Letter 171- January 12, 1945

January 12, 1945
(Somewhere in France)

Dear Mudder and Dad,

This is the second letter that I’ve written to you today. The first I had to tear up because it contained too much information. Don’t feel cheated, however. There was nothing good in it. Since then I received 4 letters from you—an airmail and 3 V-Mails. As usual the airmail came the fastest. I’ve finally decided that the only way we should work this mail is for you to write all your letters airmail and in each one or every other one enclose an airmail envelope with stamp, address and special delivery stamp too if you feel it’s worthwhile—and a couple sheets of paper. In that way, I’ll be able to write under almost any circumstances.

Well, after the verbal spanking I got this morning I guess you’ll have to be satisfied with the information that I’m feeling O.K and am now in a warm safe place.

Still no packages from you and is my tongue hanging out. The army chow certainly doesn’t hit the spot and the very thought of fruitcake, cookies and candy makes my tongue hang down to my shoe tops.

Saturday 13, ’45 -cont.
(Somewhere in France)

Interruptions—always interruptions. Well, it’s another day and I’m still waiting around. Everybody seems to be getting packages but me. There’s no use complaining I know, but as long as they’ve been coming I’ve had something to look forward to. You have no idea how much it means to have something like that to look forward to—even if it does take a month of Sundays. If you will it would mean an awful lot to me if you would keep something in the way of packages coming out at regular intervals. I don’t want you using up ration points or anything but a little candy, cookies, or whatever you have would make things a lot nicer over here. I’ll keep the requests coming in.

It’s a nice sunny day and cold so I’m staying close to the fire.

Let’s see what else I can write about. I’ll look over your latest letter.

Oh! I’m glad to hear you make the acquaintance of the Cottles. I like them all very much.

That about does it for now. It seems that I’ve written on both sides of the paper and that’s bad if the Lt. wants to do any censoring.

I just reread this damn thing and I must admit I’ve never found anything so garbled and disjointed. Must be my state of mind—“non compsmentis” or sumpin’”.

I’ll write again tomorrow if possible.

Bill

PS. I brought the stamp from the states originally so this is the 4th. time across for it.

Bill

Letter 158- December 12, 1944

December 12, 1944
(France)

Dear Mudder and Dad,

It’s been too long since I wrote my last letter, I know; but it’s really impossible to do better under the circumstances. The officer who does the censoring hasn’t the time and the facilities are practically nil. I’ll do the best I can but I can almost promise that it won’t be good enough.

After all this time I finally got some mail from you—4 letters. You know how I must feel. Maybe I’ll get some packages soon now. We’re having our first snow in this part of France now. Just sloppy miserable weather all the time. Jimmy Chune wasn’t fooling.

When this damn thing is over I think I will go to Death Valley and live so I won’t ever have to see any rain.

Only a few more days until Christmas now. It’s hard to think of Christmas over here away from home. As far as I’m concerned it just isn’t anything at all. Oh well! A lot of people over here think it’ll be over by then. I figure that it’s always better to look on the brighter side of things. It would be a swell Christmas present.

Did you get my Christmas card? The regt. passed them out. I thought that was rather nice.
I haven’t heard any news for quite some time again. I believe that no one knows less about the war than the poor G.I. that fights the damn thing.

Well, excuse this terrible writing but a pen will cut right through this lousy paper.

This part of France is very pretty if a person gets his mind off his sore feet long enough to notice it. It’s much like the forest country in California except for the large number of little towns. The towns themselves would be very picturesque if it wasn’t for the fact that they’ve had the hell knocked out of them. The Jerries won’t fight in the open country. They like to fight in towns where they can stay in warm cellars while our men freeze outside of towns in foxholes—the polecats.

Well, I’ll close now. I’ll write again as soon as I can.


Best Love,
Bill

Letter 146- November 1, 1944

November 1, 1944
(England)

Dear Mudder,

This is just something by way of a souvenir and a minor Christmas present. Hope you like it. It isn’t much but it’s about the best I could do considering the marvelous choice of stuff they’ve got over here.

Well, Merry Christmas and stuff like that there.

Best Love,
Bill






(wrapped note here)
“CENSOR-PLEASE-REWRAP”-

About Censorship

Once Bill was deployed to England his letters became subjected to military censorship. As we have seen, Bill was very aware that his letters were being censored. In several instances he makes small asides to the censor in his letters such as “cut here if you must”. The net result of the censorship of his letters is that they are less informative and specific about his movements and activities. Unfortunately this makes them less interesting to read. Bill tries hard, but he just doesn’t have as much to say.

The enlisted soldier was censored by an officer in his unit. It was considered an unimportant job and often someone like the chaplain or the dentist would get saddled with the job. If the enlisted man did not want his officer to read his mail -- if he had been giving him a hard time, let's say -- the soldier could use what was called a 'blue envelope.' The writer would certify that there is nothing in here that shouldn't be and the letter would go up to the next level where it might be looked at a little more kindly.

If the section they wanted out was very big, they would confiscate the letter. If it was small, they cut out the words or obliterate it with ink. If they had to use special chemicals to check for invisible writing -- something they did when they suspected a spy -- they would confiscate the letter because they didn't want people to know they were doing it.

The censors returned very few soldiers' letters. They confiscated them; they didn't send them back. They didn't necessarily give the word back to the soldier that his or her letter was withheld. It depended where it was stopped and how fast the troops were moving.
From the soldier's perspective, they often didn't know if it was going to get through. The soldiers were all given guidance on what they could say, so one would think they would know how to avoid getting their mail intercepted, but not all did.

An overly informative writer might be talked to, because it's important. We don’t know of any soldiers who were severely punished for what they wrote in a letter. It wasn't considered an overt act of sabotage; it was considered carelessness. Bill seems to be careful to follow the rules of censorship in his letters. It is unknown if any of his letters home were altered or confiscated.

Letter 116- August 13, 1944

August 13, 1944
(England)

Dear Mother and Dad,

It has been now just one week since I received any mail from you and I have to admit that I don’t like it even a little bit. I know it isn’t your fault but when day after day I’m the only fellow in the barracks that doesn’t get mail—well—I get pretty burned up with this army mail service. I find it awfully hard to write when I don’t receive mail from you because of the many restrictions covering what I can say.

Today is Sunday and I’ve been turned down on a pass again. It seems that I have less chance at a pass than anybody around here. I’ve only had one since I’ve been here. They tell us they want us to get acquainted with the people over here but then see to it that we don’t get the chance.

The war news sure seems to be good these days. Monty says I hear, that the German 7th Army will give up within 72 hours. I guess that by the time you get this the situation will be a lot clearer. Everyone over here seems to think that Germany can’t hold out much longer. I hope so.

I’m feeling well although I can’t seem to get rid of this cold. That’s about all I can say now.



Best Love,
Bill

Letter 105- June 23, 1944

June 23, 1944
(Camp Reynolds, Pa.)

Dearest Mother and Dad,

The wind’s a blowin’ and the rain’s a rainin’ and all told it’s a “hellova” evening. Things are bad all over though, I guess. Don’t let the tone of that fool you though, I’m doing pretty good ‘n well these days. I don’t mean I’m living “the Life of Reilly” because I’m not, but still I’m doin’ all right—as I’ve said before—I’m getting to be an awful letter writer. I can’t write a single paragraph without saying the same thing twice.

Tonight I finally got some clean sun tans. I’d been wearing the other set since I left home. Ain’t that awful? On the strength of the occasion of getting the new duds I went to the movies and saw “This is the Army”. I really enjoyed it. The humor was typically G.I. not synthetic as is the rule with most army pictures.

I’m going to be working even harder the next couple of days, I suppose. We’re losing most of our company on shipment and they’ll only be enough left to fill out the detail roster. "Oi" is the word for it.

Lately I’ve been finding out some of what’s what around here, so here it is. I’ll be able to send mail to you but my letters will be censored. In short my stuff will be even less informative than it is now. Example--: Dear Folks,--everything is fine. Yesterday I went for a walk around the barracks—how thrilling. Well that’s all I can say now, etc. Won’t that be nice? After we’re alerted I may get letters to you but probably not.

LIGHTS OUT

Love, Bill

Sounds like an excuse for closing doesn’t it.

Bill

It ain’t