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19 April 1944

Dear Dad:

Probably you have noticed a little increase in my letters lately. I have more time in the evenings and not able to study as much as I used to, so to kill time, will write a few lines. Received your letter today and always enjoy them and appreciate and understand all you write and know how you feel about many things. I noticed the greeting from Farley on the back. Dick called me this evening to see if I could go out with him tomorrow but couldn’t arrange it, but he’ll probably stop around tomorrow sometime. About ten o’clock last night when I was, (and usually am), thinking about you, lying in bed, the news mentioned the shows and it sounded pretty good to hear him mention Sidney and Lexington. And I think it would be (a) treat to slag around in some snow too. I certainly agree with you on your sentiments about home and think you are exactly right and I’m kind of anxious to get one started myself. If money has only value after the war and the government pays all these bonuses and nothing exceptional happens perhaps I will have something to start that home on. Well here’s the end so good night for this time.

Love,

12 April 1944

Dear Folks:

I just attended a show and it’s getting late but perhaps I can write you a few lines before bed. Monday visited Dick and we went down for supper [illegible] to his outfit and ate with him. We are not far apart now and it is more convenient for me to see him. He is now located in good quarters and aside from a longing for a look at the ‘old country’ which is common to us both, is looking good. On Monday [illegible] might he come down with the result of [illegible] and together we made up a box for you. He did a pretty [good] job [of buying for you]. Today I mailed it. Haven’t received the one from you yet but it will be coming along soon. The Free Press came today but am not finished reading it.

Our radio is back on the job and it sounds wonderful. I’m in a slightly sentimental mood tonight thinking about many things and wondering if those things will ever return as they were before. The day-to-day routine of the Army, with never an opportunity for a respite, is sometimes discouraging and dragging the war along slowly but I guess these conditions are necessary. Well so long for tonight and always remember me to Gram and Gramp.

Love,

21 March 1944

Dearest Mother:

I feel very cheap and low because I overlooked something very important so I guess the least I can do is to write you a more or less personal letter – or something like that. I forgot your birthday. Dick reminded me of it yesterday and then today your letter came with the remark in it. So we decided to make up for it but that will come later. I guess that was always one of my weaknesses–forgetting things. And knowing how you like to be remembered makes me feel especially neglectful.

As I mentioned, Dick and I got together yesterday and spent the day in Honolulu, among other things seeing a show at the Waikiki, ‘Old Acquaintance’ with Bette Davis. I went for it in a big way. In my estimation all of her shows seem to have a little more on the ball than most. I hope you will get to see it if you haven’t already. Later we went to Kapahulu and then came back to town to finish up. We talked a lot about our civilian days in the old country and brought up a lot of things that seemed good to recall. And we laughed about a lot of things and how at the time we thought we were putting something over on the folks. And of course we discussed all the womenfolk we used to know as every soldier uses this as his big topic. Dick has learned to appreciate many things that he used to regard as trifling and especially a greater regard for the efforts that you both have made. He was in a buoyant mood and looked heavier and better than ever. And of course he wants to get home pretty bad.

I read the item about ‘doc’ Blome and I would certainly like to see him. Sounds like he’s been in some hot water. I think he was about the best friend I had in Lincoln and I’m going to affect a meeting if it’s possible. The Red Cross in Honolulu can usually find about anyone. I knew his wife pretty well too – I mean in a social sort of way, whew!

I can’t get over you guys shivering in the cold, when the weather is so ideal here. The Honolulu papers usually manage to sneak in a little quip about the cold weather in the states and being over here for a while, I don’t wonder but what they are right. Of course this is the cooler part of the year and the beach at Waikiki doesn’t have a whole lot of swimmers. The waves looked pretty high yesterday, good for surfing – but you have to know how and I don’t.

I’m glad you heard the program from the Jungle Center. If you could have the opportunity to see the place in action you would learn plenty. One thing about learning to fight the Japs is to use any means at all. There is no sportsmanship about the affair – you just kill him no matter how, which I think is not so practiced in Europe.

The time seems to go very fast for me – it seems that it’s time to hit the hay before I get anything done. I’m preparing an outline of a book I received from Washington, and I’ve found the effort educational as well as interesting. Trying to make arrangements at the university hardly seems worth the effort when everything is so uncertain, although if I could ever feel any permanency in things, I would undertake it. Dick and I were talking yesterday of how you must have the house fixed up and how happy we are for both of you.

Well I guess this is about all, better get a little work done tonight and end up with a shave before the lights go out. Our radio bogged down this weekend while we’re attempting to inveigle, beg, borrow or swipe a tube, it’s pretty hard to get along without (one). We looked all over for the shells but there just aren’t any that would do at all – seems funny too when the shops offer about anything for sale to get the money. Our next trip out we will get something very nice and try to cover up for our thoughtlessness on your birthday. You know this letter goes for Dad too. Being your celebration I thought it would be a little more appropriate to address it to you.

Love,

3 March 1944

Dear Folks:

Longhand isn’t my specialty anymore but maybe I can scratch out a letter if I use a little patience. Little to write about but maybe something will come up. Had a letter from Mrs. Carroll – said Duane might be taking a European trip. That situation over there doesn’t appeal to me. I can imagine that every time you hear of action in the Pacific you wonder if Dick and I are there but so far so good. Many ‘veterans’ can be seen in Honolulu with their bronze stars on their Asiatic-Pacific ribbons and the 7^th Division with two – for Atter and Kwayelein.

Dick called up last nite and we will probably get together in a few days. We’re having a tough time getting the shells you wanted. The beach isn’t too accessible and where it is, many others have been there before. But we’re still looking and we’ll get them as reasonable facsimiles.

Pretty quiet and peaceful in the billet tonite – most of them are doing what I am – writing letters. Three of the fellows are married and one has a 22 month old son who he is itching to see. I can well imagine. The radio is the biggest morale builder in the evenings and we would be lost without it. Practically all the mainland programs are broadcast so we don’t miss much (in) that respect.

People over here really buy bonds. Hawaii’s quota was $15 millon and at the end of the campaign sold $32 million. Quite a record and earned them the best record in the US. Perhaps the people feel the war more having gone though the blitz. Quite an assortment of stories and almost humorous but tragic episodes about that morning of the December 7. The confusion and frustration that was going on everywhere must have been terrific. Downtown Honolulu has many contrasts. In one section are the big modern business houses and a few blocks away the Jap fish and fruit markets with their disagreeable odor. And all kinds of people on the streets. All the ‘kaaminas’ (old timers) talk with rapidity and an oriental twang. Newcomers are known as ‘malakinis’. The Hawaiian words might look hard to pronounce but actually they are very easy. All words end in vowels and all vowels are pronounced. I think the words and names are picturesque. A short time ago I had the opportunity to visit a part of the island more scarcely populated and saw some real scenery. Steep green hills came down to the sea and the heavy surf put a mysterious mist over the whole thing.

This is Friday nite and the time I should be devoting to polishing up for inspection. Had a letter from Gram today saying they had arrived and were getting ready to start work. I surely hope they will be happy. Now you will have to be something of an intermediary between me and them.

Well until the next time keep the Moss Manor in good shape and remember there’s no place I’d like to see so badly.

Love,

31 December 1943

Dear Dad:

I guess if I owe anybody a letter it is certainly you. You write often but I never answer them as I should. It’s pretty quiet tonight and everything else is done. We’re sitting around listening to the radio this New Year’s Eve, not doing much. We won’t do any celebrating with blackout and taps at ten. I was just looking at the pictures Kate sent me and then thought how swell it would be to see Steve and all of us enjoying him together. It seems I’ve been gone so long I have to pinch myself to make sure things like that are still back there. Some of the things I look back on seem like a dream the morning after. You can’t imagine how much I think about the first few minutes when we will see each other again. Bet I’d have to have a towel for my eyes. Maybe I better get around to the brighter and newsier side of things. This afternoon went into town to do a little shopping. Tried to find some picture frames but no luck. I must have looked like mom nosing around the Kress Store.

Some of the fellows have gone to the New Year’s Dance but the competition is to stiff for me. Probably won’t be many white ones there anyway. Seeing so many ‘tanned’ ones will make all of them at home, good-looking.

Well dad, it seems there should be much to write about and make a man-to-man talk out of this but it seems the words aren’t here although the thoughts would fill many pages. I hope 1944 brings us very near the end. I don’t feel much anxiety about my own welfare although I admit I sometimes worry about Dick. Certainly I don’t foresee a furlough.

The pictures were taken in the office. Maybe they will give you some idea of the place I work in. It’s usually a pretty busy place and maybe it doesn’t look too tidy.

I’m going to call this ‘pau’ for this time. I really enjoy your letters and you put in the kind of news I like to hear. Hope I do a better job of writing (next year).

Love,

24 July 1943

Dear Dad:

I just received your letter a few minutes ago and I want to answer it immediately although I haven’t much time during the noon hour. Why am I so interested in the law books? I haven’t contacted a judge advocate because that isn’t too easy for me to do, but if I recall rightly, those books were used by the law students that I roomed with in Lincoln. Buy (them) as soon as you can and ship them immediately—take the money from my account. I do want them in a hurry and can’t wait for them to arrive. I couldn’t sit here this afternoon and wait to write the letter tonight. Maybe I can add a little to this before time for work. Your letter, although it might lack plenty grammatically, it’s a crackerjack otherwise. It’s a very good one and the kind it’s good to get. Our new home makes me itch for a furlough more than ever but perhaps something will happen that such a thing may be possible, who can tell?

We follow the news carefully day to day and have a large map in the office and the billet to keep up with events all the time. A few days ago we received a permit to buy a radio and you don’t know what it is not to have one until you are without one. Of course there are many radios in the battery but it’s practically impossible to buy one as I suppose it is in the states. Tomorrow is Sunday and that should mean a swim in the surf and day at the beach. I work in an office that doesn’t call for much outdoor exercise and I look forward to the Sundays.

I know this is a short letter and not a good one but I wanted to let you know to go ahead and purchase the books because I don’t think there is any doubt of their worth. Let me know when you send them. Maybe I’ll write you again tonight and get off a better letter.

Love,

15 July 1943

Dearest Folks:

Another of those evenings that seem long and empty, but maybe it will shorten if I try to catch up on some letters. Everyone seems to be taking great interest in the news and sticking around the radio to keep up with events. The situation does seem pretty good, at least there is action to put some life in the pessimistic, such as myself perhaps. Perhaps the war will terminate with a suddenness that will surprise a lot of us—some of the brass hats are even foreseeing a finish that they didn’t express last year, and when they begin to talk and think that way, it is something to really consider. Anyway I have felt more encouragement than I have in a long time. This whole discussion makes me think of a professor I had in sociology that said that the opinions and predictions of the public as a whole are many times more accurate than the experts and statistians. I hope he wasn’t exercising his lungs. I think it is nothing short of a miracle that the Russians have shown the world by holding the Germans, and it looks like they are going to do even more than that. Occasionally I can’t help but imagine how I would act under fire and when I do. I always think of the guys that are going down and who in the future will be probably little more than another number on the casualty list. If, when I am a citizen and civilian again, I don’t add my little squeak, no matter how small it is, to try to avert future wars like this, then I and anyone has no right to be a citizen. When you stop and retrospect and try to figure the situation out and relate it to what we think of as a civilized people, it all becomes very contrary to reason and senseless. Perhaps these things are getting like a custom or an unbreakable habit. Well I could go on for quite a few paragraphs in this manner, and at the same time get madder and madder but you might think I am developing into (a) pessimist or something like that—but that is far from the truth. Everyone should practice more reason and rely less on his guts. Maybe this letter does reflect a little of the bluer but if you stop to think about it, I don’t think that it does. I believe that anyone that thinks about it becomes wiser for the better and to a better advantage than the one who forms his ideas from the surface. Of course we have to be tough and relentless now, but the time that is spent creating the circumstances for these wars is many times more important than a year or two of fighting. As I see it the whole world must be ready to adopt and draft a new set of laws regarding dependency and relationship that heretofore were based on conceptions of isolation and dominance. I cannot honestly see how anyone can deny that. Perhaps few will theoretically but practically, many. My personal outlook is bright and I never for a minute feel that everything is dismal and hopeless. I hope you will believe that.

Since I came back from pass I haven’t heard from Dick and I’m beginning to feel a little anxious, but then maybe he’s just more delinquent than anything else. I wrote to him but as yet no answer.

The pictures I thought I’d stick in for the album. The group one is in front of the ‘office’. The Regimental CO is stepping out of the door. It was posed—I think the ‘old man’ has a propensity for his picture being taken.

I don’t know how I’m going to get a start for this sheet but I guess I’ve said about enough anyway. I think of how hot it must be at home, how it feels to get out in the sun awhile. Here it is about the same all the time and the seasons don’t have the meaning that they do there. I have to stop and remember just what season you are going through. The climate is absolutely the best I ever ran into. The evenings are perfect to sleep; the days never get too hot and there is very seldom any fog or any amount of rain to complain about. Of course not all of the island is so lucky as we are.

Well, it’s about time for the last bugle and they might miss me at bed check. So long for a while.

Love,

22 April 1943

Dearest Folks:

Just put up the blackouts and now lounging around putting in time on another enemy that is so beautiful that I can hardly think of war. Two letters came today, one from Gram and the other from Nancy, both welcome and read over many times. V-mail is dependable and regular but ordinary mail arrives in batches and usually pretty old. I have to think twice to recall that it is spring at home and that summer is not far off but even here the nights are naturally warmer and the mosquitoes more and hungrier. Right now Harry James is on the air preceded by the news. The news broadcasts are very popular in our billet and in one end we have a large map to keep us geographically posted. The progress and end of the war is subjected to many diverse and peremptory arguments but I would share the optimistic opinion of so many of them. Of course I am well as always and in a great state of morale and consider myself lucky to share the conveniences we do have. I will answer Nancy’s letter soon and thank her very much for it. I guess it’s goodnite now.

Love,

26 March 1943

Dearest Folks:

I have just finished cleaning up for inspection tomorrow and now perhaps I can write you a something of words before I go to bed. I’m glad you received the things and that you really liked them. I will send the hat in a few days and can get a box made for it. I was interested in your bridge game. We play considerable but we lack plenty of know-how and technique. Besides the movies that is almost the only thing I do in the evenings. I have been listening to the radio for some time tonight. Kate Smith and now Al Jolson and Monte Washington, the radio is pretty moody and to hear it without a lot of interruption is pretty relaxing. I had a nice letter from Gram last week-very sweet. I will answer it tonight.

Next week I plan to grab my camera and hike into the hills and see some things I have been wanting to see for a long time.

I guess I will exit for now—not much of a letter. I think about you all the time and more and more things crop up that reveal so many memories also. Will never forget.

Love,

11 February 1943

Dear Folks:

Here it is another evening about through and no letter to you yet. There isn’t anyone around just now so maybe I can get the job done. Last night was the regular meeting and the time when the local talent gets up and does their song and dance. But last night there was something especially interesting—anyway it was for me. One of the officers has a powerful short wave radio and he brought it along to listen to a nightly broadcast direct from Tokyo. Since Guadalcanal has fallen into our hands it was especially revealing and contained the usual abundance of propaganda. Perhaps you would be interested in a few of the minor details. In the first place the announcer had a very good command of English and aside from the announcement and the tainted propaganda it sounded like any state station. Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of the Emperors and subsequently the broadcast was full of the glory and promising future of the Nipponese. On the capture of Guadalcanal he said our losses in ships amounted to 117 (177?) while the Japs lost only 17. Among our casualties, they gave 7 aircraft carriers. The whole text was full of the invincibility of their forces. What was equally interesting was a short program of transcriptions made by American war prisoners and broadcast to relatives back home. The prisoner’s voices and the context sounded very much like a well worn set of phrases. In all cases they were entirely happy and talked of the splendid treatment from the Jap forces. Among other things the announcer orated on the happiness of the people relieved from British oppression, the poor job an American representative did of explaining our lack of success to the House of Representatives, and the great advances made in controlled territory. At the end of the broadcast he reiterated the Japs promise of complete domination over Anglo-Saxon peoples and lands everywhere. I was very interested in the whole program and finally had a first hand chance to hear some of their fantastic baloney. A little later, ironically, I returned to my billet and heard the US version of the fight and a stranger or anyone unknown to the action could never have guessed they were both on the same topic. Well so much from the mouths of Tojo’s hopheads.

I hope by this time you have received the small gifts I sent some time ago, and I’ll get the others that you wanted soon.

I hate to stop here because every time I write I feel like it’s sort of gas stove chat, but tonight I can’t find much to talk about. Instead of talking I’d like to sit down and work on the mountain of popcorn that was so frequent at home and the apple supply that never diminished. Believe it or not, our household conventions during the winter are what always stand out more vividly than anything else when I get to thinking what makes a home more than walls and a roof.

I guess I’ll have to shut off the faucet here—

Love,