WW2 Chapter 62 - Hospital (Part 1)

Letter of January 19

1/19/45

Dear Dad,

    Am no longer on the front lines – have been sent to the rear for the first time since we landed. However, there seems to be much work to do here.

    It’s wonderful to be clean – to no longer be “sleeping” in all that mud and rain; or digging that goddamn foxhole every night. There isn’t that constant fear of some Jap shooting your way – or of a counter-attack at night. No guard to stand – where one’s imagination can do strange things with shadows and sounds.

    One of the men described this fighting quite accurately when he said – “taking each ridge is like making a beachhead;” – just one machine gun on the opposite ridge – placed to fire into the draw, can hold up an entire battalion.

     To me, the most unpleasant job was to carry our own dead – a man you saw alive and talked to you just a short while ago.

    In returning, was surprised to find that electric lights had been installed most everywhere – vehicles were driving at night with lights; open-air theatres, radios – you wouldn’t know that there was a war – back here. Areas that we fought for – that were so overgrown it was necessary to clear in order to give us at least a limited field-of-fire, have grown into “cities” – the old area practically impossible to recognize.

    Been getting better food here, too – had my first piece of pie the other day – and cake yesterday.

Much love,

Franklin