Campaign Map: December 5, 1944 to May 5, 1945

December 15, 1944 Friday

MUD in Germany 1944

John Florea—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Somewhere in France
[V-Mail]

Dearest Honey,

As you can see, writing is now a major problem for all of us; mainly because our muddy old outdoor life just doesn’t give us a chance. Along with a few million other G.I.s I am now qualified to write an opus on mud, its mental and physical effects. I am out of it for a spell now, so I’ll let you know that I still love you and am thinking of you as always. Have all the faith in the world in that, even if I do not write, Hon. Your letters come thru intermittently and are received with great shouting and rejoicing.

The “Stars and Stripes” tells me there is a shortage of cigarettes in the states, but if it’s any comfort to you, we men over here are getting plenty. We had been short, but now they heap them on to us. They are giving me bad habits—presenting me with more than I have ever used before, and what can I do but smoke them? Send my love to all, Hon, after you have taken what you want.

All yours,

Wallace.

December 3, 1944 Sunday

Somewhere in France

[V-Mail]

Dearest Marjorie,

I am very sorry that I am not writing as often as I have been. Please forgive me, I’ll write just as often as I can always, you know.

I slept at the home of a French villager the other night, and he dragged out from under a pile of straw a bottle of champagne he had hidden during the occupation. It was the best I have ever had—really wonderful. He said it was the last in town; the Germans took the rest.

Had the thrilling experience of capturing a couple of A.W.O.L. soldiers at the point of my trusty carbine the other day. They were hiding out in an old house in the woods. We found the house, threw a guard around it and let them walk into our trap. It was really very simple, but I felt like Dick Tracy, nevertheless.

I have been reviewing your letters and devour every one. I hope they will continue to come as well, even if I can’t return them all. They are wonderful, Honey, and are the high points of my days. If I don’t get a chance to write the folks, will you give them my love, etc.? I am fine, and not furiously busy—just looking after things that don’t stop at sundown—seldom get to a place where you can sit down and write. Have all the faith in the world now, Honey. I love you more than a thousand V-mails could say.

Always all yours,

Wallace.

December 3, 1944 V-mail

November 26, 1944 Sunday

Somewhere in France

Dearest Marjorie,

Yesterday I received two Xmas packages from Laura and Justin. They contained many little things that look good over here. Candy, cigarettes, socks, 3 books (one a fine collection of poems) and a plum pudding. I promptly proceeded to make myself sick on the chocolate covered almonds—“comme un petit,” says Simone, my bucksome [sic], motherly lady of the house. She and I have a lot of fun together—she is learning English and I, French. She is also very nice about pressing clothes and sewing on buttons. She is something like a fattened up edition of Aunt Nettie. From Le Havre, originally, and quite interesting.

As you know, so many things are going on that I am likely to lose track of them in the future I am considering jotting down a few notes of what I do each day to serve as a stimulus for my memory. I will send them to you for holding if I can. Also I have now quite a lot of souvenir money from England, France and some other European countries. I can only send the equivalent of one dollar in a letter at a time, but I think I’ll start sending it on to you. I only had a little until one day at a newsstand I showed an interest in the now uncommon 50 centimes piece. The newsstand owner said that if I returned, I could get some German money. I did, and they gave me an envelope full of coins of all countries and ages. That made my collection large enough to start sending home. If you get some letters with only coins or unreadable notes, don’t be shocked—I write as often as I can but I can see that it won’t be possible nearly as often as I’d like to.

Not much mail is coming thru right now, but I feel that there is plenty on the way. In any event, that is not as important as knowing you are there. Honest, Honey, I can’t imagine what a single soldier has to fight for—they do get very lonely and most of them plan marriage right after the war. I do pity the ones that don’t have a girl in mind, and it makes me very contented to remind myself that I am already married and have someone who really cares. I have never been more glad I married you than since I have been so far away. I tell myself that I have at least made one good decision in my life. Maybe I’ve messed up a lot of things, but marrying you was the right thing from the very start. Please, Bunny, so not the sparsity or shortness of my letters make you feel that I have changed at all. I haven’t. And do not forget that I think of you every day—every time I am alone, whenever I see a star or phase of the moon that you might be seeing too, each time I go to bed, or when something interesting comes up I’d like to tell you about. Like just now—Simone brought in some French coffee (black & sweet) and some of the French pastry we vainly sought in New Orleans. They were very good.

Well, it’s time for bed now. Good nite, my honey.

Love,

Wallace.

November 23, 1943 [sic] Thursday

Somewhere In France

Dear Honey,

Your wandering husband is really putting in some busy days now—but it’s duties that I like and that are excellent experience. Since I last wrote I have achieved the impossible, namely, to get a man acquitted in a court martial. As defense council, I made it impossible for them to pin even “drunk & disorderly” on an original charge that carried a 5 year sentence and a dishonorable discharge. Do you mind if I brag about it to you only? It’s the first court martial acquittal I’ve ever seen, and my first case as chief defense council. I have been ass’t defense council several times tho, you know.

Thanksgiving today—did you have a big meal at the Russell’s? I hope so. We didn’t have an official day off, but C Company, revelling in new independence from Battalion, took a holiday. I, however, a Special Service Officer ran around to get a movie to show in the local school house—(guess what, it was “Christmas Holiday”), and as PX Officer I went to battalion to get our weekly ration—tomorrow I will set up a PX for C Company in the local café.

I would very much like to see the movie “Wilson” that you praise so highly. I have always been interested in him, and once when I was in high school had an idea of writing something about him. I never did decide whether it would be a play or a biography, so you can see how far I got. But there was a theme there, and even now it seems that his life and death provide material for a perfect tragedy. His lofty ideals, gigantic efforts and ultimate failure and death make an excellent study. What will happen after this war, I don’t know. It will not result in Utopia, I know that. It will be a grim place maintained by force and run for and by a certain group of nations. It may well result in a new version of a “Pax Romana,” but I am skeptical of the possibility of any peace based on the mutual agreement of all people. Things are not shaping that way at all now. However, a sort of world machinery of government may be developed which, altho not based on mutual agreement, might conceivably be the basis of such a world government in time. A world tyranny might evolve into a world democracy.

Recently you mentioned wanting to do work for returning wounded veterans, or at least thinking about it. Such services are an excellent thing, and offer a chance to perform a real duty that is quite different from that of the flag-waving female who thinks she can win the war by wearing a uniform. Before you do anything, tho, I can warn you that it would not always be pleasant work. You would perhaps be working with the badly maladjusted cases. I have seen plenty of cases not considered bad enough for special treatment, that really made me hesitate. I think it would be a chance to help people, Hon, and I’d be proud to have you in it. Do not think it would consist of playing waltzes for a group of Sunday School boys, tho. Rehabilitation is not just another word for a furlough—many men need to be civilized all over again. I can understand your wanting to do something, Honey, and have been a little worried at times because you did have such a long time before KTC could enter the picture. Some work like that might get you into a new circle of lively friends and be the best way to keep your horizons broadening. Maybe because I want to study myself, I have overstressed the importance of school to you. There are a thousand other ways of getting an education, and any of these you might pick to work hard at would be fine as far as I’m concerned. It’s the stimulation to life you get that is important. The thing I would dislike most is to have you become intrenched in the petty, housewifely routine of Keene women. By overlooking a few earthy good points, I can say that the “grapevine” represents the height of pettiness, conventionalism, futility, and sophistry. It could be pictured as the personification of what we are fighting against. Do not be afraid to leave it and rise above it. They feel the have the world wrapped in cellophane, when actually it’s so big you can’t even get a string around it.

Naturally taking care of Grammy holds you to Keene physically to some degree. But geography isn’t the main thing that molds people, it’s their attitude towards it. I have no doubt that Miss Ackerman knows well how to be in Keene, and yet above it. She might be a good person to seek advice from when responsibility and loneliness come creeping up. She has had both for years and seems to have won over them. As for Grammie, it is necessary to be ready for anything. Plan now what you will do, and be mentally ready. When I think of death, I think of the phrase “This is not the end.” Death has a very final appearance, but it is not the end of things. All the good things you love people for go on forever and are immortal. Truth and love and humanity keep springing up and continuing on. Thoughts you have will be thought again and eventually become realities; and will make bodies and minds exactly like yours happy and harmonious. The discordant things you feel with be felt again and again until some lucky body discovers a way to bring that feeling into perfect tune with eternal reality and there will be no more discord.

Every person needs someone to lean on; a person alone does find death to be the end of everything. The thing you lean on in other people is spiritual, however; so remember, honey, you can always lean on me and I am always with you. You are not alone. I love you as I have always, and am close to you even know.

With all my love,

Wallace.

November 19, 1944 Sunday

Somewhere in France

Dearest Sherlock,

Your letter of the 31st of October has just reached me – the letter in which you wrote about the country around Salisbury. Since I am now longer in that country, even, I can tell you that you were “right in every particular” (as old Grandsir John used to say). The places and towns you wrote about are quite familiar to me, and I am very glad that you, too, know about them now. I think from your letter that you can see how thrilling it was for me to be actually in that country. In your list of towns you not mention the little village of Tidworth.

I did not get to visit the cathedral at Winchester, tho I did come near it, and the skipper on “my” LST said that he had been there and was quite impressed.

Your sketch of the Salisbury cathedral is perfect. I can show you on it just how I went through the place. It was really very striking and awe-inspiring. I do hope Miss Ackerman can use the Stonehenge pamphlet – actually Stonehenge wasn’t 25 miles away, I cheated on that because I couldn’t imagine describing it without naming it!

And now, here I am or here we are with another whole country to assimilate just as we get together on the other. And I have so much to tell you, Honey. I have so much to tell and perhaps you can “Sherlock” the rest as you did in England.

Our trip over was very comfortable – at least for my crew. We came with the vehicles. The rest of the outfit came in other boats for personnel – fast and crowded and uncomfortable. We took quite a few days, set some time at anchor outside the harbor, lived in excellent quarters, ate well, and were not crowded. Moreover we came to a camp all set up by the time we arrived after a long convoy from the port.

I have told you in a V-mail letter how we lived in pup-tents, except for the officers, and how I lived with Mme. Legrand for a few days. I don’t believe I mentioned that at long last we have caught up with Gino Forchielli. It was good to see him again. Now, with Olevine’s replacement, 1st Lt. John Trusley of Tennessee, our officers’ staff is complete for once.

Now the picture has changed completely again. The company has moved about 15 kilometers to a small town. We have the whole town in which to billet our company. Our mess hall is in the rear end of the local café, the 1st and 2nd platoons are billeted out here at the largest farm in town – about a kilometer from the church. The other platoons and sections are separate in other farms. This wide dispersion makes a unique situation that I like. It makes Lt. Fairbairn a small dictator in town – there are about equal number of civilians and C Company men. It makes we platoon leaders quite responsible. We make our own platoon schedules and devise our own training. We look after our own billets and guards. For the first time my platoon is a unit by itself, unfettered by a larger unit right nearby. We have to take our half-tracks to get to chow!

Lt. Forchielli and I live together in a big room of the excellent main house of the estate on which both our platoons are billeted. It is by far the best quarters we have had this side of the Atlantic. The men are in lofts and barns nearby.

In England, historical places and big events caught your attention. Here it seems to be a country of small people and everyday life. Peasants working as they have done for years, following customs and living very much to themselves. They are not conscious of their antiquity as are the English, but their life is full of tradition, and much more “human” than I found life in England. I have become the company “interpreter” and so have had a lot of chances to get acquainted with the French people. The mayor and his “assistant” are great friends of mine, and many others. They are extremely warm and friendly and expressive. I have no trouble understanding them and am getting more fluent every day. I shake hands, wave them when I talk, exclaim “en effet” or “oui, oui, oui” with the best of them. They like to talk to me and get a kick out of my French, which is understandable but a bit weird in spots.

Today I looked after such things as these. I told a man with a machine for making cognac, not to sell or give any to “C” company men during the day. I arranged for a detail to attend a funeral for a French soldier tomorrow. I began diplomatic relations with the café owner, and tested his Calvados. Same for the owner of this estate. He is an only son, and rich. He treated me politely, and we had a fine talk – but I think he will require a little handling before I get him in line. It’s understandable why he isn’t enthusiastic for 200 men to take over his farm, but the other people realize the necessity and willingly give all they can. He is a little too rich for that. That is the trouble with being rich. “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” This rich man is the first person I have met in France that I didn’t like at once. He is too busy staying rich to be friendly.

Well, I cannot tell you everything in one letter, I can see that. It’s late already. I have much more to tell you, tho, Honey, so I’ll write again just as soon as I can. I cannot tell you how much I love you and how much I appreciate your wonderful letters. They mean everything to me. Be strong, Bunny, I love you very much.

Your Wallace

November 17, 1944 Friday

Dearest Honey,

Am I having fun speaking French, and getting acquainted with the French people. I am with my platoon all day, but each night I go to the local café to talk with the owner, M. André Boust and drink his excellent cider. I come back early and talk with Mme. Le Grand Legrand, and then O’Brien and I sit by her fire and write to “nos femmes.” Her husband is a prisoner of the Germans and she can write only 25 words a month to him. I think I will continue to go to the same café and gain their friendship. Then I may learn more of real French village life.

I got a letter today! Dated November 1 – wonderful to hear from you again. V-mail is all we are getting now. It is ever so much faster than regular mail.

I live in a typical French home – thatched roof in part, but mostly “en adois” – like slate, and made of a sort of stucco (argil). It is over 100 years old and the family has lived in it for many generations. Lamps are the only light. There are apple trees in the yard, and several hens that run all over, including my room! Generally it is very much as we studied in school – Miss Thomson was right! They even have a “market day” and Mme. Legrand walked 5 kilometers in the rain to buy some meat. They all have stories of the occupation to tell. It’s a big experience for me – wish only that we could share it better.

All my love,
Wallace