February 18, 1944 Friday

Dear Honey,

Busy Friday again, but thanks to the fact that we have to spend two hours in the study hall, I can write you. Actually, I have more to do than any ten men should have, but here we all sit, getting ready to dash at 9:30.

We turned in our M1 rifles today and were issued Springfields. That gives us time with all the infantry rifles – Enfields, M1 and Springfield. I had a Springfield the first two years at UNH and most of the time at Wheeler, so it’s an old friend to me. BUT, they have a great deal of cosmoline on them to be cleaned off before tomorrow. Cosmoline is a very heavy grease and tears the heart out of every soldier who has to take it off a rifle. This is all in addition to the regular Friday madhouse of window washing, dusting, shoe-shining, equipment cleaning, etc., etc. However, I am all oer the sickish feeling I had yesterday. Just too fantastically tought to catch cold, that’s all.

Tomorrow will be a great day, as will the first 3 days of next week. We do serious firing of tank-mounted weapons. We have fired the Cal. 50 M.G. from tanks, but that just sticks up on top and is used for anti-aircraft. Now we go down into the tank itself where you sit feeling like another piece of machinery, surrounded by knobs and dials and brakes and heavy armor, and fire the basic tank weapons – the 30 Cal. M.G.’s and the 75 mm cannon. It is just what we need to give us confidence. Right now I feel a little awed by all the miraculous gadgets we use. We have not studied them long enough for me to get real at home with them. I hope practice puts me in the groove. We infantry men are used to firing one weapon at a time. Here we get a whole slew of them and a thousand auxiliary units – stabilizers, traversing mechanisms, generators, quadrants, charts, new periscopic telescope sights. It’s all as clear as mud right now.

Today we had crew drill on tanks. More fun scampering into position. Feel very much like an athletic team. You fall in in front of the tank and take positions in the tank rapidly in a certain way. Then hook up the inter-phone (a telephone system in the tank) and report. Then spent time on a terrain board doing fire problems.

Bye, honey, don’t best your bridge opponents too much, and remember I love you.

Always yours,
Wallace