Today we have a day off all day to our selves. No work or nothing. Had another big raid last night but I was in bed and went back to sleep. We played Volleyball for a few hours. I wrote about 12 letters, so I am caught up now. Played some pinochle and went to see ‘Snook’. He had received a box of candy so he gave me a few bars. Came home about 10pm and went to bed.
Had a big air raid last night. Saw three planes go down in flame. Got out a few requisitions this morning and then went to Mass. Messed around doing odd jobs in the afternoon. Played ball and cards in the evening.
Dear Mother & Dad;
Here it is your birthday mom, so I’ll say happy birthday to you. I have thought about you all day and when mail call came I received four letters from you. Did you have a nice birthday and how many presents did you get. This time next year we should be able to celebrate our birthdays together. I also received the four rolls of film and believe it or not a box from Rita. It kinda stopped me for a moment. She seldom writes but I guess that a that’s a Fleshner trait. She says she still loves me but it remains to be seen when I get home. Right now it doesn’t bother me one particle. I have a large stack of your letters to answer so one of these days I will write a long letter. Goodbye and I love you both from the bottom of my heart.
Your Son,
“Chick”
Today is Mom’s birthday. How I would love to be home and give her a big kiss, but it looks as if we will be stuck over here forever. I surely hope they start the second front soon so we won’t be in on it. Did my usual work around the supply room. I’ll be dog gone if we didn’t get beer today. A whole qt. bottle. We went to the show and saw “Lady in the Dark”. Pretty good. Came home, drank our beer, wrote letters and went to bed.
The days are just about the same every day. The 3rd is getting relieved by the 45th and the rumors are flying. Played the 81st Recon tonight and won 3 to 2. I pitched a pretty good game. Had a mail call. Wrote a few letters and went to bed.
Dear Mother & Dad;
Well today is my birthday. But I didn’t notice any change in myself, just the same old kid. I thought of you both all day and wondered what you were thinking about. I haven’t had time to go see Snook lately but one of these days I’ll get over to see him I hope. I am feeling swell, and getting along okay, so don’t worry about me. This war can’t last forever and then I’ll be home for good. I just don’t want to come home now and then be sent to the south Pacific. The Germans are better fighters but they treat you better than those sneaky Japs. Had a letter from the Conants today. Said to say hello to you. Guess this is all for now good bye and I love you both very much
Your Son,
“Chick”
Today is my birthday. Not much of a birthday though. Just another day. Drove over to the Battalion a few times. Read a little and played ball after chow. Wrote a few letters and went to bed.
Same as yesterday. Nothing doing. They had an air raid last night, but it was on a small scale. We played the 3rd pl. and got beat 8 to 7 in extra innings. Too many errors lost the ball game. Wrote letters and read.
BY PAT HARMON
News Gazette Sports Editor
While Bucky Walters is setting the pace in major leagues and Joe Veltre is off to a flying start in the Eastern Illinois, a Champaign boy is the leading pitcher in a baseball league about whom 90 percent of the sport fans of the country have never heard — Anzio league.
Pfc. Bruns, former Champaign high school and E.I. league player, has pitched 5 games at Anzio, winning them all.
“As far as I know, we are playing the first baseball ever played in a combat zone,” Bruns writes his parents, Mr. and Mrs Francis B. Bruns, 303 West Maple.
Watch from Hill
“We start the games after supper and we play right under the Jerries’ noses. The Germans watch us from a nearby hill.”
Bruns started as a shortstop but went in to pitch one game with the score 4-0 against his team. The Bruns team pulled the game out of the fire, 5-4, and he has been a pitcher ever since.
When he played in this local, Bruns was an outfielder, and a fast one. He was best know for his effortless swing at the plate. He had a smooth style the resembled a budding Joe DiMaggio.
Bats .475 in Cornbelt
Bruns hit .475 with the Illinois Billiards in 1939 and was runner up for the Cornbelt batting championship to Eddie Houston of LeRoy.
Elmer Morfey’s Billiard Boys withdrew from the Cornbelt league following that season, so Bruns caught on with the Champaign Plumbers in the E.I. He hit .392 in this league and ranked third for the year, right behind Bud Wiese and Red Pace of Tuscola. He appeared in one game of the ’41 season for the Plumbers bus soon left for the army.
A recent dispatch from the front told of the baseball games which Bruns participates. The German lines are so near, the correspondents wrote, that members of the enemy can audibly criticize the play.
Once, when a player went into second base standing up and was tagged out, a German voice shot over from a nearby hill, “Vy didn’t you slide, you dumbkopf?”
In another instance, a player was called safe sliding into home. “Vat! Dot umpire iss a robber. He was out a mile!” shouted the voice.
At the Anzio beachhead, Bruns is living in one of the flack shacks recently described by Ernie Pyle in the News-Gazette. “My buddy, Mel, and I have dug into the side of a hill. We put boards up on top for a ceiling and cardboard on the floor. We sweep the floor every morning, just like mother taught us to sweep around the house when we were kids. We have burlap sides for walls and pinups all around
Room for Two Cots
“There is room for two cots and a ledge to lay our things. We have electric lights, too. Our company captured a German generator in Sicily.”
Bruns has been in combat 18 months and has participated in four invasions — Casablanca, Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio. Joe Waters of Villa Grove and Frank (Snook) Barber of Urbana are in the same division with him, and one day he met a soldier named Pryz. “Boy you look like a guy back home I used to play ball with named Tony Pryz,” Bruns informed him. “That’s my brother,” sad Joe Pyrz.
(Tony Pyrz, former Illinois baseball captain, who played on the Billiard team with Bruns, is now coach at Philo high.) Lieutenant Verne Evans, University of Illinois graduate who was killed recently, was also with Bruns.
Ship Sinks Off Shore
Bruns says he has been lucky to escape serious injury in four invasions. At Casablanca, his ship was sunk eight miles off shore. He has not been able ot reveal details of his survival.
“We in the engineers have the most interesting job in the army,” we once wrote his parents, “and there’s only one job tougher. That’s the infantry. I don’t see how those boys in the infantry can take it. We’re right behind them most of the time but some times we’re with them or just ahead of them building roads. But we get to sleep inside, and they don’t. We ride and they walk.
“We were sure burned up about the 3d Engineers not getting much credit until one day there was a piece in the paper about what what we were doing in Italy and how ‘the eyes of the world are upon the 3rd Engineers.’ I read that in The News Gazette, and, boy, they’re not kidding when they say the eyes of the world are upon us. The eyes of those Krauts are upon us, and they’re looking right down our neck.
‘Wouldn’t Settle Down’
“I want to get the war over with and get back to a good, clean decent, respectable country. I wouldn’t settle down over here for all the dough in the world.”
Being in the engineers, Bruns has had much of the cleanup work around the battlefield and has sent home a wealth of souvenirs. German and Italian insignia, pamphlets, maps, books, medals, captured battle flags and articles fill a deep 4×1 packing box at the Bruns home on West Maple.
‘Eats Fresh Egg’
In a letter March 27, Bruns said “P.S. Mother: Had a bath and a shave today. First since January 21. “Snook (Barber) is farther back from the front lines than us and is living in a house. They bought some cows and chickens off Italians who were evacuating. I was over for dinner the other night and had my first glass of milk since went into combat 18 months ago. Also had a fresh egg.”
Happy 95th Birthday ‘Chick’
Dad, this is your Birthday Greeting from the hundreds of diary followers you have. Thanks for documenting your service in this way that we can all follow your journey.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!