• January – February 1943

January 16, 1943-January 31, 1943

            Am acting Sergeant for call.  After putting the morning report in shape I cleaned up and wrote several letters  spent the evening at the service club.  Slept until 10 O’clock.  Had a good dinner and spent the afternoon at the service club.  Saw “Whistling in Dixie” at the post theatre in the evening.  Mad at Bill – he called home without telling me.   Rained all day.  Got an awful lot of “bunk fatigue”  Had letter from Dot and Wayne S.  who is in the navy.  Wrote several letters and retired at 10 pm.   Stormed again today.  Hate to get up at 7:30 A.M. to get the morning report in.  played hearts all day to pass time.  Saw show “reunion in France”  Cold as hell. To cold to be out of the BRK’s.  Saw show “Commando’s strike at Dawn”

            Still cold  but we had to get out for exercises this morning. Played soccer in the afternoon.  Had a bit of excitement this evening when we “fired”  bookants pants.  Passed the day away by playing cards and fooling around the P.X.  Cozart went home last night A.W.O.L.  went to the service club dance.  Had a wonderful time.  Met some swell gals.  Quarantine ends today.  40,000 men moved in under post restriction.  Had letters from home, Sis, Dot and LaMar H. spent afternoon at service club.  Saw show’s “Mug town” and “time to kill” at post theatre.  Candy arrived from Orphia.  Played softball this morning.  Poor Sunday dinner.  Talked and read in the afternoon.  Lots of new guys are here for a new shipment.  Saw show “The Powers Girl”  the infantry upstairs had a little trouble in the form of a fist fight.

            Busted today for not giving calacentics.  Mercer is new Sarg.  Had a letter from home.  wrote two letters from service club.  Played ball and drank a few beers in the evening.  Feel pretty low in  spirits due to financial status.  Still misty and foggy.  Had letters from Lyle, Bill, Helen and Shell and Doris.  Bathed and put out a washing.  Saw show “when Johnny comes marching home”  talked to the P.X. gals.  3 inches of snow fell last night.  It’s cold and we are pulling guard duty.  Paratroopers moved in.  Saw U.S.O. show featuring Bob Hawk.  It was good.  Harvey Meacham back from Hospital.  Went to New York City by “hole in wall”  Saw 3 Basketball games in Madison square gardens.  Got tight had a big time.  Worst snow storm since 34.  Still drunk and in New York City.  Riding an awful lot of subways went to La Guardia air port.  Saw several destroyers on the ocean from Long Island Sound.  Spent the afternoon and evening at the home of Curtis Cook.  His wife is from Cheyenne Wyoming.  Had a swell time.  Got back to camp at 2:30 pm.  Was paid today, nearly all of the boys are going home.  Cozart, Mercer, Boyer, Meacham and 4 others.  Went to NYC am A.W.O.L.  Had a good time spent the night at the Taft Hotel.  Was taught to stay out of “dime a dance joints”  Had to learn the hard way for $2.00

            Grace didn’t show up at the Penn Station.  Went to the Roxy theatre.  Saw Guy Lombardo and his royal Canadianes.  Was sure swell.  Went to a party at the Biltmore Hotel given by N.Y. Womens college.  Picked up a date and after going through the Daily News Building, ate dinner and danced and then came back to camp at 5 P.M,.

February 1943

            Feel rather bad, big hangover  had mail from home.  Helen, Pearl, Received $19.  Wrote a few letters, played a game of cards and went to bed early.  Harry Meacham is A.W.O.L..  He was reported this morning.  He showed up this evening.  Drank an awfull lot of beer and played cards. Don’t have a thing to do.  Things are getting hot.  Restriction is still on and they are using dry runs.  Have had an awfull lot of bad weather.  Am playing quite a bit of cards to pass the time away.  Things are looking bad for the A.W.O.L. boys. I am acting sergeant again.  We are salvageing and exchanging clothes again.  Had physical roll call this morning by Sgt. Dunn.  I ans for Cozart.  Quite a few tense moments until he showed up at 10 a.m.  Mercer, Boyer and Bearson are goners for A.W.O.L.  Saw the show “Immortal Sergeant”  Wrote a birthday letter to Helen and retired.  Had several letters today.

            Helen’s birthday. Best I could do was open a letter.  Boyer came in all beaten up.  I took him to the hospital.  He has a double broken jaw.  Won’t be able to make the boat.  He certainly feels bad.  Might get a court martial.  Mercer came in late last night.  Wrote several letters.  Saw the show “the Avengers”  Looks like we sail Sunday.  We are all set.  Ride and Bookout are sky high on PX 3.2 beer.  Took Ralph’s things up to the hospital.  He certainly looks tough.  Sure hates not being able to sail with us.  Think we ship tomorrow for sure.  Still raining.  Played cards and went to bed early.  All the boys took a last fling at N.Y.C. and town life.  Wish I could afford to call home to Helen.  Restriction on anyway!

            (2/7/43)  We ship today  Hurried all day getting ready and writing letters.  We marched to the railhead in full pack.  Spent two horrible hours on a train between Kilmer and Jersey City.  Took the Staten Island Ferry past the statue of Liberty to our boat.  We boarded the “Arcadia” at 10:30 pm  It is about 500 ft long and plenty rough.  Slept in my clothes.  Plenty crowded.  Ate a hearty breakfast with Cozart.  Put in charge of the 4^th platoon of my company.  Went up on deck and beheld a beautiful sight of the receeding shore line and our convoy.  Estimate 40 to 60 ships in our convoy.  Am feeling plenty ill.  Man jumped overboard, picked up by two destroyers.  Feel like dieing.  Vomited all my good breakfast.  Stayed in my bunk the rest of the day and night except for life boat drill.  Refuse to eat. Wish I was head—–.  Ship rocked so bad, one boy fell out of his bunk and broke his leg.  The ocean is beautiful, but not to one in my condition.  Clenderine and all are ill but Cozart the lucky begger.

            Refused to eat Breakfast.  Have no worry about subs this sea sickness will kill me.  Made up bunk-an iron frame with a 3 by 7 ft canvas on it. 167 neb are ub a riin 20 by 30 ft.  ate lunch. Two sandwiches and two oranges.  Feel lots better.  Hard as hell to wash in Salt Water.  Hope we don’t have to abandon ship.  At ship drill 57 men reported to a boat designed to hold 40.  the gunners had practice today 4 inch and anti-aircraft.  We saw some porpoise today.  Several of the boys are still ill.  I try to read the battleships blinkers.  Clenderine “urped” on at chow.  Spend quite a bit of time on deck.  Fresh air certainly helps. 

2/10/43            Food still doesn’t go to easy.  We still sail south by east with no land in sight.  At 10pm last night we set our watches to 10:30  Dark clouds and a fast running sea.  Had an alert this morning.  The battleships nearly went crazy.  The PX opened today.  Candy is 3Cents per bar, cigarettes 45 cents per carton.  The red cross gave us awfully nice gift bags.  (on a separate sheet of paper he wrote the following) [ Red Cross Bag; 1  pocket book edition, sheath of envelope, show shine cloth, sewing kit, lead pencil, shoe laces, soap and container, pack of cards, pack of doublemint, pack of five razor blades, pack of cigarettes, 1 tablet.]

            This afternoon we gathered on the B deck and several of the boys who played musical instruments entertained.  We signed the $5 ship payroll today.  We are bunched with a signal corp bunch.  We are pulling guard tonight, up all night for me sea is rough tonight.

 2/11/43-Had a sub scare last night we sailed due east to avoid a sub pack.  We advanced our clocks ahead one half hour at 10 PM.  We have daily boat drill.  Mercer and I had to get the boys out for guard duty last night.  Quite a time Meacham, Masters and Clenderine are still very ill.  The sea is a very beautiful blue.  Received $5 pay and pocket guide to North Africa today.  Rumors say we are going to Oran.  If so it will be rugged through the mediteranian sea.  Wish I could write home.  I would never have made a sailor.  Met a Poc. Boy.  

2/12/43-           Lincolns Birthday all civilian hands observed the holiday.  Last night the colored troops brought out their brass band and entertained.  The colonel is from Salt Lake City.  A tanker hit a cargo vessel last night.  As the rumor goes the damage was considerable.  Quite a bit of activity by the battleship “Arkansas” and cruiser “Philidalphia”   A sea plane was overhead nearly all day.  We have two good hot meals for breakfast and supper.  We eat sandwiches and fruit for dinner.  Still we sail east and south with out any change in the temps.   Received a letter from  Pres Roosevelt today.  Again at 10 PM we set our watches one half hour ahead.

2/13/43            Slept until 8:30. nothing new.  Just sailing south and east with no land in sight.  Beautifull blue sky & white topped sea waves.  Gunners had a bit of practice today.  I was setting on the stern when one of the Arkansas planes flew over at about 30 ft.  We have four planes up every day on sub duty.  Had “corned beef and cabbage” for supper tonight.  Colored boys put on musical show tonight.  Some of the boys ran a shark line.  No results.  Had boat drill as per scheduled.  Issued meal tickets tonight.  Eliminates double eating.  Did a little reading today for the first time.  All in all; A superb day.

2/14/43 Sunday           Had a damn good breakfast of sausage and eggs.  Went back to bed until noon.  Read a bit and strowled about the deck.  We have the guard again.  I got the first shift out and then had a G.I. haircut.  We had a bit of excitement.  Had a sub scare for four hours, the Negroes turned in a fire alarm.  Destroyers got all excited and shot of several flares.  Signal corp put on a swell show. A wee bit “Brazen” but the nurses and Red Cross gals stood it.  Wish I could have sent greetings to Helen and the folks.  Sure miss them.  Still Beautifull sailing.  Didn’t get to bed until 1:30 A.M.

2/15/43            Slept until noon.  Then after eating my “cheese” sandwich I visited with the boys in the 400 room.  We played “black jack” all afternoon.  Through a little white lie we enjoyed two boxes of cheese sandwiches and a big pot of coffee.  At the end of the evening show the major announced that we will probably land Thursday.  What a day that is going to be.  We had a four alarm gun crew alert for 30 minutes this morning.

2/16/43            I have acquired a bad habit of staying up until after midnight and sleeping until noon.  Regular boat drill went of as usual.  Hate to think what will happen if they don’t sink this boat at 2 o’clock.  Bad day for watches. Cozart broke his crystal and Keefer broke the stem from his.  We wrote letters for the ship to take back.  They will be censored heavily.  I wrote to mom and Helen.  We advanced our clocks another half and hour.  Often think and wonder how Boyer feels.  The sea is roughing up a bit.  We are turning our American money in to be exchanged for French currency-Francs!  We have advanced our watches 1 hour in the last three days.