U.S Army
17 Jan 46
Dear Family,
We finished our processing last Thursday.
On Monday we started training. We fired rifles that were
issued to us for our stay here, and also had some classes on safe- guarding military information, and walking guard duty.
On Tuesday we had a road march and learned something
about the military government. We also learned the
location of military divisions in Germany. Tuesday
night all the replacements whose last names begin
with A-D turned in their rifles and bayonets.1 On
Wednesday we signed a document which was read to us
that concerned going AWOL. We were put on the
alert for shipment to a P.O.E.,2 so an AWOL would be
classified as a deserter now. We transferred to another
platoon in the same company.
We had one shot Wednesday morning, for what
I do not know. We will carry our combat packs on our. backs and carry our cargo packs, in which we will have our personal items, a raincoat, and a towel. We had a sudden 4-inch
snow last night, but this morning the sun came out and it is warming up.
18 Jan 46
This morning we are having a C&E (Clothing &
Equipment) inspection and perhaps a colonel will do the inspecting. We have a display of all our GI equipment on the floor and all our clothing on the bed. We ought to ship within 24 hours, because men aren't alerted until their orders come down.
Incidently, my upper left wisdom tooth has broken through the gum on one side, however, it doesn't bother me at all.
I saw "Spellbound," with Gregory Peck and Ingrid
1 Some of this training involving rifles, etc., doesn't seem to be quite in touch with the fact that the war is over.
2 POE = Point of Embarkation. We know that after Camp Pickett, Stewart was sent to Camp Kilmer, NJ before getting on a ship bound for Europe. This letter could be from Camp Kilmer: this reference to a POE and to the 4-inches of snow in the next paragraph suggest maybe it is.
Bergman last Saturday night.3 I received Mother's letter of the 16th, and of course Dad's a few days ago. I received a letter from Becky too. I wrote to her when I was waiting in Tyler, Texas for the bus on 20 Dec.
I hope the piece of glass in mother's eye doesn't cause any serious consequences.4
We got new field jackets, overcoats, woolen underwear, new flannel shirts with larger sleeves. We got new packs, handkerchiefs and a tie.
We sent. off our duffle bags this afternoon,
3 This is one of Alfred Hitchcock's more famous movies. Starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman, it is a psychological thriller, in which Bergman plays a psychiatrist and Peck is both her lover and patient. He is dealing with a suppressed childhood trauma which has rendered him an amnesiac and also potentially violent.
4 I have no memory of what this was about or how it happened. Whatever it was, I don't think it caused any permanent damage.
so we don't have a thing left to do.5
Your son, Stewart
P. .S. The sun is shining brightly and the sow is melting fast.
5 The next letter after this one from Stewart is from Germany, a month from now. It is all about his assignment there, so we have nothing in his letters about his boat trip to Germany. However, in my interviews with him in 2007, which became Remembering ...with my brother Stewart; In Honor of his 80th Birthday (Dummerston: June 25, 2007) he did talk about his trip to Germany:
"That trip (overseas) was really a revelation. It was an Army troop ship. It wasn't the Navy--the Army owned these troop ships. They were just cargo freighters that had been converted so they could put 2000 people on them. It was as many people as the Queen Mary carried, but a much smaller ship because they stacked up the bunks about five high in the hold and there wasn't that much space between them. But just think--they had to have enough food for ten days for that many people on a little ship like that. It was a revelation to me because it was cold when we left in January; but when we got out to the Gulf Stream it turned to summer. It was a direct experience of what the Gulf Stream is. They put out a little newspaper that told how many miles they had come the previous day. We were all by ourselves. We weren't in a convoy. We were just a little ship by ourselves--they didn't have to worry about submarines, the war was over. It was an experience to see what wildlife there was. Birds and things---would follow us, garbage was thrown overboard. I did get seasick. It didn't do any good to take seasick pills unless you took them before you got sick. But you got over it, and once you were over it, you were okay the rest of that voyage. There were no tables. You stood at something to eat. And the ship would roll. They had showers, but it was salt water. You had to use special soap because regular soap doesn't lather in salt water. It was interesting to be on deck--and you could be wherever you wanted to be during the day. We got into some heavy weather. The keel was numbered from the bottom up several feet, when the weather was rough, the prow would go so low it seemed to be at the water's edge, and then when it came up, the keel came out of the water. But it was a sea- worthy vessel I guess. We landed at Le Havre, FR. We took a train across France into Germany. The first night in Germany was at a Hitler Youth Camp. It was a newer installation but very stark and spare. There were straw ticks on the beds and nothing else. We just stayed there one night. People ended up in different places. I was sent to Homberg."
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