Indiana Oh Indiana

Dear Mom and Dad,

     I received those Camels and I sure do appreciate them.  I was about out and had no more money for any.  I signed the pay roll today, so I guess I’ll get paid the 30th.

     How are you today?  I just wrote to you yesterday, but I want to write another letter.  It will be a short one, as I am almost out of words already.  I got a letter from Eddie & Marge, and one from Jesse & Bee today.  I sure was glad to hear from them.  Tell Vi to write again soon.  I may write to her this evening, but I’m not sure.  I have to study my handbook as we are going to have a test on the first 3 chapters and everyone who doesn’t pass gets K.P., and I sure don’t want any more than my share of that.

     Oh yes, a plane crashed here this morning while it was coming in for a landing.  It was coming in swell and all of a sudden it just nosed right down.  It didn’t burn and the mend weren’t hurt, so it ws OK.  They were shaken up though.

     I signed the payroll today so I guess I’ll be able to look forward to a guitar.

     Say, Mom, could I ask a favor of you?  Could you send me a couple of pairs of shorts and 2 shirts and some Lux?  I hate to ask you to do that but I can’t wear thee G.I. shorts any longer.  I’m 28 in the waist and these are 40.  I was going to send them to Pop but I find I’ll have to keep them for inspection.

     The sergeant came through here this morning after we were called and took the names of all the men who weren’t up.  Every one of them has K.P tomorrow.  Nice, huh?  I was up but it’s a wonder.

     Well I guess I’ll have to close for now but I hope there is a letter on the way for me.  I sure miss you.

Lots of love,
Elwood

Bye for now.
I’ll write again soon.
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Things in those days weren’t “cool.”  They were “swell.”  Judging by the movies of that era I can see that the term was VERY popular.  “Gee, things were swell.”
Dad wrote this on his 21st birthday.  I’m including a photo of Mom with Dad’s friend Hyram from 1943, and two photos of Mom that I believe were instrumental in Dad’s proposing to her later in 1944.  JB

                                                                                               Nov. 30, 1942
                                                                       Battle Creek, Mich.

Dear Mom and Dad,

     I’m sorry I haven’t written to you in the past few days, but I’ll try to write at least every other day now, OK?

     Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t get back in time to see you before you went to the lodge.  Bonnie got out of the store a little late and that was why we didn’t get there on time.  We had to stop at her house for just a minute, and then we came on home.

     I sure had a swell time while I was home.  I wanted to be home for Thanksgiving so bad, and was sure happy when i got to come. Now all I have to do is worry about X-mas.  If I get home then, I could never ask for anything more.

     How is everything?  Just fine, I hope.  Did Uncle John get to go home yet?

     Well, I didn’t get paid today.  When I went in after my money, I found out I was red-lined.  By that I mean I won’t get my money for at least ten days and maybe not until the 17th or 18th.  Some fun, huh?  I forgot to put my middle initial in my signature when I signed the payroll.

     We had an accident here about 4:30 this afternoon.  A plane crashed on the field.  It nosed into the ground while landing.  The pilot was shaken up a little, but otherwise OK.  I have had it pretty easy for the past day and a half.  I haven’t been on guard duty but I may be tomorrow.  I don’t know yet.

     The records in the office were all mixed up, so they called us in to be interviewed so they could reclassify us.  I was hoping I would get out of this guard squadron but when I got in there, what should they want me to do but go into supply.  They saw on my record that I had two years in parts.  I told them I wanted engine repair, so I don’t know how I’ll come out.  I suppose in the end, I’ll be in the supply station, because they have enough mechanics.

     Tell Jesse & Bee and Eddie & Marge I said “Hello,” will you?  I’ll have to close for now but I sure hope I get a letter from you tomorrow.  Bye for now.

With love,
Elwood

P.S.  I sure do think the world of this little pocket testament.  I’ve started to read it, and I’m going to read it from cover to cover.  Thanks a million.  

Bye now.
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                    Messages may have been simple and mundane, but they were so important as connections to those loved at home.  No one Tweeted then, and telegrams were horribly expensive.  Holding a letter from home and reading it again and again, even keeping it under one’s pillow, was vastly important to the soldiers.  I imagine in that respect things haven’t changed for our boys in Iraq, Afghanistan, and anywhere else in the world they may be stationed today.  The difference is that often a text message or Tweet, or e-mail may be lost.  Snail-mail letters of that era from the 1940’s can still be read seventy years later as a very personal record of the wider context of war.  The mere feeling of touching them again all those years later cannot easily be described.  My father died October 20, 1986, and having his letters from when he was in his twenties means everything today.  JB
                                                                  Dec. 14, 1942
                                                                                      Battle Creek, Mich.

Dear Mom & Dad,

     How are you?  I’m just dandy.  We have been working longer hours, but they are making us drill two hours a day now, and we can really feel it.  We are all feeling a little better.  We are still in school and will be for a few weeks yet.  The things they are on are still the simple things in the basic work of an army vehicle, and some of us know that stuff, so we get to fool around a little just like we used to do in high school.  I really like it.

     Well, enough about us, how is everything there at home?  Why am I not receiving mail from Eddie & Marge, and Jesse & Bee, and Vi?  Tell them when you see them that when I come home, “I’m going to turn them every way but loose.”

     Dad, have you been able to stay away from a cold?  I imagine pretty near everyone has one because of the weather.  I hear you got a “C” gas rationing card and I sure was glad to hear that.  Now you will be able to continue your work and your duties in the lodge and not have to worry about when you can be there next.  Say, Dad, that reminds me, The Masonic Temple here in Battle Creek have put aside two nights a week for us fellows to come into their bowling alleys and use them for recreation for ourselves.  they are letting us use them free of charge.  I don’t believe anything ever satisfied this bunch quite so much as this has.  We are going to get up a team and challenge the 1800th Ordinance.  Our commanding officer has also arranged for us to use a swimming pool every Tuesday evening.  Isn’t that swell?

     Well, I’m sorry this isn’t a very long letter, but I’m running out of words.  I’ve been telling you I would write you a long letter, and one of these days I will.  Bye for now. 

Your loving son,
Elwood

(Thanks again for that money and those cigarettes.  They sure helped a lot.
Tell Bonnie I said “Hi.”

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In this letter my father reveals himself to have been more of a prankster than I ever imagined he could be.  He also gives some description of the barracks itself.
 
                                          Jan. 10, 1943
                                          Battle Creek, Mich.

Dear Mom & Dad,

     How are you?  Just fine, thanks.  Well, here I am in the little old green barracks sitting on my (concrete) bunk writing.  Things are pretty dreary here today because everyone is in town.  I would like to have gone, but as you know, I was confined to the area for three days. (I’ll learn to straighten my bunk someday maybe).  I’ve had quite a lot of fun right here at the barracks these last 3 days.  Last night we folded up the corporal’s cot while he was in town.  we weren’t satisfied with that, so we put his mattress on the rafters like they did that bunk last week (remember?).  He was so mad when he came in that he tried to make us get up and scrub the barracks.  We didn’t do it, because he couldn’t prove who the ones were that had done it. There were five of us that actually did the work, but the rest of the guys that were here supervised the job.  then on the third bunk from mine, we had one of his covers and wet the ropes on his barrack bags and used them to tie his bed roll fast to the head of his bed.  By the bed roll I mean his comforter, because we have to roll it up and put it on the foot of the bed.  When he came in, he cussed like a trooper.  I’m going to be afraid to leave my bunk the next time i go to town.  I’ll be back in a minute.  I have to go to chow.

     I’m back and the food was terrible.  They don’t have a good meal on Sunday evenings, because there are so many men gone.

     say, I have some good news for you.  Do you remember I told you I was getting a 7-day furlough?  Well, I’m getting ten days.  We have figured it to start Feb. 2.  Of course, that may be wrong, but I believe that is when it will start.  Gee whiz, just think, me being home for 10 days.  Nobody will get any rest will they? (I won’t stay out so late, because I’ll have more time, OK?)

     Well Dad, this ding busted watch stopped the other day.  I didn’t drop it. It just quit running.  I’m going to bring it home and leave it there, then I know it won’t get wrecked.  Maybe I jarred it playing the games here at camp. I don’t know.  It only runs when I do.

     How is everything there at home?  I sure hope everything  is all right.  I sure wish I were there with you again like we used to be.  Boy I sure used to be a heck of a guy to keep track of, wasn’t I?

     We are finally going to go through the gas chamber tomorrow afternoon.  It is a big chamber filled with tear gas.  You go in it with your gas mask on and after you have been in ti for a while, you take your mask off.  They do that to show you that your mask will protect you.  I hear that when you take your mask off, you really make tracks to get out of there (no doubt).

     I had my overcoat and the coat to my uniform cleaned and pressed, and I also had my trousers and shirt cleaned and pressed.  They sure look swell. Now I’m going to have my trousers taken in at the waist, then my whole outfit will be OK.

     Well, I guess I’ll close for now but I hope you write to me soon.  Bye for now and be careful.

Your loving son,
      Elwood

I’m going to write to Jesse and Bee and Eddie & Marge today.

I’m getting old in this outfit.  I’m even beginning to smoke a pipe.  Write soon.
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