a little excitement in our company last night. Our company commander was raised from the rank of first lieutenant to captain. You should have heard the undertone when he came out for the formations last night wearing his captain’s bars.

There is not much doubt now about whether or not our battalion will move. We are supposed to have all our belongings and bedding packed by tomorrow morning. I suppose that sometime before Sunday we will have a new location.

The weather down here has gone crazy again. It is almost cold enough to freeze at night and then warms up to hot enough in the afternoon that we can go in our shirt sleeves. Everyone complains of the cold because it is such a damp cold. It doesn’t seem to me that it is difference from that in Indiana. The cold isn’t hurting me a bit so far.

Well I will  write you a long letter when I have time. For your information I was stopped in my writing at every palace where I have put a mark (|). I wrote off and on from morning till noon on it.

Love,
Donald