Letter 256- November 21, 1945

November 21, 1945
Giessen, Germany

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Dear Mudder and Dad,

I still haven’t received any mail from you since I left the company. In fact nobody that came here from the 100th has received anything yet. It’s truly a discouraging situation. I can just close my eyes and see one of the mail clerks back there leaning back with his feet on his desk and letting everything go to pot. It’s just typical of the army.

Everything here is in one helluva rush right now. Thanksgiving’s tomorrow and I’m afraid we’ll have to work. This Q.M. racket is a laugh. Some of the officers are so dumb that even the Krauts have caught on to them. That is saying a lot. They think that anything with a bar on its shoulder is some sort of god. The Quartermasters is a good racket during a war but when the shooting’s over it’s an awful pain. Today a QM officer asked one of our boys if he was tough enough to handle the Jerries. Our man, Weber, is an old Infantryman. He said, “Well, I’ve been shot three times and run over by a Jeep once, so you can draw your own conclusions.” I’ll bet the QM officer never heard a gun fired during the whole war.

I’m getting along fine in my new job at that, however I spend plenty of time batting the breeze with these Krauts, not so much because I love the Krauts but rather because doing so helps me to speak German about three times as much as any book could do. At that I learn a lot of interesting things from them. The other day we got in a bunch of German sailors from Norway. Their story of what happened immediately before and after the invasion of Norway is quite interesting. It seems that the situation up there must have been pretty interesting with the Germans fully armed wanting to surrender but with no one to surrender to; Story of a German admiral trying to get out of the country with practically all of Norway under his suitcase. It makes quite a yarn. Of course that they are sailors and sailors aren’t any too addicted to the truth. They’re an interesting bunch. They’re far more cosmopolitan than the soldiers and one tenth so naïve. There is so much difference that except for the language you would hardly know that they were from the same country.

I think that I’ve got these Jerries pretty much afraid of me. These QM boys who never faced these bums on the line have an awful tendency to baby them but not me. Nothing in the whole wide world could make me forget what they did to some of my friends. And so that’s the way I carry on with them. I’m the boss and that is that. Surprisingly enough that’s what they like, which again only lowers my opinion of them.

Tomorrow even though we do have to work we should have a damn nice dinner. The cooks have been working all day preparing the turkeys and they seen to take a great relish in their work. These German cooks say that they never knew that there were so many different dishes in the world as the army serves. God knows the army fare is simple enough but I guess all they’ve ever known is cabbage and potatoes and potatoes and cabbage. We got in a load of fruitcake, cranberries and fresh celery today so it shouldn’t be bad.

I went to the show last night and saw the stage show “Sons of Fun”. It’s an Olson and Johnson production so you can imagine what it was like. I got hit right in the kisser with a rubber doughnut first thing. The show was quite entertaining at that and I think we all had a good time. After the show we went to the new Red Cross club in Giessen and had coffee and doughnuts (real ones) and played a few games of table tennis.

Well, I guess that’s about all for tonight. I sure wish I’d get some mail. When a fellow doesn’t get any for a long time he begins to wonder if the good ole U.S. is still there.

Best Love,
Bill