April 9, 1942 - Dear Audrey
I didn't even say anything with my eyes.
Battery H is sort of a handyman outfit – all kinds of guns involved. Forty men and some don't know left from right made me laugh. He really did luck out. But I don’t want to bury the lead – there’s an outbreak of measles!!! There is no vaccine. That won’t be available until 1963 so this is very serious although Dad doesn't seem to think so. He’s not sick. Coffee seems to be a bigger problem and chow is a new experience and a new word. I’m worried for Mom though, driving back and forth in a Packard, from Fort Banks to Hartford, Connecticut on those tires. Tires are on the ration list. Good luck finding new or even good used ones. GD (god damn) Vicky. GD is an abbreviation that’ll be used a lot.
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Original Letter
Transcript follows:
Big Guns
Here's more on the big guns. Just one minor criticism, the Army didn't fire big guns "at" Fort Ruckman but "from" Fort Ruckman "in" Nahant". Pictures are from a book on Fort Ruckman I purchased by Captain Gerald Butler. Reminder, Dad's Battery H still at Fort Banks. These two forts are close together on a map.
The Boston Globe - Evening Edition, April 9, 1942
Today, April 9, 1942 marks the start of the Bataan Death March - just horrendous. The forcible transfer of 36,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war by the Imperial Japanese Army. It followed the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, after months of intense fighting and starvation-level conditions. The Allies couldn't get there in time. The Japanese military was unprepared to handle such a large number of prisoners and operated under harsh wartime doctrines. The Japanese considered surrender as dishonorable. Japan was convicted of war crimes for this. Reading this news as a new Army private has to be unnerving.
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Transcript April 9th, 1942
Btry H – 9th C.A., Fort Banks
Dear Audrey,
I've just got another letter from you and I guess I've got all of them. Your cigars were slightly damaged but okay. That Uncle of mine is not rich. It was just his conscience bothering him. He would have liked to get the Packard and still would I suppose. But as long as we can see our way to keep it, we might as well. I have a little money left over and so you don't have to worry about that.
I don't think you had better plan on coming up here for a little while. There is an epidemic of measles going through the camp and if they have many more cases, they will quarantine the whole camp. That is no passes issued and maybe no visitors. They had another case in the barracks beside us this morning. Of course, it is not as serious as they try to make it out but you shouldn’t plan anything now. Besides I can always go sleep with the Colonel's wife if I get too cold. I haven’t as of yet but I'm getting hungry.
The coffee they give is terrible and every time I have a cup, I think of what wonderful coffee you make. When you say I must be quite a soldier by now you are wrong. In my Battery there are 40 men and so far some of them still don't know right from left. Half the platoon goes to the left and the other half stumbles and falls down. This morning they had us up in the gun pits drilling on the big mortars. Boy, those guns are real big. It takes 14 men to fire them and that’s only firing them. There must be twenty or thirty more men plotting course of the shell and in the ammunition rooms. It is interesting to learn but it is fairly simple and so it is apt to become tiresome when one does one thing and only one thing.
I guess Battery H is sort of a handyman outfit. After these big guns we have to learn machine guns and the rifle. I took my rifle apart last night and had quite a job getting it back. Still works though. If there any riots or dangerous spots in N.E, the 9th C.A. is called out as the infantry and then we are an artillery unit if there are ships in the harbor. So it is supposed to be a handpicked outfit. Sounds good but anything is good or interesting when it is new.
Write me and tell me when Tony gets his first pass. If it is after the 26th, it will be after my basic training is over and then I will be eligible for a pass too. Of course, I have to take my turn with everyone else and it might take 3 days for my pass or it might take 3 weeks. Do you understand that or is it too confusing. A lot of other things coming into it too. Like my position on a gun crew.
We have just come back from chow. Which is another Army expression that we get used to. They blow the bugle and then in a few seconds a whistle and then I run like hell for chow. By the way, they are always blowing that bugle for something or other. For reveille or retreat or something. As I said before I have someone to think for me now. They tell me when to get up when to go to bed, whether or not my clothes fit or not, and whether or not I am sick or well.
Today an officer tried to tell me that I was proud to be in the U.S. Army and I said nothing. I didn't even say anything with my eyes. Half of these officers didn't even go to high school and here they are. Oh well, you can’t say anything. That is if you have any common sense at all. It could make life so miserable that you would wish you were dead. In a way I suppose they have to be tough to teach anything. But don't worry about me, I'll keep my mouth shut and get along.
This fort has a very good reputation for treating men well and so I am lucky and also I hate to think of being sent to some other place. By the way, the spare tire on the car is not too reliable. Its side wall has been broken and has to be vulcanized. If you have a flat don't run too long on it. Well, we have to fall out for some more drills so I'll finish. Remember me to Vicky.
Love, Joe
xxxxxxxxx
Next letter April 13, 1942
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