The letters were each neatly tri-folded in a shoebox, and I could tell that they had been typed because the heavy imprint of the keys was clear through the paper.
I was not sure how long I’d had them or what they were about. The letters were apparently part of a box lot that I had put aside and forgotten after an auction. Now, I figured I’d just take a peek at a few to at least see what was written.
As I started to read, I realized that they were letters sent back home by three American soldiers serving during World War II in France, North Africa, Italy and finally Germany. Two were brothers, both Army doctors: Phene was spending 12-15 hours a day (“pretty much like a factory,” he says in one letter) patching up wounded Allied (and some German POWS) in medical facilities. Irv was a medic with a unit in the field but not on the front lines. All three were related, and one of their relatives kept these letters in the shoebox, along with a child’s handwritten notes from a Jewish summer camp.
The letters were dated from 1943 to 1945 through the entrenchment of German soldiers in the mountains in Italy, one of the costliest engagements of the war; the death of President Roosevelt and the eventual surrender of Germany in May 1945.
These letters were copies of the soldiers’ typewritten air-mailed letters. Starting in 1942, soldiers were using V-Mail, which was a lot less bulky than regular letters. Some of the letters in the box were typewritten copies of V-Mail. Mail from back home was greatly anticipated, and offered some comfort and ties to the world that the soldiers had left behind. I’m sure it also gave them a short reprieve from the toils of war.
As we celebrate Memorial Day, I offer these excerpts from the brothers’ letters that contain as many details as they could offer without being censored. They could not mention where they were located, which they pointed out often in their letters:
A little girl and an exploding grenade
June 19, 1944, Italy, from Phene:
Last night I was confronted with a case that was so pathetic and yet typical of war that I’m inclined to devote most of this letter to it. …
As one of my last cases yesterday, I was sent in the Operating Room a little five year old Italian girl who had unwittingly picked up a German hand-grenade left behind in the countryside by the retreating Jerries – unknowing she pulled the pin and why she wasn’t blown to bits I’ll never know – but a piece did go into her belly. Just a little bit of a girl lying on a litter whimpering when she was brought to the O.R. – a cute little devil. …
I opened her belly, found a big hole in her large bowel and had to bring the bowel out through another incision in her flank. Finished up about eleven last night and went over to the ward to see that some blood was started on her, set up oxygen, etc. There she was lying strapped down on a cot in the windy drafty ward and surrounded by wounded soldiers. The tent was dim – lit only by the light of a single lantern – and there was her mother hovering over the child and at the same time nursing an infant at her breast. Asked the mother to go back into the tent – out of the way where we had prepared a cot for her while I worked on the child and as I did so the baby kept crying out in Italian something unintelligible that sounded like “Por Dios for Angles!” Each time she did so from the depths of the tent in the gloom would respond the mother’s voice, also in Italian, something like “Por Dios for Angles,” praying in response to the child’s anguished cry – it kept up all night – and was enough to chill one to the marrow – America that knows no misery is a wonderful dream.
So many wounded men to be treated
April 30, 1945, Italy, from Phene
Today marks an anniversary of sorts for me, two years that I’ve been overseas. They’ve been eventful – that’s about all that one can say for them. It’s sufficient to say that there was a job to be done, it’s been done, and that the end is truly in sight. To attempt to philosophize, moralize, or “burnish the lily” is futile – there’s nothing wonderful or grand about war. At best, it’s a dirty job, for the most part dull, and only at times exciting and inspiring. … Gallant exploits and the like are often anything but gallant at the moment of performance – and it’s only in the movies and over the radio that awe-inspiring events take place. …
In the beginning, casualties were heavy – a great many due to mines, so that amputations became so common that one’s gut rebelled at the thought of doing more of them. I’ve done plenty of them, but was particularly “intrigued” by the two nice American boys in my ward lying on adjoining cots – “helping” each other – one without legs – one without hands. …
Like in France and Germany, the woods are cluttered with German prisoners being sent back – hundreds and thousands of them – on foot and rammed into trucks like cattle – young and old, a few still arrogant but most very, very humble – a definitely beaten Wehrmacht. We’ve been getting a lot of Jerry wounded also – and most are pretty well shot up – perhaps I’m biased but they either whine inordinately, or literally slobber in their pawning attempts to curry favor. Despite ones natural inclinations, we treat them fairly and decently, and I’m personally sure, far better than they deserve.
Combined joys of letters from home & a real toilet
Feb. 16, 1945, Germany, from Irv:
Mail from you has begun to arrive more regularly and it’s needless for me to say “mail call” is the only happiness I have. …
Besides receiving all the letters, this has been a lucky day for me in many respects. At the moment, I have a room, a stove with coal, and a table to write on. The room has all the windows and walls intact – this is a luxury. No this is not a rest period. I simply came upon this dwelling by chance – I do not know for how long etc – but while I have it and while it has good solid thick walls and a cellar (just in case again), I intend to make the best of it. There is no running water, naturally, but I have rigged up a siphon by means of a stomach pump, stuck in a can of water. This can hangs from the ceiling and affords some of the conveniences of a sink with running taps. That isn’t all – there is always that inevitable toilet – no, we still don’t have a real one – but my Sgt. has made a reasonable facsimile. He cut a heart-shaped hole in the seat of a wooden arm chair and have placed a large tin can under it. At first we kept it indoors, we have since moved it into the barn — the reason being obvious. Please don’t think my mind is in the toilet – I know I speak of it frequently — You can’t possibly appreciate how important such is unless you have lived in the field and I’m not kidding. …
That reminds me of one of the funniest things I ever saw (this is the absolute truth, ‘tho hard to believe). Back in France, right after the break through the beachhead, we paused in some hedgerow country to bivouac. This was in some newly liberated area where the people were most friendly and grateful. The Chaplain dug a small “cathole” beside a hedge, dropped his trousers and squatted. Much to his amazement a woman stuck her head over from the other side of the hedge, gave a broad smile, grabbed one hand and shook hands while she presented in his other hand 2 eggs. She exclaimed “Bon jur misseur – Vive la Amerique!” – then departed. The fact that the Chaplain was “at can” didn’t phase her in the least – that’s the Continental folk for you. Actually, the Chaplain almost died from embarrassment.
Escaping from hell out in the field
Jan. 3, 1945, from Irv
One evening just before sundown the Exec. Officer, a Major, asked me to go out and give aid to 2 men injured on a patrol. (They were non Transportables). I went forward by vehicle as far as permissible without being heard, then took off on foot the rest of the distance. During the whole trip and during the time I gave aid to those boys, all hell broke loose and I mean hell. I creeped, crawled, and prayed hard, believe me. By the time I got back to my vehicle which was in a deserted woods the sun was completely down and I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of me. I didn’t know these woods either, and if it were not for use of the combination of instinct and a general direction from my compass — well – I wouldn’t be writing this now. After I returned to the Major – he simply said, “Good work, Doc, did you know you were as far forward as any Medic has ever been.” I knew it alright, believe me, I was looking down Jerry’s throats, rather – they were looking down mine – and I hope I am never again ordered out like that – for such is not the work a doctor is supposed to do. In fact the Chaplain raised hell about it – saying I had no business way up there. Well, I got back exhausted, and a lot wiser – but if you ask me was I frightened – yes. I was and probably shook like a dog that had eaten razor blades.
A sopping wet bed to sleep in
June 21, 1944, France, from Irv:
I have a pup tent pitched in an actual quagmire and keep my raincoat over the entrance to keep my face dry when I sleep in it. The bedding and all my equipment is soaked, for this rain draining down a large tree at the foot of the tent has caused everything to cave in. Just at the head of my tent, we have dug a large and deep entrenchment, with logs and a couple tons of dirt atop it, so that we can go there for shelter as occasion arises. Would like to sleep down there if it were not so muddy. The walls are “gooey”, mud drips incessantly from the top, and the floor is no less a quagmire from it. We call it “Home Sweet Home” no less.
Arrogance of German people reach down to their youngest
April 26, 1945, Germany, from Irv:
I can’t figure why the German continues – we’re really “plastering” him wherever we contact him. They are a crazy, fanatical race and there is some chance that we might have to capture every inch of Germany before they yield. Many civilians, even young boys of 10, continue to right and snipe – but the majority put up a white flag as soon as we enter their towns or villages. Their arrogance is manifest in even the children of 5 – their lives center about hate for other people and the belief of their superiority.
Concentration camp story turns soldier to hatred
April 16, 1945, Germany, from Irv:
I am very “bitter” tonight and here is why. …
Recently we passed a large concentration camp. I did not get opportunity to see it but one Warrant Officer in this outfit did and just returned today – sick at heart from what he witnessed. This officer was almost in tears as he told of what he saw. I shall attempt to give you the highlights but I guess by now you have read many newspaper accounts and radio reports about this very place. You cannot fully appreciate it, unless you are here to see for yourself. In this concentration camp, the German had real assembly line murder. As many as 30-40 thousand political prisoners and the like were thrown into this place, of slow, systematic, progressive mental torture, and spiritual and physical death. They were surrounded by barbed wire entanglements charged with high voltage electricity and many machine gun nests. They were brought in by the train load – there was a certain quota to be killed each day. I don’t know what the average number of days was before a man was killed but guess it was a number of weeks of this misery. Each day he would progress further down the line into a new area – he was ever conscious of what was ahead of him all the way down to the end of the line, for he could see it. Each day they played the death march (music) – the man gradually wastes away from lack of food, insufficient water, for drinking only, lice, disease, mistreatment and all. They packed 500 in a barracks of the size we would use for 30-40 men – the toilet was a hole dug in the ground at the foot of a group of beds. Most prisoners were too weak and prostrated to even move this far to the toilet, would either fall in, or do it where they lay and as they lay in bed. Their beds were simply hard wood slats, nothing else. The stench in the place was terrific – no one ever cleaned anything up. As the man reached the end of the “assembly line” – emaciated – some weighing 70-80 pounds, he wasn’t even given a decent death. His execution was as follows – he was dumped by the truckload down a chute onto a concrete floor of a chamber (mind you, still alive) – about 8 feet below, here he was hanged as follows – a noose was tied around his neck and then he was lifted just above the floor and the other end of this short rope was placed on a hook (not even a decent hanging) – (this is slower and causes more torture). If this did not cause death soon, before he was thrown into the huge incinerator, he was clubbed over the head with a huge wooden mallet and then tossed in dead or alive (but usually dead). In this camp there were two piles of human ashes and bones, not yet buried, each about the size of a small house.
Many thousands of people, even children, in this camp were liberated that day – most who were taken prisoner more recently by the Nazi will recover, those that have been there for some time – will never recover – they are too far gone and wasted away now. I have been through a great part of Germany already and everywhere I inquire about the Jews – “Are there any still alive in Germany”? The answer is – “No one knows.” Most feel that the Jews are completely extinct here. I have not seen a trace of one – and don’t believe I ever will.
I won’t say anymore except that at one time I thought I could never really learn to really hate a group of people. I have changed.
