Final Stewart Letter #32

Letter #32***************************** FIFTEENTH ENGINEER COMBAT BATTALION 25 November 1946 (1)*************************************************** Dear Mother: My hopes of getting home for Christmas seem pretty dim, although I will probably be on the high seas by then. The 15th Engineer Battalion is to be inactivated on 30 Novem- ber, and we are in quite a turmoil, having to get everything ready to turn in. Most of the men are going to the 1st Engineers Bn in Regensburg, but I am going to a newly formed Labor Service Company here in Augsburg. There will be just 10 Enlisted men and one officer, the Company Commander. He will be one of our officers now here in Battalion Headquarters, and all the men are here in H/S Company. The July segment left the 14th, and on Saturday the 23rd Division Hq. called to get the no. of men we had who are eligible to go on the next shipment. That means that in approximately 10 days the date for our arrival in Bremerhaven will be set. However, unless the port is empty by then, we will not be likely to leave soon enough to get to the States before Christmas, because the trip from Bremerhaven takes a couple more days than from Le Havre, and it took me ten days to get to Le Havre from New York, although the normal time is 8 days. Then another 48 hours in a reception center at New York Port of Debarkation. However, if I don't make it, don't feel too bad about it, for there are lots of fellows, younger than myself, who will have. to spend more than just Christmas over here, although, of course, it was their own, and maybe their parents' decision too, to sign for three years. **************************26 November 1946 My roommate who works in the Division Engineer's office over at Division Headquarters talked to an officer in G-1 this morning, and he told him that there were about 30 Enlisted Men due to go on the next shipment, but that they might be held up because they are transferring to other units, so it turned out that Div. called up and said to transfer those men to the 9th Med. Bn, which is in the Special Troops Kaserne, and they are due to send their August men to Bremerhaven very soon. I will keep you informed of my progress, although, of course, not all my mail will get there before I do. Don't expect too much of the Army's transportation system, however.************************************************** Your loving son, Stewart (2) *********************************************************NOTES: (1) This is the last letter from Stewart during his time in the Army. So this letter will end this series which began back in March 15, 1944 (cf . my blog, June 13, 2019). The series actually began before he went into the service when he was writing dad his thoughts about what he would do after graduating from high school. (2) I have more information about this time in a folder that Becky salvaged from the house in Elgin. There are also Stewart's reminiscences about the trip home in the booklet I published, Remembering With My Brother Stewart (2009). I will add those to this letter. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EXCERPT FROM STEWART'S REMINISCENCES: LARRY: So, you went to Bremerhaven.... STEWART: I remember at Bremerhaven there was the longest line I'd ever seen for a mess hall. It was two blocks long. I had all my stuff in my duffle bag so I dragged it, and it wore a slit in the bag. So we got a ship there... LARRY: Was that a bigger ship? STEWART: I don't think it was. I recall on the way home there was a piano that people had tried to take apart so they had put a guard on it to arrest anyone who touched it. So I went by it one day and I did touch it--there were some loose keys on the keyboard and I picked one of them up and ran it across the keys or maybe the strings inside, and so he arrested me and I was put in the brig, and I had just gotten off KP so I went to sleep, and in the morning an officer interviewed me and I guess they wanted to see if I had any weapons, so I had to show what was in my pockets, and I had this combination knife which dad had gotten in France and given to me, and I told him my father was a chaplain and had been in France and had given it to me, and that sort of impressed him, so anyway there was no further discipline, I hadn't really done anything wrong. I got seasick on that trip too but when I was on KP somehow I recovered from the seasickness and I was ok for the rest of the voyage; just doing something helped. When I got back to the U.S. I could not believe what had happened to prices. Inflation had started as soon as the war was over. LARRY: Where did you come in? STEWART: I don't remember. NJ, NY I don't remember. LARRY: This was 194? You went over... STEWART: It was December of 1946. LARRY: So you were in Germany for just one year.. STEWART: Eleven months. LARRY: So we were in Anamosa. We had moved to Anamosa the summer you were in Germany. STEWART: Sure...when I came back, I came to Chicago and then got something to Iowa, and I guess I knew the street and I was walking up the street and I went past the walk that went up to the parsonage because I didn't know exactly where it was, and mother saw me going by and became hysterical--she thought I was going to miss the house.

A photo I found online of the staging area and mess hall in Bremerhaven as it was in 1946. This may be the place Stewart refers to above.