We worked most of the day cleaning up the rifles and machine guns. I cleaned 12 rifles and 3 machine guns. We received orders to move again and we are going right up to the front. We sand bagged the truck by down for land mines. We had a mail call late last night. There was a bombing off in the distance as we could see the flares.
Dear Mother & Dad;
I bet you have sure been sweating out a letter from me. Well right now you can’t expect too here too much from me. I am pretty busy and I have little time to write to say two any one. I think in the last month you and dad have been the only one I have wrote to. I thought I had better let you know that im in good health and the first chance I get I will write all of you. Maybe someday I will be able to tell you everything. Tell every one polo for me, and to have a little patience, I will write to them. Please don’t worry if the mail is a little late, but you will have two understand that I don’t have the time now that I used 1/2. Goodbye an I will be loving you both from the bottom of my heart.
Your Son “Chick”
We unloaded the supply truck today and looked it over. We are in Reserve right now but should get the call to go up to the front at anytime now. We are back as a Battalion now so that will make it a lot better. I think I will try and write a letter home and go to bed.
The first thing we did this morning was dig a fox hole. That is all of the protection you get here from air planes strafing you. The Germans had just bombed a town about 5 miles from us. We had a fire and one fellow was burned up pretty bad. Right after dinner we packed up and moved out again. Again the first thing you’d do was dig a fox hole. We only moved up about 5 more miles. By the time we got our camouflage nets up it was chow time and it looked like rain so I went to bed.
Here it is 8:00am and we are getting ready to pull out. All the guns are all set and ready to go. we traveled until 12:30 tonight to get here. We saw all types of planes in the air today but they were all ours. Boy are these roads ever windy up here in the Mountains.
German Tank
Boy it really rained last night and our shelter fell down and part of us got wet. We are going to stay here all day and tonight so we pitched pup tents. We put up a camouflage net and then just messed around all day. I went to mass tonight and everyone there received Holy Communion. The priest gave us all absolution at once as we may never get another chance to communion again. We are moving out the first thing tomorrow. Good night.
It rained on us most of the day as it was miserable riding. We have passed allot of hospitals, British & American alike. The British holler “Hi Yank” at us. It was about 9:30pm when we pulled into our camp. We had passed many air fields and one field alone there must have been 100 flying fortress. We were camped near a air field so we could here them take off and come back after a raid. We had to dig fox holes before we went to bed. Good night.
German Wreckage
We got in about 11:00pm last night. It had rained all the day and was still raining when I went to sleep. We were in a big pool of mud and water so we just crawled under the tarp and went to sleep.
We rode all morning and half the afternoon and only went 35 miles. So you can see that the mountains were pretty rugged. You should see me, I am pretty dirty and haven’t shaved for a week. Here it is 10:00am and we are getting ready to leave.
Well we laid around on the truck until 1:30pm until we left. We rode all day until 1:30am the next morning . Boy I have seen plenty of pretty surroundings and scenery. We are beginning to see plenty of English soldiers. The closer you get to the front the more excitement you get to see.
W
e had to run a mile this morning as part of our training. We spent the morning cleaning our equipment. We received a six hour alert then right after that they told us to pack up we are going to the front. It came as a surprise. But we are all gad. We worked hard most of the night as we were to leave at 3am.
