Buster’S Book: Family Voices to and from the Front, Wwi, Wwii, Korea, and Vietnam

By Donald Junkins

Providing insight in a familys history against the backdrop of major world wars, Busters Book offers a collection of more than a thousand letters exchanged during the twentieth century as young men provided service to their country.

In this memoir, author Donald Junkins has compiled letters, diaries, interviews, recollections, and photographs of the familys participants in both world wars and the Korean and Vietnam wars. This fascinating historical record includes the stories of a variety of escapades: from single-handedly opening an eight-year-old Nazi prison camp; to B-24 air forays from New Guinea in which an aerial gunner shot down two Japanese Zero planes; and to the rescue in Korea of wounded men stalled in a jeep in the middle of a freezing river that culminated in the awarding of the Silver Star.

Busters Book reflects both the lives of a middle-class American family during these years and the daily activities of two generations of young American men at war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475944440

Donald Junkins

Donald Junkins has published eleven books of poetry and two novels, plus Busters Book: a study of his familys contributions to American wars. He directed the MFA Program at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for ten years and has won three National Endowment of the Arts awards. He also won the New Letters Prize for Poetry.

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Copyright © 2012 by Donald Junkins

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Covers by Kaimei Zheng

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4443-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4444-0 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/31/2012

Table of Contents

List of Photos and Illustrations

Genealogy

Foreward

Preface

INTRODUCTION

Part I

Ralph Chester Junkins, WWI

Part II a

Introduction to Buster

Part II b

Buster Talks of His Experiences in WW II

PART II c

The Day WW II Ended [May 9, 1945]

Part III

Buster’s Overseas Letters, WW II

Part IV

Mama’s Letters to Buster (Evelyn Bernice Keyes Junkins)

Part V

Dad’s WW II Letters to Buster (Ralph Chester Junkins)

Part VI

Letters of Young Brother Donnie to Buster

(Donald Arthur Junkins)

Part VII

Sister Betty’s Letters to Buster (Evelyn Betty Junkins Leck)

Part VIII a

THE WW II Diary of Cousin Robert White,

Part VIII b

INTERVIEW with S/Sergeant Robert W. White

By Kaimei Zheng, Fall, 2004

Part VIII c

Cousin S/Sgt Robert White’s Letters to Buster

Part IX

The Surviving World War II Letters of Cousin Russell Keyes,

Part X

Cousin T5 Ralph Hayward’ Letters to Aunt Evelyn

and Family

Part XI

GRAMMA JUNKINS’ Letters to Buster

(Lillian May White Junkins)

Part XII

Aunt B’s Letters to Buster (Laura Bernice Junkins)

Part XIII

Aunt Marion’s Letters to Buster (Marion Lenore Junkins White)

Part XIV

Aunt Bertha’s Letters to Buster (Bertha Hutchins White)

Part XV

Aunt Esther White’s Letters to Buster

Part XVI

Aunt Hazel’s Letters to Buster

(Hazel Leach Keyes, mother of Russell Keyes)

Part XVII

Aunt Myrtle’s Letters to Buster

(Myrtle Trommer Hayward, Sister of Evelyn Keyes Junkins)

Part XVIII a

The Korean War: Interview with Cousin Col. Charles Hayward

Part XVIII b

The Vietnam War: Interview with Cousin Col. Charles Hayward

Part XIX

ROLAND WINSLOW JUNKINS, 1925-2002

Appendix

WW II Service Record of T-5 Roland W. Junkins

About Liberty magazine

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Roland (Buster) Junkins with brother Don during their return to Germany in 1998.

Acknowledgments

Without Kaimei Zheng’s original research for her Chinese book, Wars in American Soldiers’ Eyes, especially regarding the chapters on Robert White and Charles Hayward, and in discovering the recordings of my original interviews with Buster regarding his war experiences, this book would not have become what it is. Also, without her technical expertise, practical advice, and generous dedication to its final completion, this project could never have been completed. For those and other loving qualities, I and my brother Buster for whom I now speak, are totally grateful.

I wish to also thank the York, Maine Historical Society, especially Cindy Young-Gomes, Eileen Sewall and Virginia Spiller for their help in preparation of some of the materials in this volume, and for former director Scott Stevens’ enormous help during the transition period when my brother Buster’s papers and artifacts were being received and prepared for exhibition and permanent display.

Untold thanks to Kay Wood whose devotion to (she called him) Roland in his last years, and to the preservation of his original manuscripts in the York Historical Library after he died, mean an enormous amount to his surviving family.

List of Photos and Illustrations

1.   Family songs sung around the piano

2.   Buster with Kaimei Zheng in Zellam See, Austria, 1998

3.   Buster’s going away party at Dorr Memorial Church

4.   Ralph Chester Junkins, 1918, Lynn, Massachusetts

5.   Postcard, Jan, 25, 1919, announcing Ralph’s arrival at Devens after WW I

6.   Welcome Home Pin for the 101st Field Artillary, 26th Division

7.   Honor Citation for Wounded WW I veterans

8.   Buster at five months

9.   Family farewell party for Buster at 82 Cleveland Avenue,

10.   Evelyn Junkins with Buster and Betty, 1927

11.   1942 before Buster was drafted

12.   Buster on furlough with Dad, 1944

13.   Buster’s dog tags

14.   Postcard: Hitler exiting Scholszpark Hotel, Friedrichrode

15.   Busload of freed French civilians from Buchenwald concentration camp

16.   Buster with his friend Tom Piech on right. Taken in Le Havre, France on July 4th, 1945

17.   Nazi offficer’s sword

18.   Wine cups and container made from bronze German shell casings

19.   Oct. 1945, Camp Lucky Strike, France. Buster with German POWs and their birthday gifts to him

20.   Buster’s Helmet

21.   Three Trommer sisters: from left, Olive, Myrtle, and Evelyn (Junkins), 1920

22.   Dorr Memorial Church Choir, 1943

23.   Ralph Chester Junkins with Everett White, his brother-in-law, 1918, Pine Hill, Lynn, Massachusetts

24.   Ralph Junkins in Coast Guard Reserve uniform, spring 1944. 82 Cleveland Avenue, Saugus, Massachusetts

25.   Buster’s dad with neighbor Mabel Wormstead, Sept. 1945

26.   Brother Donnie in foreground with brother-in-law Howard Leck, 1944 at Great East Lake

27.   Bob Hamerstrom in front of Baldwin’s house, 1940

28.   Sister Betty with Howie and dog Pickles, backyard of 82 Cleveland Avenue, Saugus, 1942

29.   Betty as a young girl in the backyard of 82 Cleveland Avenue

30.   Robert White, Staff Sgt. US Air Force. After returning from New Guinea, 1944

31.   Bob White and crew, 1943

32.   A B-24 in Bob White’s squadron in New Guinea

33.   Bob White in New Guinea, 1943

34.   Russ Keyes with mother Hazel and father Ray, Tontaquan Avenue, Saugus, 1943

35.   Russ Keyes on horse, Buster in wagon, 1932, North Berwick, Maine

36.   Ralph Hayward, 1944

37.   Junkins family; Grandma Junkins, center, 1947 in the White Mountains near Mt. Chocura, New Hampshire

38.   A wood scene painted by Nell Webber, cousin of Gramma Junkins

39.   From left: Aunt Marion, Gramma, Aunt B, 1944, 118 Ontario Street

40.   Bob White, Aunt Marion, Uncle Everett White, late thirties, Lynn, Massachusetts

41.   Uncle Harry and Aunt Bertha at Great East Lake, 1941

42.   Aunt Bertha with Betty at Great East Lake, 1942

43.   Left: Aunt B (under the lamp shade), Aunt Hazel, Cynthia Hayward, Buster, Donnie, 1943

44.   Myrtle Hayward and Evelyn Junkins, 1920

45.   Charles Hayward, 1950, West Point Military Academy

46.   1st Lt. Charles Hayward, in front of his tank, 1952, Korea

47.   Charles Hayward being promoted to Colonel, Washington, D.C. May, 1968

48.   Buster at the organ in Dorr Memorial Church before he was inducted into the army in 1943

49.   Buster’s Lynn Item front page Bouquet of the Week award

50.   Buster with Leonard Ratchford in Le Havre, France, April 8th, 1946

51.   Hand written explanation by Buster on the back cover of the framed photo of April 5, 1944 Liberty magazine

TO BOB WHITE

and in memory of Russ Keyes

and Ralph and Charlie Hayward

Genealogy

This is a partial family tree that establishes the primary relationships between the participants in Buster’s Book.

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Foreward

By

Donald Junkins

The endearment, the tone, and the remarkable sensibility of my older brother Buster, Roland Winslow Junkins, are all somehow reflected in the three early 20th century songs that follow, which our family sang around the piano when we were young, and were later copied for him late in his life by an unknown person, on a lined, torn-out stenographer’s sheet which I discovered among his loose leaf papers after he died. Any reader who can sing along will be doubly touched.

There’s a long long trail a winding

Into the land of my dreams

Where the Nightingale is singing

And the Soft moon beams

There’s a long long night of waiting

Until my dreams all come true

‘Til the day that I’ll be going

Down that long, long trail with you

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

And Smile, Smile, Smile

Don’t let your frowning

Mar your Spirit boys, that’s the style

What’s the use of worrying

It never was worth while

So pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

And Smile, Smile, Smile.

Johnny get your gun, get your gun

Take it on the run, on the run

Hear them calling you and me

Every son of Liberty

Hurry right away, don’t delay,

Make your Daddy glad to have had such a boy…

[unfinished]

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Preface

By Kaimei Zheng (Wars in American Soldiers’ Eyes, Xinhua Publishing House, China, 2008)

What should I call Buster in terms of Chinese kinship? A husband’s older brother we call Older Uncle. In English we call him Brother-in-law. From the day I met Don I met Buster also. Very tall, wearing glasses and a suit, one hand in his pocket and with a little bit of a belly but standing straight. He had passion, like a minister perhaps but not a confined passion, —very cordial. His language was refined, and he had the composure of a learned person, a scholar, and made you feel warm and appropriate. Buster was six years older than Don.

When Don was young, because of the age difference, they were not very close, but as adults the two brothers became friends. We often went to Buster’s home in Sanbornton, New Hampshire to help him cut wood for his seasonal stove, or repair his old farmhouse. He lived on a 300 year old farm located on the edge of a 100 acre wood forest, including twenty acres of wild high bush blueberries. It was quiet there, a serene place.

Buster never married and lived alone, and he was a well-ordered man who decorated his old farm like an antique museum. Every room had paintings, antiques, and old furniture nicely displayed. He often picked up one of his pieces and explained about it to me, sometimes startling me with the early date of its origin.

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Buster with Kaimei Zheng in Zellam See, Austria, 1998

Sitting on his living room couch, the first things my eyes fastened on were a sword and an old canteen on the wall. He said, This is a weapon used by one of my relatives in the American Civil War. More than once he took out several daggers worn by Nazi officers in WW II, and also showed me a piece of Hitler’s bathtub and a piece of green plastic camouflage from Hitler’s castle in Austria where Buster had been temporarily stationed. With moistening eyes he told me the story of his entering a German concentration camp as a liberator, and again later when he and Don returned to the place of his Rhine River crossing when the Germans held the high ground on the other side. In 1998, in the last stage of his life, we took him back to Germany where he had played the organ in the just bombed church in Binsfeld during the war, and on to Zellam See in Austria where he was last stationed.

I didn’t take notes when he told me WW II stories because I had no idea that I would later write his life story for Chinese readers. In 2002, I only remembered that Don said that he wrote home often during the war and his mother had saved all his letters. Meanwhile, his mother wrote to Buster every day, and after the war Buster carried all his letters home.

When I went through his memorabilia, I saw these letters nicely tied, more than 600, plus his mother’s letters to him, all together more than 1000 letters. Then in 2005 , we unexpectedly found in our closet Buster’s recordings of his war stories. His voice and his face surged into my mind again.

The day he left for the war at the Saugus train station in Dec. 1943, he ran into another draftee he knew named Lawrence Slawenwhite who had three children, who said, You’re 18 and I’m 39, how do you think the army will deal with us? The bullet, however, doesn’t distinguish age. Buster survived and Lawrence was killed soon after reaching the front, in the Battle of the Bulge.

After fifteen weeks of basic training at Camp Blanding in Florida, Buster was sent to a naval port in Maryland where soldiers were lined up on the docks. Everyone got immunization shots and issued numbers for sleeping hammocks. All were about to board when an officer holding a paper called out, At ease, the following men fall out. Buster’s name was called and several 2nd Lieutenants sitting at a table asked them questions.

Buster said, I don’t remember the questions but we were sent to different places. I was sent to the 89th Division and later joined a reconnaissance platoon. I didn’t have any reconnaissance experience and was only a boy, but fortunately I passed their tests and was sent for training to North Carolina. Buster indeed was fortunate because his fellow soldiers who boarded the boat in Maryland were decimated at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. Buster had been saved by the government’s policy of prohibiting 18 year olds from combat.

In January of 1945, Buster finally was on a transport ship moored in Boston harbor and sailed for Europe. He recounted to me his last home furlough for only a few hours before being driven back to North Station in Boston by his mother and father. Buster played the piano and the family sang popular songs as they stood around him. Many years later he often sat down at the piano in our home in Deerfield and the two brothers sang songs for hours.

Buster said to me, My parents must have known that this departure was unusual. At the train station there were thousands of soldiers, so how could they not have known. I decided not to make this sad and said, ‘Bye, I’ll be back tomorrow night,’ and kissed them and turned around and ran into the crowd. I went up to the train and didn’t want anyone to see my tears. Many people were crying.

In these years, this kind of scene with thousands of soldiers departing and saying goodbye to their families happened in the United States at train stations and at departing coastal harbors. Meanwhile, in China, these scenes happened on the village commons and at university gates. One could hear this song:

"The red sun rising in the east,

"The god of freedom is singing.

"Look, mothers are sending sons to kill the Japanese,

Wives are sending husbands to the battlefield.

Buster later wrote, Our ship left Boston Harbor in the dark. The whole fleet was composed of 122 ships. In addition to the troop ships, there were destroyers and other naval vessels forming a long line too far for the eye to see. Buster remembered one day while eating breakfast when suddenly the ship began to shake and he could hear and feel depth charges exploding. He gathered that German submarines were in the vicinity.

Before the 3rd Reich collapsed, this tall and timid young fellow drove a jeep in front of General Patton’s Third Army, on reconnaissance forays. He had sneaked across the Rhine River at midnight, during which trip the motor on the boat failed for several minutes, under the noses of the Germans. He was the first American to open the death lock of a German POW camp where Czechoslovakian prisoners had been held for eight years, along with recent British and Americans. Under the aiming guns of German Tiger tanks he and others retrieved an American soldier’s dead body from a grave on a still occupied German hillside. Later, on his 20th birthday after the surrender, German POW friends gave him flowers and five shiny copper wine cups made from German shells. In the spring of 1946 he was stationed with the occupation Army in Zellam See, Austria where he left for Le Havre, France and home, carrying all the letters he received during the war.

INTRODUCTION

By Donald Junkins

ALL books begin long before their first pages. This book begins in the Scottish Highlands and on the Danish island of Bornholm in the early 17th century, and because what happens in the following pages relates a family story connecting several twentieth century wars, it seems natural that our earliest known Junkins ancestor comes to light in a 17th century religious war in Britain when Oliver Cromwell sailed north to attack David Leslie’s larger Scottish army of undisciplined Highland clansmen hunkered down on the heights of Lammermoor above the coastal plain of Dunbar, just east of Edinburgh.

One Robert Junkins, whose ancestral Scottish surname was recorded in the Brechin Cathedral baptismal records as Jonkine, was born in the nearby town of Careston in the early sixteen hundreds, was inducted into the Scot’s army and captured by Cromwell’s troops in the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. Forced-marched to Durham on an infamous death march during which most of the prisoners died, Robert was shipped further to London, sold into indenture and sent on the ship Unity to America where he worked off his indenture at an iron works in Dover, New Hampshire. He settled in what was known then as Agamenticus, Maine, re-named York when Maine and Massachusetts more than a century later became separate national states in the new American country. The youngest of Robert’s three sons, Daniel, settled on the high ground of a hill called Mount Agamenticus where he farmed and raised a family.

Nine generations later, during WW I, the lone surviving male descendent of Robert’s youngest son Daniel, Buster’s father Ralph, joined the 26th (Yankee) Division of the American Expeditionary Forces in 1916 and fought in the 101st Field Artillery in several major battles in France, was gassed at the Battle of Chateau Thierry and received the Purple Heart. He survived the war, returned home to his job at the General Electric company in the Lynn River Works, rose from the ranks to become the general foreman of the turbine division of the River Works plant and supervised the construction of the turbines that powered the aircraft carriers Wasp and Hornet during the early stages of WW II. Ralph’s letters home to his mother and sisters during WW I begin this book, followed by Buster’s reminiscences of his experiences in WW II, including accounts and key letters, and then follows the letters from a wide range of family members to him while he was in the 89th Division, both early while he was in Basic Training at Camp Blanding, Florida and later when he was in an intelligence unit and drove an advance jeep in Patton’s third army in Germany. The letters from Buster’s mother and father and sister Betty comprise the majority of letters in this volume.

The letters that follow are not intended as a sociological study, but only as a family history. This is the way it was with us as a famiy. Growing up in New England during the late twenties and thirties of the 20th Century, Buster and his older sister and younger brother experienced two about-to-vanish aspects of New England life in those decades, the scarcity of organized sports in the pre high school New England school system (its almost total absence in grammar and junior high schools, and the beginnings of its late arrival in the middle and late forties), and the social influence of the neighborhood church in family life. Buster found work in the newly established neighborhood Co-operative store and cultivated his burgeoning interest in music and the local Methodist church. His older sister Betty also studied the piano and sang in the church choir,and joined the Women’s Army Auxillary Corps before it became part of the regular Women’s Army Corps, at which time she resigned to marry her neighborhood boyfriend. Much younger brother Don became enchanted with sports, mainly football, and prepared for college.

Fields were plentiful throughout our thirties’ neighborhood eight miles north of Boston, only to totally disappear soon after the war’s end in 1945. Personal and often inventive use of after school free time among young people were easily exploited by neighborhood youngsters and teen agers because of the proximity of wooded areas that began to virtually disappear within a few years after the end of WW II because of the housing industry spurred by the return of war veterans. I vividly remember our neighborhood after-school street games such as jump rope, ring-a-leavo, red-light and hop scotch, and small crowds gathering to watch the Blood brothers let their captured blacksnakes go momentarily free in the field behind their house, and Arthur Blood giving neighborhood rides in his goat cart to younger neighbors on Cleveland Avenue after supper on warm summer nights.

During the war years, few young people found slight-paying jobs to occupy their free time. Churches were active in community social life, as evidenced by our mother’s involvement in money-raising enterprises on behalf of the church and community organizations, and of course the government was constantly raising money through bonds in the war effort. Actually, the GNP of the United States in the early years of the Franklin Roosevelt Administration was ranked as low as 35th in world economic figures, and economics had much to do with both neighborhood closeness and family values. One of the revealing reminders in some of the following letters is the story they tell about commodity and food prices in America. What seemed expensive during those transitional years is starkly different in comparison to wages and prices in the second millennium. When I was ten in 1941, I went to the movies on Saturday afternoon in the center of my home town for a dime (until the war tax raised it to eleven cents after Pearl Harbor) and rode the Eastern Massachusetts bus to visit Dr. Treadwell, my dentist in nearby Lynn, for a nickel.

Visits from family relatives seemed more frequent and more cherished. Holidays were more celebratory and more historically significant. Before the war, the 4th of July was noisy and raucous with firecrackers and street celebrations and costume parades, and Memorial Day was rich with national solemnity and flower displays on family cemetery graves and always patriotic parades, and Easter and Christmas seemed more religious in nature. And more dramatic than all of the above, the presence and frequency of letters in American life represented something special not only about all of our uses of time, but about social intimacy itself and the intent to pursue further the self examination of detail and thought that passes between me and thee, to quote from a well known Christian benediction of that age, one from another, across distances that seemed both delicate and binding.

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Buster’s going away party at the Dorr Memorial Church in Lynnhurst, a section of Saugus, Massachusetts, December, 1943. The congregation had moved upstairs after the party for the photograph, all neighbors and relatives. Buster is front right and his younger brother Don front left. Mr. and Mrs. McClernon (see Betty’s and Mama’s letters) sit between them. Buster’s grandmothers and Aunt B and Bertha are in the second row. Betty, Howie’s parents and Uncle Harry are behind them. The Ingalls and the Hamerstroms’s are behind them. The rest are also neighbors. Ralph Junkins is standing at the back, second from the right. After the war, Buster donated his back army pay ($600.) to have the altar renovated, and several years later the church burned down while Buster was a graduate student at Boston University.

Part I

Ralph Chester Junkins, WWI

[The following WW I letters are from Ralph Chester Junkins to his family living at 118 Ontario Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, eight miles north of Boston on the North Shore. He served in the Yankee Division from July, 1917 to February, 1919 during his enlistment days both in the States and in France as a private in the 26th Division, 101st Field Artillery, Battery D. He was then 23 years old, and had returned from Worcester, MA where he worked, to enlist in Lynn where he grew up. His immediate family consisted of his mother, Lillian May White Junkins, his three sisters: Marion who early married her first cousin, Everett White; Bernice, a piano teacher who never married, and Edith who married young and died in her late thirties. Ralph’s father died of pneumonia when Ralph was in the fourth grade, and he left school. He went to work in the General Electric Company in Lynn when he was twelve, earning wages of $3.60 a week, of which he gave $3.00 to his mother. Later in life he became General Foreman of Bldg. 63 where he supervised the building of the turbines for the aircraft carriers Wasp and Hornet (the immediate on-the-job worker winding coils being his first cousin, Ray Keyes, my mother’s foster brother). In WW II, Ralph served in the Coast Guard Reserve in Nahant, MA, and wrote letters weekly to his son Roland (Buster), 1943-1946.

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Ralph Chester Junkins, 1918, Lynn, Massachusetts

My father was a good man. He was quiet, complicated, funny on occasion, devoted to his mother who was widowed when still a young woman, patriotic, restrained but forthright, and modest. At the Fullerton Funeral Home in Saugus Center in 1960, when the working men from Building 63, the Turbine Division of the General Electric Company, filed by his casket to pay their respects, more than one patted his face. When Dad re-told, at my insistent request, the Beany Craig story from his youth on Pine Hill (a true tale about his hairliped friend being continually misunderstood in the local grocery store and his exasperated reply, one that would be considered more than questionable in today’s world), he filled the room with laughter. During Sunday night service at the Dorr memorial Methodist Church in Lynnhurst, when he and I stood side by side and sang This Is My Father’s World during the Hymn Sing portion of the service conducted by either Andy Boynton or Mr. McClernon, I felt something closer than the essence of his voice and his presence. It was truly my own father’s world and I felt so lucky to be in it with him.

I remember especially one warm rainy Saturday morning in a late thirties summer over in the cove at Great East Lake in Maine watching him from the other end of the boat pickerel fishing with a long yellow bamboo pole and a dead frog—our dog Pickles alert in the boat, focusing on the disappearing frog in the water swirl, and Dad lifting the foot- long fish into the boat, flopping free of the hook, then Pickles picking up the pickerel in his mouth, dropping it overboard into the dark warm water, and Dad laughing as if the joke were on the world itself. It was truly our world and our family’s world, and because my father was an honorable man, the world always seemed an honorable world.

When Dad went off to war in France in 1917, he left behind a girlfriend named Elsie who is referred to in one of my grandmother’s letters below. When he returned home at the war’s end, he was first told beforehand by his mother that the engagement was off, and when he went to hear the news himself, he could see before any words were spoken that she was pregnant. The relationship was finished. When I heard the story myself many years later, it was always short and without rancor, for he merely drove to my mother’s home in East Saugus, and as she related it to me, said merely, Come on Ev, let’s go and get married! Regardless of whatever icing or cake there was in that proposal, it was the one that took, and they did get married and my older sister Evelyn Betty was born nine months to a day from the day of the wedding, followed three years later by Buster (Roland Winslow) and six years later by myself, Donald Arthur, Arthur after my foster grandfather, Arthur Keyes. DJ ]

LETTERS OF RALPH JUNKINS DURING WW I

[Outside envelope dated July 20, 1917]

[Stationery printed at top left with an American flag and top right with a Y.M.C.A. logo, an upside down triangle. In between, on separate lines: WAR WORK COUNCIL, Army and Navy, Young Men’s Christian Association, and ‘WITH THE COLORS.’]

Dear Ma,Boxford, Mass. 1917

George Gaffery just gave me your letter and it sure looked good. We arrived out here Saturday afternoon ok. We got quite a little sendoff in Salem, but nothing compared with what the Lynn fellows got from what I heard. It was pretty tough about that fellow in Battery F. It was a terrible storm, quite a few fellows hurt besides the one that got killed. Coming over the road trees were down, wires down and everything else.

There was a big crowd from Lynn today. Mrs. Curley was up, Tink’s father John Moran, Bill’s [Pope] mother and father, so you see we were not lonesome. John Moran gave me two ten cent boxes of cigarettes and Mrs. Love sent me up a cigar.

Today we took our federal exams and we all passed, that is, all the Pine Hill fellows, so you see I’m physically perfect, ha ha. I hope you can come up next Sunday but if you don’t come I won’t be disappointed because I understand. But Elsie [his girlfriend] said if her uncle [brought] her up in the automobile that she would bring you. If you should come, ask for Battery D and stay down there until I come. The address is First Massachusetts Field Artillery Battery D, Boxford Mass.

Well, I will close now with

Love to all and a lot to you.

Ralph

_______________________________________

Outside envelope with a two cent George Washington postage stamp canceled with ‘Boxford, and Massachusetts Field Artillery, In The Field" printed in the upper left corner. Lynn, Massachusetts [printed on stationery]

First Mass F[ield] A[rtillery].

Dear [younger sister] Edith:Boxford, Mass.

I suppose you were all looking for me the other night. But they are not going to issue any more passes until the end of the week, so I will be home either Saturday or Sunday night because I’m in line for the next pass.

Today we walked about eight miles with two blankets, a pup tent over our shoulder, some hike.

I have got a brand new uniform and it fits me great, and I also have a new pair of leather leggings. Some class to me when I go home. I’m sitting on my bunk with a shoe box to write on and in front of that I’ve got a wash basin turned upside down with two candles on it for a light (we are in the army now).

I was over to the Y.M.C.A. last night and there was some small pocket Testaments lying on the table so I asked him now much they were and he said all you have got to do is sign your name and take it, so I did. They are kind of cute and they have got colored pictures. I will give it to you when I go home again.

Will close for this time. Love to you and all the rest and a whole lot for Ma. Give my love to Aunt Vine.

From Ralph

_______________________________________

[Three one cent postcards with Thomas Jefferson’s photograph, dated August 4, 9, and 18, addressed to Mrs. C. W. Junkins, 118 Ontario St. Lynn, Mass.]

Ma, send me a tooth brush and tooth paste

Dear Ma,

Just a few lines as we are expecting a thunder storm and all the boys are digging a trench around their tents to prevent the rain from running under.

It has been awful hot here the last four days and a lot of the boys have fainted. Last night Uncle Hal was over to see me for a little while. I haven’t heard from any of you yet. With love to all and a lot for you.

Ralph

Dear Ma,

I could not get home last night because they did not issue any [passes] so probably won’t get home until some time next week. Today I went down to the Watertown arsenal and all around Boston in an automobile truck [and] had some trip. We were after supplies. Will write later. With love to all and a whole lot for you. Write soon.

Ralph

Dear Ma,

Today has been field day out here, and we had to do a lot of drilling. There is a big crowd out here. I saw Jennie Hardy this afternoon. Gee Ma, I didn’t have to take any of those candy pills this week after that feed you left. You also left your hand bag, so I will give it to Elsie or send it parcel post. Will be home some day next week. The next time you write send me Aunt Vine’s [Elvina White Keyes, Ralph’s mother’s sister, foster mother of Evelyn Keyes, to become Buster’s mother, living in Saugus, the next town north to Lynn] address. Will close for this time. With love to all and a lot for you. Your loving son,

Ralph

_______________________________________

[Envelope dated] August 11, 1917 [Stationery letterhead:] First Massachusetts Field Artillery

CHAPLAINS DEPARTMENT

Dear Ma,

It is raining pitchforks, rakes, and everything else out here. Last night we had a pretty heavy thunder storm. I started to let the sides of my tent down and a big flash of lightning came and at the same time one of the fellows struck a match inside of the tent. Well, I dropped everything and perhaps I wasn’t scared. I’ll bet I got a dozen extra gray hairs out of it. The most of the tents on our street had anywhere from 4 to 8 inches of water in them. Some of the tents, a hat or a canteen would float out the door. The fellows’ clothes are all soaking wet. I never laughed so much for a long while.

I looked out of the tent about half past four this morning and there was a fellow standing in about a foot of water, stark naked, taking a bath and it was raining shovels. None of the fellows got any sleep after four o’clock this morning.

I just came back from taking care of the horses and I am pretty wet, but it is a good way to wash your clothes.

Another gang is out in the pouring rain walking the horses around for exercise. Oh, it is a great life but it isn’t anything like 118 Ontario St. [his home in Lynn, MA]

I rec’d your letter all right and I think I will come home next Thursday night, that is if I’m not in line for any special duty.

Well, will close this time, hoping to hear from you soon.

With love to all and a lot for you,

Ralph

_______________________________________

[The following is the first censored letter from Boxford, dated August 13. The outside envelope is stamped Examined by No. 24 across the circular Boxford postal stamp, and in the lower left hand corner a square stamp, the four edges surrounding an American eagle with the designations of A.E.F.—American Expeditionary Forces—, Censor, Passed, and 14. The printed inside letterhead is the same as described in letter #1.]

Dear Ma,August 13, 1917

I rec’d your letter, and had forgotten about my birthday. I am getting older every day.

Yesterday we got another jab with the needle. That makes two jabs and one vaccination, and none of them affected me at all. Some of the fellows are sick in bed for a couple of days. But it doesn’t seem to bother me at all. I wouldn’t know I had them unless someone bumped up against my arm.

Today we had a federal inspection by a regular army officer.

There isn’t much news about the camp, only that I think we will stay here quite a while.

I got that dollar that you sent but don’t you ever send me another cent unless I write for it. (Do you get me?)

Elsie was up yesterday and brought me a lunch, and also my watch.

Mrs. Curley gave me the tooth brush and paste, so today I had my teeth cleaned and one tooth filled.

Sunday morning Bill Pope and I went to church, and the preacher spoke fine.

If nothing happens I will be home late Thursday night, but if I don’t come do not be surprised because I might have to go on guard. I’m beginning to like the army pretty well; the rheumatism has practically all left me and I’m feeling good. Will close with love to you all and most for you. Write soon, your son

Ralph

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[Envelope:] Boxford, Aug. 29, 1917 First Massachusetts Field Artillery In the Field

Dear Ma,

Well Ma, today has been quite a day for us. I suppose you know that we expect to leave sometime this week. But we don’t know just when, we expect it any minute.

Elsie was up Sunday and also Ray [Aunt Vine Keyes’ son, his first cousin, Buster’s mother’s foster brother] was up. We are all packed, waiting for the word and we are all anxious to start.

I won’t be able to get a pass to go home because they want us all here. There is a lot of work to do.

We are drawing a lot of clothes. I have got three pair of shoes, and the last two pair we got were unfinished leather, that is, the outside is all rough and the sole is about a half an inch thick. On the sole are big nails and the heel of some shoes are half iron. I’ve got three suits of heavy underwear and five pair of stockings. We got enough clothes to last us a year.

Tonight we all got paid for the week we were out here, nine dollars and thirty cents, and the boys are all tickled to death. We each drew a five dollar gold piece and four silver dollars, so you see we are pretty rich. But best of all that happened today was the review.

Today the governor of Mass. was here and we had a review of three whole regiments passed the reviewing stand, and that is about eighteen batteries as the best looking and best drilled soldiers. Now what do you think of Battery D?

Well Ma, will close for this time. Give my love to Aunt Vine and a lot to Marion, Bernice, Edith and Everett, and a whole lot to you, Ma.

From your loving son, Ralph

p.s. Take good care of yourself and whatever you do don’t worry because I’m having a good time. I signed a paper to send ten dollars a month to you. That’s the ten we get from the state. I will drop you a line as soon as we move. Address my mail just the same. It will reach me anywhere. Write soon.

_______________________________________

[Envelope:] Washington D.C., Oct. 2, 1917

DO YOUR BIT/ BUY A/ LIBERTY LOAN/ BOND/

INQUIRE AT ANY/ BANK OR POST OFFICE

[written sometime in September, 1917]

Aboard The Adriatic,

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Dear Ma,

I suppose you have imagined everything. Well, I’m on my way to England. We left Boxford Friday afternoon, and took a train to New York. We left New York aboard this boat on Sunday and arrived here in Halifax on Tuesday. Probably when you get this letter I will be in Liverpool, England. We have had a swell trip so far, and believe me we have had good eats. We have had chicken, Welsh Rabbit [sic] and all sorts of good stuff. It’s a great life. I think I have gained quite a little. I didn’t have a chance to let you know when we started. I gave Mrs. Hammer five dollars to give you. Let me know if you rec’d it and also let me know when you get that state money.

I’m writing this letter on board the ship out in Halifax harbor and it seems so funny to think that only a few days ago I was in Boxford. Now Ma, don’t you worry a bit because I’m having the time of my life, enjoying every minute and seeing all the sights. But there isn’t a night but I picture 118 Ontario St. just the same.

The other night we came across a ship on our way and we started to take a zig zag course and I laughed more at Bill [Pope]. He went on the other side of the boat so as he couldn’t see it, and then every once in a while went around and peek to see if it was still following us. He thought it was a German Raider.

It will probably be a long time between letters now, perhaps two months between them on account of the way the boats run, but I will write as often as I can. And whatever you do, do not worry because I always manage to get out of scrapes somehow.

Well Ma, I will close for this time and my address is (be sure you put it exactly the way I write it.) Mr. Ralph Junkins

101st Regiment F.A. [Field Artillery]Battery D

American Expeditionary ForcesVia New York

That will be my address until I come home.

Love to all and a lot for you.

Ralph

Write soon.

_______________________________________

[This is the first letter mailed from France. In the upper right hand corner of the envelope, dad has written, Soldier’s Letter and signed under it Ralph C. Junkins. The postal franking indicates it arrived on Oct. 4. The censor’s stamp is signed by one 1st Lieutenant Saunders, and someone in the family at Ontario Street has written, 1 from Across.]

Sept. 29, 1917

Dear Ma,Somewhere in France

Just a few lines this time to let you know that we crossed the ocean and arrived here in France safe. All the boys from Pine Hill are all well and enjoying themselves, that is Curley Gaffing and Bill Pope. I had a long letter written to you that I wrote [censored] but I lost it in England. If you have rec’d any money from the state let me know. Well Ma, I’m just where I wanted to go. Somewhere in France. Everything here is so odd and different. I have seen English, Australian, French and other different kinds of troops. [4 lines censored]

Well Ma, I have got to fall in for drill now, so will close for this time, with love to sisters and a lot for you. Take care of yourself and don’t worry because I’m having a good time.

Love from Ralph

My address is

101st Regiment F.A. Battery D

American Expeditionary ForcesVia New York

Ma,

I just rec’d a letter from you, the one you sent on the 13th. Don’t put Private on it.

_______________________________________

[The following envelopes follow the previously described formats, but the individual stationery varies slightly in letter head form. The following YMCA letterhead reads]: ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES.

Battery D, American ExpeditionaryOct. 8, 1917

Forces Via New YorkSomewhere in France

Dear Ma,

Just a few lines to let you know that I am well and enjoying myself. I have only rec’d one letter from you since I left Boxford, and I haven’t heard from Elsie, but you can’t depend upon the mail at all.

I’m a little better off than Bill because he hasn’t heard a word from home yet. But it is rather hard for them, I suppose, where there are so many fellows in this country. Pretty soon we are going to have an American post office here so I understand, and then things will be all right.

They are going to start a French school here in the Y.M.C.A. and the first lesson starts tonight, and Bill and I are rather anxious to learn the lingo.

I won’t write very much at a time Ma, because they have to read every letter, and if we all wrote long letters it would take them some time to read them all. But I will write often.

Be sure and let me know if you have rec’d any of that money yet, because if you have not I want to send you some.

Well Ma, I wouldn’t mind walking in on you just about now. Take care of yourself and don’t worry, because if you could see me you wouldn’t worry.

Tell Marion, Bernice, Edith, and Everett that when I come back I will be able to talk French with to them. Well, when they have traveled as much as I have, Ah hem, ha…

Well, I will close now with love to all and a lot for you.

Your loving son, Ralph

(Write soon.)

_______________________________________

[Henceforth, editorial notations of stationery descriptions and censorship stamps and signatures already mentioned will be omitted.]

Dear Bernice,Oct. 13, 1917

I have got to take turns in writing to you all, because we can only write three letters a week. Yesterday I got a letter from Elsie, the first one that I have rec’d from her, and believe me it seemed good to get some news from home.

Yesterday one of the fellows got a Boston Post through the mail, and we all took turns reading it. We get American papers here that are printed in Paris, but there isn’t much news in them. There are only four sheets to a paper and they charge us three cents apiece for them and part of it is printed in French. [added and circled at bottom of page:]

Tell Edith to write to me.

Bill and I have just finished a game of dominos, and as soon as we finish writing we are going out and play football. Oh! We are leading a fast life playing dominos and all those tough games, you can’t stand that stuff long before it gets you. ha ha.

I don’t know how much I have gained but I know that I weigh a good deal more than I did, and I am feeling great.

I suppose you are still working every day down to the G.E.

Tell Marion & Everett that I will write them next week.

I suppose it is getting quite chilly home now. It has rained for the last three or four days here.

Well, I won’t write any more this time, hoping to hear from you all soon. I will close, your Brother Ralph

With love to all and a lot for Ma.

_______________________________________

Dear Ma,Oct. 25, 1917

I rec’d your letter telling me about the stuff that you got from the garden, but you didn’t say anything about the potatoes, so I take it for granted that they didn’t amount to much. That is the last letter that I have got from the states, and that was written the 21st of Sept.

I have written to Aunt Vine, Arthur Brackett, and Miss Lowe, but I don’t know as they have got them yet or not.

I suppose you are getting some pretty chilly weather at home, here it isn’t so cold but we have a lot of rainy weather.

The letters I write to you will have to do for the whole family because I can only write two letters a week.

I suppose Lynn is much better since the shoe shops have started up.

When I told George C. and Bill about the shoe shops starting up, that was the main discussion for a couple days.

I suppose everything is the same up on Pine Hill, and Bernice and Marion are still working every day down to the G.E.

Well Ma, I’m still having just as good a time and feeling just as good as I did in Boxford.

I will have to close for this time hoping you are all well. Give my love to sisters and Everett.

Ralph

Write soon.

_______________________________________

Oct. 30, 1917

Dear Sister Marion,Somewhere in France

Yesterday I got a letter from Ma & Edith and today I got yours. You say Ma got one Battery picture [that I sent,] well there should have been two. I paid the man for two pictures, one for you and one for Ma, and if you didn’t get two just write to him and have him send the other.

I have heard from Aunt Georgie & Kate, and also from Uncle Lemmie.

I’m glad you like Elsie so well. Every time she writes she mentions you and about going up to the house.

You expect a fat letter, Marion, but I’m sorry because I’ve seen so many interesting things and cannot tell you about them. We cannot tell what we are doing or what we have seen, but believe me I have a lot to tell you when I get home.

I was surprised to hear that Pete [Sheridan] was not taken, because I heard that he had gone long ago. I bet Bud [Everett] is waiting for the time to come when they pull him into it. I know he would have been into it long ago if he was single.

I would have my picture taken and send it home, we are not allowed to send any photographs of any kind.

Well Mitt, tell Ma to take good care of herself this winter, and not get any colds. I am feeling fine and like it just the same.

Will close for this time with lots of love to you and Everett and all the rest.

Write soon.

Your Brother Ralph

_______________________________________

Nov. 8, 1917

Dear sister Edith,Somewhere in France

I got your letter all right but it wasn’t long enough. You ought to send me the kind you did when I was in Worcester, but I was tickled to death to hear from you just the same.

I suppose you think you are getting to be quite a girl now that you are in junior high school.

I thought of you Halloween night. Do you remember the night that you had the Halloween party down to the barn, and Florence and I came? Well, I wondered the other night if you were doing the same things. I had a pretty good time myself considering the circumstances, we were all singing and cracking jokes, but it wasn’t as good as your party. I suppose the next thing that you are looking forward to is Thanksgiving.

You had ought to see the little girls over here your size. They wear these great big wooden shoes, just the same as those you see in your geography that the Dutch wear, and not only little girls but men and women wear them too. How would you like to walk around with great big heavy wooden shoes?

The next time that you go down to Lowes’ store, you give my regards to Nida, and tell her to give my regards to all the boys.

Well Edith, I will have to quit for this time, and you don’t want to forget to write back soon.

Give my love to Ma and all the rest, and don’t get any colds this winter.

Your Brother,

Ralph

_______________________________________

Nov. 13, 1917

Dear Ma,Somewhere in France

I just received letters from you, Elsie, Uncle Arthur & Ray, and also a card from Tink’s wife and it seemed just like Christmas. I haven’t rec’d any of the newspapers that Uncle Hal sent me as yet, but will probably get them later. I guess Ma that I am getting mail from you faster then you are getting mine, but I write you and Elsie a letter every week, so you both ought to get mail from me at the same time, unless one of them goes astray.

Bernice says you are thinking of going to work again, but if you do I will desert the army and come home. No, I don’t think I would do that, but I am going to have fifteen dollars a month taken out of my pay and it will be sent home to you right from Washington. I won’t have to bother with it at all, and you use every bit of it because I can get along fine on fifteen a month. So that will make twenty-five dollars a month for you. I’m worth more away from home.

I am glad that you got the money from the state because I heard that everything had gone away up at home.

I can write you longer letters now as we are allowed to write more than one sheet.

Say Ma, I would like to see you dressed up like the women are here. Picture yourself with your hair pulled way back over your head with a little white thing over your head, and well, I can’t explain the dress to you and a pair of Dutch wooden shoes (why men leave home).

The money over here is what gets your goat, they have ten cent bills, twenty cent bills and forty cent bills, and money with a hole in the middle. You think you got about 50 dollars, and when you count it up you have about fifteen cents.

Say Ma, if anybody asks you if there is any thing that they can send me tell them I want some pipe tobacco. That is the only thing that I want, and tell them to do the bundle up very strong as it gets through a lot of rough use. We can’t get any American pipe tobacco and the French tobacco is rotten.

Well Ma, I am feeling fine and weigh more than I ever did, so we have nothing to kick about. You remember me to Grandma, and write and tell aunt Georgie and aunt Kate that I was more than pleased with the letters, but you tell them Ma that we are limited in writing letters.

Well Ma, give my love to Marion, Bernice, Edith, Everett and Elsie and a big lot for you. Write soon.

Ralph.

_______________________________________

Nov. 24, 1917

Dear Marion,In France

I lost track of the letters I sent home, and don’t know whether it is your turn or not, but I will start with you… . Thursday is Thanksgiving and we are expecting a regular turkey dinner, but I suppose by the time you get this letter it will be Christmas.

Well Mitt, how is everything at home, I wish that you could see all that I have seen.

Last Sunday I got a pass just for the day. It is the first pass that I have had, but I had a good time. I went to a city about fifty miles from where we are and you ought to see the trains. They have small cars not much more than box cars with seats in them, and the engine reminds you of the little one they use to have over to Wonderland [in Revere, just north of Boston], and the tracks are about the size of the Narrow Gauge [the railway from Lynn to Boston].About half way there we came to a small hill and the engine had to stop and back up to get a good start to make the hill.

The city that I visited was very pretty, and there I saw soldiers of almost every description. There were French, English, Russians, Belgians, Algerians and Americans. Most every man over here is in uniform except old men that are too old to fight or little boys in short pants. One thing that I noticed was that you would see two or three fellows with one leg walking along together, or two or three fellows with one arm together or one or two with one eye together. They seem to stick together.

But there is nothing that I could buy over here Marion that would help you in housekeeping. I have bought two souvenirs that I am going to send home a little later.

Gee Marion, I miss you a lot lately. Do you remember how I use to tease you? I would give anything if I could walk in tonight. Some nights I picture you all at home sitting around the dining room table with your noses in a book. Gee Marion, Elsie likes you. Every letter that I get from her she tells me all about you. Well, I thank the Lord that you like her. I kind of thought that I would never satisfy you.

How is Ma, Mitt? Be sure and let me know if she is getting along all right. I have made out half of my money to be sent home each month and that will make twenty-five dollars a month for her, and you tell her to use every cent of it. I heard that coal and everything had gone away up. The government has started an insurance which I am going to take out as soon as the papers are ready to fill out.

How is Bud?

I suppose he is working every day. I have a pretty good souvenir for him, but I’m not going to send any home until I get one for all. I hope Bud will never have to come over here. And Edith, gosh If I don’t get a letter from her pretty soon I will fix her. You give my love to Marion & Florence Oliver, and tell Marion Oliver that although I haven’t written, and I guess she understands why I haven’t, that I haven’t forgotten her and the good times we had together.

Say Mitt, one of the officers just came in and told us that we were going to have turkey and all the fixings and grapes, nuts, doughnuts, cider and also an entertainment, so that is the main discussion with the bunch here now.

I don’t think I’ll be able to send much of anything home for Christmas, but I wish you all the happiest and best Christmas you ever had, and a Happy New Year. It makes me feel kind of tough not to give anything to you all, but I know you all understand. But I want something for Christmas and I’m not a bit bashful about asking for it, and that is pipe tobacco, and when you send it, [put it] in some kind of a wooden or tin box well nailed up, because some of the fellows have rec’d bundles that had been opened and the stuff had gone.

Tell Ma as soon as she receives that money to let me know.

Well I can’t write any more this time, as Bill Pope has just come in to visit me. I am going to send Gramma a Christmas card next week. You tell her that I haven’t forgotten her, and tell her I’ll miss her old turkey dinner this year.

Well Mitt, give my regards to everybody that I know.

With love to you and all the rest, and a lot for Ma. I will close, your brother,

Ralph (write soon)

_______________________________________

Dear Edith,Nov. 25, 1917

Just a little note Edith as I am in a hurry because I want to get this mail off on the next train. Well Edith, I suppose you are