<
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My father, Pfc. William W. Taylor Jr. served in the 100th. Infantry Division, 399th. Regiment, Co. A. His Division saw duty in France and Germany spending 185 consecutive days on the battle line. He wrote nearly 300 letters home chronicling his service to our country. Like so many combat veterans of the War he spoke little of his experiences, but these letters tell the story.
My Hero
As a young boy my heroes were from books. Fighting men like Captain Horatio Hornblower and Francis Marion "the Swamp Fox" fired my imagination. More than anything I wanted to be like them, strong, brave, and heroic. One day, while rummaging around my father's closet I came upon a large box. Arranged within the box were 5 or 6 dusty, dirty cigar boxes. Inside the boxes were hundreds of old letters. They were numbered, in sequence and in the original envelopes. I opened the first letter and started to read. From that day on, my hero became not Horatio Hornblower or Francis Marion, but Pfc. William Wellington Taylor, Jr., my father. The letters were his letters home from World War II.
NOTE: The letters in this collection appear in reverse order. To read them in chronological order starting with the first letter go to the link at the bottom of this page entitled "Read letters in order starting with Letter 1"
NOTE: The letters in this collection appear in reverse order. To read them in chronological order starting with the first letter go to the link at the bottom of this page entitled "Read letters in order starting with Letter 1"
About Me
Blog Archive
-
▼
2010
(229)
-
▼
March
(33)
- Quiz Sheet Deluxe- June 17, 1945
- About Letter 206
- Letter 206- June 26, 1945
- About Letter 205
- Letter 205- June 24, 1945
- About Letter 204
- Letter 204- June 22, 1945
- About Letter 203
- Letter 203- June 17, 1945
- About Letter 202
- Letter 202- June 15, 1945
- About Letter 201
- Letter 201- June 10, 1945
- About Letter 200
- Letter 200- June 5, 1945
- About Letter 199
- Letter 199- May 30, 1945
- About Letter 198
- Letter 198- May 21, 1945
- About Letter 197
- Letter 197- May 20, 1945
- About Letter 196
- Letter 196- May 13, 1945
- About Letter 195
- Letter 195- May 11, 1945
- About Letter 194
- Letter 194- May 3, 1945
- About Letter 193
- Letter 193- May 2, 1945
- About Letter 192
- Letter 192- April 28, 1945
- About Letter 191
- Letter 191- April 26, 1945
-
▼
March
(33)
Followers
100th Infantry Division
100th. Infantry Patch
Read letters in order starting with Letter 1
Read the letters in this collection in the order they were written, from first to last in my new website at:
http://wwiiwwtaylor.wordpress.com/
http://wwiiwwtaylor.wordpress.com/
Greg, I really enjoyed reading this quiz. What a priceless artifact this is. Very funny too!
ReplyDeleteWow...178 days in a foxhole! What does "nichts
jerstag" mean? It was in reference to shots. Liz
Liz, I believe the term is "nicht jerstay" and means "I don't understand". My dad used the term sometimes when he was explaining something to me or my brother when we were kids, such as "don't do that again, jerstay"?
ReplyDeleteRegarding the quiz, it is a kick isn't it? More importantly it fills in a lot of gaps in the narrative, particularly during the combat phase when censorship and a desire to minimize his danger kept Bill from telling the "gory details" of his action.
Correction: the correct term, I believe is "ferstay" I don't know German, but that is the phonetic spelling.
ReplyDeleteI'm german, good than I can help. "jerstay" makes no sense. I think "ferstay" ist closer the correct spelling would be "nicht verstehen" and Greg is right, means "don't understand". We would say the other way around "verstehe nicht".
ReplyDeleteGreg thanks for the blog, I'm reading it all the way through, and was very excited reading week it by week, and was very surprised where your're father ended up in Germany. Pretty close to my hometown.
My father was almost 6 years old when the war ended, like my son today, and he told me about air raids over Mannheim. He knew already a a few important english sentences, yelling to the GI's on the Jeeps and Tanks, "Have you chewing gum?".
My mothers favorite story after the liberation (we never called it defeat, it took me a while to understand that), is the moment when she got her first orange from an black soldier, both things she never saw before and she never forgot, the juicy taste and the kindness of the Americans after the war. Well done guys!
Famil,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my blog! Thank you for the kind words. Bill crossed the Rhine from Ludwigshaven to Mannheim on March 22, 1945. This was probably just after the air raids your father spoke of. In one of my dad's letters he complains of being constantly bothered by young kids asking him for candy and chewing gum. Maybe one of these kids was your father!
What a beautiful story from your mother. I feel a little bit of pride knowing that my dad played a small part in the "liberation" of your family.