Letter from Howard to Yvette, April 17, 1944

Letter from Howard to Yvette, April 17, 1944

Military Life

Howard tells of how a man picked up what he thought was a dud which ended up killing eight guys. The captain told everyone to get rid of any explosives. Howard expresses his frustration with this mistake. He reassures Yvette that his parents really do like her.

Sarty, Howard L., 1919-1977

Harvey, Gretchen (donor)

Courtesy of the Concordia College Archives

1944-04-17

Haekenkamp, Daniele (digitization, transcription, metadata)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Correspondences

English

Text

1944-04-17

Camp Campbell, KY

Correspondences

[The following letter is written on official United States Army stationary]

Camp Campbell, Ky.

April 17, 1944


Dear Halfpint,

Well hows [sic] every little thing to night [sic]? Gee I’m lonesome now but I guess I’ll get over it. The captain got us all together to day [sic] and told us if we had any high explosive to get rid of it or else. It seem[s] yesterday a fellow acrossed the street from our barracks picked up what he thought was a dud and he had it in his barracks bag and is was [sic] a 33 mins [?] high explosive shell and it went off when he dropt [sic] it on the floor and killed eight guy[s]


[Page 2]


Gee there[‘s] still some pretty dumb guys in this country. They keep telling these guys not to pick up dud but some people will never learn. Somebody has got to get hurt before. Darling there [are] a bunch of guys leaving but they didn’t take me so I guess I’m stuck here for a little while longer. Darling I told you my father and mother both liked you and the rest of them do too and darling I love you. I hope this war ends soon or that I get a furlough. I love you and take care. As Ever,

Howard


[The following is written as a post script]


P.S. I love you and when I do come home you’ll get a sore back and that’s a promise. I love you.