Money home Archives - Moss Letters

24 February 1945

Dear Folks:

Had a lot of mail today so the least I can do is to sit down a while and answer a few of them. Had two letters from Dad, one from Mom, one from Pat and one from Washington. A very good day for mail. And all in good time.

Went to the show for a while but didn’t stay long – couldn’t sit still long enough. Been busy all day – a big inspection tomorrow that seems like a lot of baloney to me, but there’s nothing to be done about it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you the last few days and last night had a glorious dream of being home. Read a few Star-Heralds tonight and in the service column noticed there is always men returning and with much less overseas time than mine. I sneered when I saw an article that said so and so receives his first furlough in over two years. What a laugh. I’ve had damn near four [years] and never been home. Of course someday our chance will come but it seems impossible to enjoy once again some civilian relaxation. Guess I should have signed up for the Navy.

Listened to the news a while tonight and hear the Marines have a scrap on their hands at Iwo Jima. But they’ll finish them off. The Japs are crazy and in [a] tight spot, go nuts and beserk. They are madmen. The news from Europe is good and Germany will crack any time, but it is taking plenty of casualties to do it.

Been reading my law books lately and the more I do, the stronger is the desire to seriously study it. But lately I have had only intermittent opportunities to read and then not for as long as I would like. If I never use it at least it is a goal to acquire an LLB.

You have never mentioned the money I sent home. I’m getting just the slight bit uneasy. $40 was sent the 6^th of January and $50 around the 1^st of February. It is a new system so perhaps that accounts for the delay.

Your letters today were certainly welcome and read and re-read many times. I guess our whole relationship the past 3 ½ years has been dependent on letters. Perhaps they are wonderful things.

It’s getting late and as it usually does, it’s beginning to rain. I think I’ve seen more rain since being overseas than in all my ‘old country’ days. Well this is it for tonight.

Love,

7 February 1945

Dear Folks:

Better drop you a line before going to bed. I know I haven’t written for several days but have been pretty busy. I’ll get back in the swing again. Just came from a show. About half way thru a brisk shower began but that didn’t affect the patrons much.

No Christmas mail nor second class mail has yet arrived and of course I feel like you do about it, however I understand the post office finally has us located and it is on the way, so I’ll give them a little more time before really getting sore.

Am feeling fine and we have good living conditions now. A swim, a show and a beer about make up the entertainment end of things. I can hardly realize I’ve been gone almost four years and I hope something will surely break. Furlough quotas are out so I can just wait.

Had a little letter from B. Emick yesterday – he’s a swell guy and I think a lot of him. We had some real [good] times together.

I really haven’t anything to write [about] and the lights will be out shortly so I better figure on quitting. Perhaps I can do better next time. Sent you $50 yesterday. I can’t think of anything fitting and proper so I’ll just knock off.

Love,

2 February 1945

Dear Dad:

Let’s make this a man-to-man talk only put it on paper. Now that I have a little free time thought I better attempt to catch up a little and maybe write you a letter. Just opened a nice beer and earlier had a swim, and a shower so I feel good. And later will go to the show. Pretty good movies have been coming in lately.

Well my law books have caught up with me and the last two nights have looked into them some, however I believe I better send them home – you can never tell what may happen – and then of course I’m going to be home in 1945 – hm. I hate to send them back but I think it’s the best.

Well no packages have arrived so now I think the Christmas mail must have been sunk – I can’t understand where they can be. I wish more positive action would be taken by the proper authorities. And I surely would like to have some of that popcorn – with our small stove we can always pop it.

The last few days have been rainy ones and on a few occasions a blinding driving rain. I hope it never blows the tents away. It’s a job to keep dry.

For the first time in many months I put on a pair of suntans and I feel like a Sunday School boy. Before it has been fatigues.

Before I started writing you I was talking to a Sgt. in the guerillas and he was telling me of his experiences in fighting the Japs. He seemed fairly intelligent as Filipinos go. Said his brother was shot and hung by the Japs in October 1943. Some interesting tales.

Had a letter from Dick a few days ago and he seems in good spirits. I hope he continues to take it easy.

Well better quit I guess but I’ll write more tomorrow when I will have a little more time. Sent you $50.00 today. Have you received the $40.00 I sent? Are the bonds coming? You’re doing a good job of writing and they mean a lot.

Love,

10 February 1944

Dear Dad:

I just received another of your inimitable letters and it came at a most welcome time. My head is still going round like a merry go round. I have been very busy the last few days and just now has the volume of work begun to slacken off a little. But working like this makes the time slip by almost unnoticed. When I realize how long it has been since I’ve eaten a Moss meal, I appreciate that fact, more than ever. But maybe that’s because I’m older. I can remember when I couldn’t wait another day until I was old enough to have a bike and then later on to drive an automobile. But now here I am having gone through both and wondering what I’ll be doing when I’m forty or fifty.

I think if I take another look at your letter I can stretch this one out a little longer. Every time you say something about the cold weather and the snow, I have to pause and remember that in some places there actually is weather like that. Every afternoon around three the office knocks off for a little volleyball game on the big rambling lawns that are near our area. We’re getting pretty brown from it and we feel pretty good after sitting down all day. Last night we gathered together our best forces and had a game with some Hawaiian civilian boys and took a good beating. We played after supper with the little gathering there. It reminded me of a twilight softball game like we used to have. There was a few good-sized ‘wahines’ there together with some men playing poker on a little grass mat. They sure take life easy and are so darned good natured and hospitable. They’re pretty fat and look sloppy but you overlook that. The boys beat our pants off – they can hit a ball from any angle.

Dick and I went out together on pass last Wednesday and looked around for the shells but couldn’t find any this trip. But we’ll get them. I bought Mom and Nancy each one of those handkerchief affairs they wear over their heads and better get them mailed tonight. Dick and I are very lucky to be so near to each other but I think your summarizations are pretty correct. What did you think of the Marshalls episode? Boosts your morale up for a while and makes you a little more optimistic. There is a lot of talk around in the papers of troop rotation and furloughs but I don’t put much faith in any of it. All of it is so contingent upon other things that is seems pretty remote. Guess I’m getting used to waiting. I know what the deal on the bond allotment is. I had an allotment for that amount and it was automatically stopped in favor of a new plan so that represents the money not applied on a new bond. Hope you received the sixty bucks instead of the usual thirty-five.

Most of the civilians at home get a pretty good tongue lashing from the fellows – and especially the strikers. Boy what they wouldn’t do for them. I guess that shows that they didn’t realize what a swell place the ‘old country’ was until they had to leave it. Any little old corner of the states would satisfy most of us. But this business of laying off work sure raises the hair on us when we hear of another fifty thousand or so because they can’t get enough to have all they want. I think the situation is pretty lopsided too. Everyone whether he’s over here or back there is in the same kind of job and if he has to take bad breaks that’s just tough.

Well I’m going to do some studying for a while and the evenings are very short so I’m going to throw in the towel about here. The friend in Washington sent me another book a few weeks back and it’s full of interest so got to get busy on it. I have a little room by myself now and can setup books and spend a profitable evening with them. I think your sentiments are the best in the world although they aren’t expressed in the language of Longfellow, which is the least important part.

Love,

1 September 1943

Dear Folks:

Although I just wrote you last night I guess another letter won’t be wrong after I laid off for a while. After recall we usually manage a volleyball game with teams from the other offices, then follow it up with a shower before supper. Now that I have showered and ate, I feel pretty good and ready to relax or get in a bridge game tonight. With the abundance of avocadoes on the nearby trees we usually have one for dinner and supper, although I can’t remember ever eating one in the states. Well the school kids are starting school again and everyday the little Japs etc trapaise by on the road on the long walk home. They look about the same anywhere I guess. I saw a class of small children at the Catholic parochial school and what a variety of brands. From the whitest to the blackest and shades in between.

Tomorrow is my day off and while I’m in town I think I’ll have the photographer work on me. Perhaps I can make the pictures suffice for Christmas presents. My friend in Washington is sending me a book—she always writes regularly and I consider her a very close friend.

I hope my allotments are arriving regularly and in the right amounts. Being so far away from the War Department offices we have many cases of incorrect and delayed allotments and I wouldn’t want to have them get messed up. Handling these things, together with other personnel work is the job that I am in, and I think it is one of the most desirable jobs in the regiment.

My Reader’s Digest came yesterday but it immediately starts the rounds in the billet and so far I’ve just read the jokes and shorts.

And of course the first of the month is that day that we are rewarded for efforts, payday, so I suppose the dice and cards will see plenty of action tonight although our billet seldom gets away from the bridge games long enough to try their luck.

I guess I’m like everyone else in enjoying the Free Press and especially the comments about the servicemen. Now perhaps I can keep track of those monkeys that made high school and after, the clutter of mischief and fun that those years were. I think I’d rather see Bill Emick more than any other one fellow. I wonder when you were digging around among the stuff I left you, came across my old model planes. You know I get a hankering to get out a bottle of glue and wood and start on another one. I guess the gas model is pretty well beat up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I someday patched it up again, even if my glasses are an inch thick.

I heard a broadcast of Winston Churchill’s speech from Canada last night and also the Pope’s today. It seems pretty certain that the culmination of the war is in the home stretch, and our turn to swing the final punch, but too much optimism is not good.

The mountains look beautiful in their purple robes as the sun goes down, and the ocean is deep blue and quiet, so I’ll get in this mood too and take it easy for the rest of the night. I guess this (is) goodnight and the end of another column.

Love,

6 August 1942

Dear Folks:

I’ve been pounding this machine like a cub journalist at a Democratic convention but now that things are quiet possibly I can use it for my own ends.

Well contrary to my expectations we are still here in Fort Lewis, but sitting on pins waiting for the day to leave. I didn’t think we would be here this long but we are and possibly we may be here for another week, but it surely won’t be long before we leave for ‘Frisco. By the way we have been advised to give our new address, so here it is, but it isn’t to be used until we change our station and I’ll let you know when we do:

Pvt. H G Moss 37086474
Btry. C 222 FA Bn.
APO 1288 % Postmaster
San Francisco, California

Got your telegram with the money and I really do appreciate it because I know what it means to you. Also got your airmail letter today. I hope you will feel free to use the money that I have allotted if you need it very bad. Someday soon now you should also be getting the bonds. As soon as we are overseas we are given a 20% increase in pay so I will have enough cash to get along on. Also if anything should happen to me the government makes a gratuity payment of six months wages which would amount to about three hundred sixty dollars. Things are still humming around here like an aircraft plane getting ready to leave and schedules have been made out for training on the boat so it can’t be far off. Yesterday I mailed my sleeping bag home and also rolled up in it is my sweatshirt, OD sweater and civilian shoes. Better give the bag to Dan for his long gone birthday—it would come in handy to use on all night camping trips and the like. It needs cleaning and there are a couple of small holes in it on the inside that can be easily mended.

Suppose you both had a little blue spell after the telephone call and I wasn’t any different. I guess the telephone is the next best thing to a furlough but I still didn’t say what I wanted to and like I wanted to. Mom you acted very bravely and you held the tears to a minimum.

The girl (Mattie) I have been going with on and off on the Post gave me a nice diary and a small book to use for memories and that sort of thing. She’s a swell gal but nothing to arouse my more tender instincts. She hated to see me leave though.

There isn’t much else to write about. I’m going to do a little laundry tonight so that all of it will always be clean then take a shower and hit the hay. About the glasses you mentioned—the government furnishes one pair of GI’s free of cost so that with my own I will have two pair. Also I am issued a pair of gas mask glasses. Got a letter from Katie yesterday and I answered it right away. Should also write a letter to Grandma although she hasn’t answered my last one. Took more shots today. They are getting to be like a cup of coffee for breakfast. You may not hear from me for sometime after we leave Fort Lewis, because I understand all of our mail is held up until after we arrive at our destination so don’t think it is my neglect. Also we are supposed to leave a couple of postcards in Frisco that will be mailed you when the convoy arrives.

I’m going to hate to go because it will mean such a long way from home and for as long as I’ve been away it will seem all the farther, but then we’ll just have to do what you said and hope for a quick end to it all.

Well goodbye for another letter. Minatare would look like Shangri-la in springtime right now even if maybe it is just a whistle stop. Don’t worry about me, that’s what the government is doing, and I’ll yet be making you pick up my scattered clothes.

Love,

1 August 1942

Dear Folks:

Just a line or two from Tacoma while I’m in the Service Club whiling away a little time. Well we are about ready to leave. Most of our stuff is packed and crated ready for shipment. Troop trains have been leaving regularly and suppose we will be next week. The place has been a regular beehive and this little respite on the weekend feels good only I feel pretty tired tonite.

Now that we are going I am making an allotment of $15.00 a month that will be sent you by the government. This is in addition to the bonds of $12.50.

There isn’t a single thing I need to take with me. We can’t take much. I probably have told you all that over the phone.

Well this is pretty short but it’s something of a letter.

Love,

23 June 1942

Dear Folks:

I just wrote you last nite but another one won’t hurt and besides I got your last letter this afternoon.

Was surprised to hear that Dick was home. Thought he would go back sometime but not so soon. Hope he finds a good job soon.

Next Monday (June 29) we go to Yakima for intensive training and firing. It is about one (hundred) forty miles from here and over the high mountains past Mt. Rainier. They tell me it’s pretty hot over there, but we have our suntans so it won’t be as bad as the woolens. We will be there for at least a month so you can send me some cookies there. Suppose we will start using our sleeping bags again. It’s going to seem tough leaving these luxurious barracks but also good to get into the open again. During these operations we will have aircraft observations and dummy bombs of flour.

Still nothing on furloughs. Two of our men are on them but they are only for emergencies and the Red Cross makes a thorough investigation.

Payday will really be something this time with the fifty bucks. I haven’t heard anything about the two paydays a month, but I think it would be a good idea. Along with the raise in base pay was a special arrangement for dependents. For every $22 the soldier sends home the government adds $28 to it. This is mandatory for married men and only available for men with dependents. A pretty good deal. The $12.50 for my bonds will be taken out this month. As the bonds accumulate they will be sent to you.

Now to reread your letter and answer the questions. Yes I still go to church, there is a big brick chapel on the post. I use cream to shave with the lather type but with the tube stipulation, soap is alright. I’m well supplied with toilet articles but can always use razor blades, shaving cream, or face soap. The number of division is the Fortieth, the emblem of which is a yellow sun on a dark blue background.

Boy does it rain around here—wish Nebraska could get some of it. Guess that’s why I don’t mind it so much.

Tomorrow night the Camel Caravan is coming and if it’s as good as the one I saw at Roberts it is pretty good.

Guess I told you about my excursion in Seattle last Saturday.

I plumb forgot about Dan’s birthday but I must remember him someway—and sixteen too. That reminds me of the days that I was sporting a pout because I was too young to pedal a bike.

Well l am going to listen to Fibber McGee and Bob Hope so until next time.

Lots of love,

16 April 1942

Dear Folks:

Time to write a few lines while everything is quiet after supper chow. Just got a letter from you that was put in the wrong slot in the mailbox.

Well, well-founded rumors are astir that we are moving out perhaps tonite or tomorrow. In fact all we have been doing today is loading and greasing trucks and getting our personal equipment in shape to pack quietly when the order comes. Where we are going is of course not known but the latrine rumor is to Los Angeles. Whether this is in preparation for something bigger I can only guess. The latest is that we may move after midnite tonite.

Tonite also we are having alittle battery party with talent supplied from our ranks to refreshments from the battery fund. Suppose we will have a lot of fun singing and horsing around.

I wrote Dick a few days ago asking him to come up so we could both talk to you on the phone. However if we move I’ll make the call, if possible, myself. I haven’t been down for three weeks now and would like to see them before we leave but perhaps this won’t be possible. The 19^th will also be the monthly anniversary of my army induction—seven months.

I am sending my mail free, but because I had a little supply of stamps thought I just as well use them for airmail.

Don’t know exactly when our $42.00 will be effective but will probably effect our pay on the first of June. I will send you $20.00 to use in coming out. Wish you could come on the train. I think Dick and I can arrange it that way. If we each donate $20.00 or so you could afford it then. It would be better for you than riding in a car.

Yes, even get to sleep late if we walk at nite—the usual tour is 4 hours on and 8 hours off. We haven’t heard anything about furloughs for our bunch and are not expecting any—at least I’m not. We took all of our shots in the arm and after about three they were nothing.

Right now I’m reading ‘Inside Europe’ and ‘The Green Lights’, but if we move won’t get to finish them and incidentally, I’m wondering how I can return them to the library.

Last Sunday I was on KP and while looking around the kitchen saw a carton of beef from Cook’s Packing Company in Scottsbluff. Kind of surprising.

I gave up my job as assistant battery clerk for lack of anything to do in there so now I’m in the communications detail. We string wire from gun phones to the switchboard to the observation point (OP). From the OP the CO (commanding officer) relays his firing data to the guns which go thru the switchboard hidden in the brush somewhere. It’s a pretty good assignment and more interesting than doing the cannoneer’s hop. Pulling two or three miles of wire by hand is a workhout. One of our trucks has a small gasoline engine for this purpose mounted on the back.

Well guess this is all this time. Will write you all I can about what’s going on.

Love,