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.
(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
Dear Greg,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting these letters. I stumbled across your site and will now bookmark it as one of my "go to" websites.
My dad was a WWII vet and he never talked much about the experience - most memories were much too painful to relive. Yet, these letters from Bill resonate with me.
thanks so much,
heidi
Dear Heidi,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you "stumbled across" this blog dedicated to my father's service to our country. I feel honored to be able to share his letters. It is my hope that these letters will give the younger generation of today some insight into the sacrifices made by veterans such as your dad and mine. We all owe a great debt to them.
Regards,
Greg
For those who might not know or might have forgotten, if a GI had an evening off and wanted to go to a movie he had to change clothes and put on his Class Bs(?). No work clothes out of the company area unless on official business. I suspect that Bill also got to see the newsreels. Greg it would be interesting to see what the Movietone Newsreels featured that week, particularly the non-war news. Perhaps there is some web resource with that information.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteI did a search of Movietone Newsreels for June 1944 and did come up with one that featured the Republican Convention. The summary in the University of South Carolina Newsfilm Catalog lists the Content Summary as, "Mother of Thomas Edmund Dewey, GOP delegates demonstrating, Representative Claire Booth Luce (Connecticut) leading a banner parade."