Letters To Home - December 16, 1951

Schweinfurt, Germany
December 16, 1951

The bad weather is still holding on. The fog and frost lasted until sometime last night, and then it warmed up quite a bit. The fog is still thicker than I've ever before seen it, but the frost seems to be going.

Tomorrow we go to Wildflecken to shoot up all the old ammo. We'll probably be there about five days, then will come back for Christmas.

Rotation will definitely start on February 3, and nine more of the guys will leave the battery in February. My turn should come up in April or May, I think. We haven't heard just what the guys who are going back to the States will be doing after they get there. Probably help in the training at Dix or one of the other camps.

Does the town have its decorations up this year. We have a few here at Conn Barracks, but not like in Schweinfurt. We don't have any snow as yet; Christmas needs snow. I imagine we'll run into some at Wildflecken.

Still nothing much more to tell. This is about the slowest time I've put in since we arrived in Germany. Please write soon.

Letters To Home - November 20, 1951

Munnerstadt, Germany
November 20, 1951

The weather has turned beautiful for the past three days. It rains a bit every day, but then clears off and gets warm in the afternoons. We turned in our coal stoves the other day, now have oil stoves that burn diesel fuel. The first few days the stove in our tent didn't work right, but one of the mechanics worked on it a bit, and it now works fine.

We've been laying a new road into our position. I've had an 8-man crew back in Schweinfurt tearing up the the metal landing strips at our airfield at Conn Barracks. "A" and "C" Batteries then haul the metal out to our position, and lay out a pretty nice road. Should take care of the mud.

The pictures I took still aren't finished. I hope they turn out as well as I think they will.

Our Captain has pulled a fast one on the rest of the Battalion. At an officers' meeting the other day, he volunteered our services here on the border for the next three weeks. When we heard about it, naturally, some of the guys complained. However, the Captain had checked the dates, discovered that if he volunteered for us to stay out here for Thanksgiving Day, we would get Christmas and New Year's Day back in the barracks. Smart man. Anyway, our cooks will get the chance to cook Thanksgiving Day dinner for us.

The latest rumor out seems to be right for a change. According to the rumor, we'll start rotating back to the States in February, with a thousand a month going. I guess the ones that go first will start training the 18-year olds that will start under the V. M. T. program.

I didn't know that Bernie was in the 43rd Division. He's probably stationed around Munich.

Curl Adams and I are going Christmas shopping in Frankfort on December 4. We're taking a 3-day pass to do it.

Can't think of much more to say, so will close. We finally have lights; the generator is noisy, but seems to work well.