Letter from Germany, 1944 January 02

Creator

Robert D. Davis

Files

Creation Date

1-2-1944

Keywords

WWII, letters, World War 2, snow, front line, destroyed village

Subject

World War, 1939-1945; Snowfall

Description

Davis writes about the snowy weather, being in the front lines of battle, and seeing a destroyed village.

Transcription:

Pfc. Robert D. Davis, 18107121

CoE, Det. I7E3, 3^rd ECA

APO 658

c/o Postmaster, N.Y. N.Y.

AIR MAIL

Mrs. R. L. Davis

1619 Boston

Muskogee, Oklahoma

visit lay stacks

Jan. 2^nd, 1944

Germany

Dear Folks:

The weather’s pretty chilly now, and no sign of getting warmer. This after-noon it snowed again, but the net result of over two days snow was not enough to cover the ground. Snowey weather is pretty jolly tho’, as long as you’re inside and warm: those poor boys on the front are the ones who get pretty cold. Lately I’ve made my first visits to the front line. It’s about like what the news-reels show, with everyone living in fox-holes or excavations of some kind. In one place they had dug under a hay stack, and had a cellar like entrance and a protruding smoke-stack. Everywhere in the gutted villages approaching the front, you all wrecked buildings, and smoke-stacks and crooked chimney’s sticking out of the cellars: all the cellar win-down blocked or stuffed up with rubble, to keep out the cold.

One learns several things up here, little battle sidelites: when a simple jerry plane comes over and drops a bomb, you act and hold your heath; because they carry 2. [Such as just happened. The 1^st one landed within 2 blocks, we waited a bit. 5 min. for the second one - away.] Also when you just hear the whistle of a shell, you duck to the earth, because it’s “incoming mail.” When there’s an explosion at 1^st, then the whistle don’t worry it’s “outgoing mail.” Today I did my 1^st ducking, while out paying a “visit” to the front. Jerry shelled the grain elevator where were loading wheat. The loading was interrupted by three trips down cellar.

Love, Bob