Dear Folks: Excerpts from Letters Home of an Infantryman in Training and in Combat March 13, 1944 to January 6, 1946

By George Kessel

This book portrays the small world of the infantrymen, many of whom were drafted wight out of high school, in training and in combat during WWII. This will not be a story of heroic action. The letters presented in it relate the thoughts and actions of the basest member of the armed services, the combat infantryman, otherwise known as GI, GI Joe, dogface, doughboy, and foot soldier.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 14, 2007
• ISBN: 9781465332783

Book preview

Dear Folks

40527-KESS-layout.pdf

Excerpts from letters home of an

infantryman in training and in combat

March 13, 1944 to January 6, 1946

George Kessel

Copyright © 2007 by George Kessel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

40527

Contents

PROLOGUE

TIME WAS

TIME TO GO…

CAMP DODGE…

FORT BENNING, GEORGIA…

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY…

ON MANEUVERS IN TENNESSEE

FORT JACKSON AND COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA

PORT OF EMBARKATION AND ON THE ATLANTIC

FRANCE: GETTING READY

GOING INTO ACTION

GOING ON

THE OFFENSIVE

104TH EVACUATION HOSPITAL

HEADQUARTERS DETACHMENT 93RD REPLACEMENT BATTALION

HEADQUARTERS COMPANY

CAMP BROOKLYN, FRANCE

PREPARING TO GO HOME

HOMEWARD BOUND

WHATEVER

HAPPENED TO—

ST. JOHN’S MILITARY ACADEMY

FINAL REFLECTIONS

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PROLOGUE

It is important to acknowledge what triggered this journey into the past. In 1998, my sister, Jevne, passed away in Columbus, Ohio, and it fell on me to assist in sorting through her personal property. While checking some coffee-table drawers, I came upon four neatly tied bundles of letters, and I was astonished to see that they were the letters I had written my parents during the beginning of my tenure and after with the Twenty-sixth (Yankee) Infantry Division until my discharge and return to civilian life in January 1946.

By presenting excerpts from these letters and the recollections they brought to mind, I hope to portray the small world of the infantrymen, many of whom were drafted right out of high school, in training and in combat during World War II. This will not be a story of heroic action. The letters relate the thoughts and actions of the basest member of the armed services, the combat infantryman, otherwise known as GI, GI Joe, dogface, doughboy, and foot soldier.

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. . . I’ll never splash mud on a dogface again (999) . . . . I’ll never splash mud on a dogface again (1000) . . . . Now will ya help us push?

Quoted materials from Bill Mauldin’s Up Front are reprinted with permission from the Mauldin Estate

TIME WAS

1943

To set the stage, we should first consider life in my hometown of Ottumwa in 1943. With a population of some thirty-two thousand, it was located in southeast Iowa along the Des Moines River, one of the first stops out of Chicago for the California Zephyr en route to the West Coast. Our main employers were meat packer John Morrell, and farm machinery manufacturer John Deere.

My parents, sister, and I lived in a two-story, three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house at 220 East Pennsylvania Avenue. We had one telephone and one car, both norm for the times. There was a meat market at the corner of East Pennsylvania and North Main, and for 5¢, we could catch a bus for downtown at the same corner. Life was pretty simple—no pizza, no McDonald’s, no credit cards, no TV, no Little League. No one I knew had ever flown, my friends neither smoked or drank, and there were no sports teams for girls. The Chicago Cubs was a very good team, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in his third term as president, having been inaugurated originally in 1932. He was the only president I had ever known.

Dating was very important, and most of us went steady. A date might consist of a movie, a Friday-night dance at the Y, bowling, roller skating, a band concert in the square, or simply a malt at Ruth’s Tasties or a canteen sandwich at the Canteen. The family automobile might be available for special occasions such as the Four O’Clock Ball or Mardi Gras ball, formal dances at the Coliseum, and, for privacy reasons, was the answer to a teenager’s prayer. Our news sources were the newspaper, radio, and Movietone News at the movies. World War II was raging in Europe, the South Pacific, and North Africa, but we were only remotely aware of specific engagements and then only several days after the actual event. I don’t recall whether gas and food rationing had started. Women painted on their hose, drawing a seam. As a member of the Hi-Y, I took part in old aluminum and tire drives.

This was the era of big bands, some with vocalists of distinction: Glen Miller, featuring Ray Eberle and the Modernaires; Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers; Jimmy Dorsey, together with Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberle; Woody Herman; and Harry James, etc. Many of them played a one-night stand at our Coliseum. The popular music told the story of this era and a great many songs have become standards which are still heard today. I cite I’ll Be Seeing You, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Dream, and God Bless America as examples.

I was fortunate to be part of the basketball team, which won the Iowa State Championship in 1942, losing one game by one point, and our 1943 edition, which lost three games by a total of four points. Our coach in 1941-42 was E. J. Butch Kaltenbach. During one practice session early in the year, the FBI came into the gym and took the coach away. He returned a couple of days later. As I recall, the story was that his brother was the notorious Lord Haw Haw, who was a propagandist broadcasting on radio from Berlin. Shortly after the state tournament, Butch went into the army.

Most sports were white. We had one black team member, Dave Williams, a sophomore, who roomed with me at the state finals in Des Moines. Bill Bibb, one of our class officers,