Smitty’s Cruise Begins – Letter III
From my father’s description of his transport ship out of San Francisco and the approximate number of soldiers that were aboard, I can speculate that it was a Heywood class ship, as seen in the above photograph. As the ship lumbered out to the ocean swells, many of the young men took their final glance of the USA. Smitty thought that his most boring time in the army was while he sailed on this cruise – although – he did quite well in learning how to play cards – as did many other G.I.’s.
As they boarded, the ship’s crew immediately began enforcing the security procedures. All portholes and hatches were covered and no lights were allowed after dusk. The heat below deck in the cramped quarters would soon become intolerable. The arrival of the “ditty bags” filled with toiletries, cigarettes, gum and a harmonica brightened their spirits; but many of the mouth organs were quickly sent flying overboard when the noise coming from the tin-eared soldiers became too much for the ship’s officers to endure. This cruise would take 28 days to complete, so Smitty had plenty of time to write home.
***** *****
Letter III Somewhere at sea at a loss
Dear Mom,
We have been on this tub for quite some time now and I must say that although the army doesn’t go to any great pains making you comfortable, they sure do go to extremes making it unpleasant. I can’t tell you as much as I would like to about the trip or what we are doing. One reason is that we don’t know where the heck we are anyway and as for what we are doing, well anything we might like to do would be stopped sooner than it got started. It has gotten so that now we have to play cards, if money is displayed, down in the hold. Seems as though the sea gulls over this ocean are the pious type and the sight of men gambling is revolting — or they think it is food.
To try and describe the food or the mess hall would curtail the use of profanity the like of which I wouldn’t attempt to use. To call it food in the first place is flattery at its best. Mess Hall is very appropriate — it is some MESS. This is the first time in my life that I can truthfully say I dread the thought of eating. We are supposed to tell you that on board ship we can purchase cigarettes for 4 1/2 cents a pack, also candy and a load of other stuff at cost price. We can also buy bottles of coca cola, but the blame stuff is so hot that we are of the opinion that loaded down with this coke in our stomachs, we might be used as depth charges if a sub should show up. We did receive free, with no strings attached, a bag full of necessary things from the Red Cross. It really was worthwhile going after.
Where we might be bound for is still a very big question that will no doubt be answered only when we finally arrive there. After all, if we knew, we might tell it to the stars and that would be just awful. I realize this doesn’t sound like a very pleasant letter, but then you must take into consideration this isn’t a very pleasant trip. None of those romantic moonlit nights.
Well, that is all for today, so until later on when I will be back to add to this, I’ll say so long for now and all my love, Everett
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor –
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Farewell Salutes –
James Audet – Walpole, NH; US Army, Korea, Morse Code operator
Varskin Baydarian – Detroit, MI; US Navy, WWII, PTO
Harvey Fritz – Gary, IN; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 11th Airborne Div.
Wilfred Green – East Meadow, NY; US Merchant Marine
Orvin McGavin – Idaho Falls, ID; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 187th/11th Airborne Div.
Robert Parker – Scotsdale, AZ; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, HQ/674 Artillery/11th Airborne Div.
Donald Pigford – Wilmington, NC; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, P-47 pilot
Franklin Rinker – Allentown, PA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, D/152 Artillery/11th Airborne Div.
Stanley Wojcik – Windsor, CAN; WWII, RC Air Force
Eileen Younghusband – London, UK; British Army WAAF, WWII
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Posted on September 5, 2016, in First-hand Accounts, Letters home, SMITTY, Uncategorized, WWII and tagged 1940's, Airborne, Army, family history, History, Military, Military History, war letters, WW2, WWII. Bookmark the permalink. 91 Comments.
Too funny. :))
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Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner.
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Thank you very much.
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My father was in the war
But he never talked about
And I never asked
Funny how things like that work
Thank you for visiting
As always Sheldon
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Perhaps that was for the best. Each veteran handles his combat experience the best way he knows how.
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Thanks for sharing gp, great family first hand record of your Fathers first adventures. into the world of Wars chaos.
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Thank you, Ian. I’ve treasured these letters most of my life.
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These are great letters home from Smitty! The pious seagulls brought a smile. 🙂
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Good old Mother Nature looking out for young men, I suppose! haha Thank you for coming by, Lavinia.
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Reblogged this on KCJones.
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Thank you, Penny. These letters have meant a lot to me throughout the years!
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Even if the news wasn’t that good, I can imagine how much his mother would appreciate Smitty’s letter.
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So true.
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I don’t say it enough, but I so appreciate your posts and the insight they provide concerning an era my father and father-in-law were so a part of….keep up the great work!!
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Thank you very much, Kirt. Believe me, I understand, there isn’t always time to comment on everyone’s post that you follow, but I do stop into your site on every post! If you stick around – then so will I !! 🙂
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Thanks for your support!!
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Very interesting peek into his/their daily existence on that long cruise!
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Thank you.
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What’s funny is the perspectives and the differences between how the troops viewed the time aboard ship versus that of ship’s company. I get that living conditions for each could vary somewhat but the enlisted navy men lived in these conditions (as described by Smitty) every day. My grandfather served the last two years of the war on an APA delivering Marines and SeaBees to various Pacific islands that were inhabited by the enemy. He talked about the daily grind aboard ship, the occasional liberty and the Kamikaze attacks (he served on a 40mm A/A gun for his condition I station). I can imagine how different it was for men trained for the slogging and fighting would find the waiting aboard ship distasteful.
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I suppose it was the difference of what they had become accustom to. But even your grandfather mentioned the daily grind. The repetitive nature of their work must ‘get to them’ after a while.
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I tried to stop in and visit your site, but wordpress tells me it is no longer available?
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Sorry. I meant to update my profile a long time ago. Try again or just go directly to the primary site:
https://veteranscollection.org/
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living with such a lot of people together must be no easy.Interesting post to red
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Thank you, I appreciate your visit.
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“To try and describe the food or the mess hall would curtail the use of profanity the like of which I wouldn’t attempt to use.” I think this says it all, G. Nothing I have ever eaten, even backpacking food in the early years, compares. 🙂 –Curt
Also his thoughts about not being allowed to say where he was or what he was doing but then confessing that he didn’t know himself. I chuckled, just a bit, here.
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I think he might be reminding his mother that he couldn’t say anything even if he wanted to? (or he ran out of things to say?)
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That, for sure…
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What a colourful, descriptive letter – he didn’t hold back on describing how the boredom can drive you crazy! thanks for sharing – your dad was quite a character.
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Carol, that is about the only way to describe Dad in one word! Thank you for coming by to read it.
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A witty Smitty
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You’re right about that, Derrick!
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Seconded! Lots of great one liners in that letter.
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I think Smitty and I might have gotten on well …
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Probably! There weren’t too many that didn’t take to dad. (a whole lot more than took to me, I have to admit.)
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I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be and for 28 days!!!!
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Just too crowded and too many people to feed, (not to mention heading to who knows where…).
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Oh, man! 🙂
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GP, I really liked this post and that letter is priceless!
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I’m glad you did. I appreciate you saying so.
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Poor mother, receiving that letter. I can only imagine how she felt. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks for visiting.
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I enjoyed the letter, but that little drawing says it all. Veterans certainly do walk the walk!
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That drawing is one of my favorites!! Thanks for agreeing, John.
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hello gp cox its dennis the vizsla dog hay that green sailor wood totaly be my dada!!! he wunse got so seesick just sitting in a restawrant at the end of a verry long peer wot stiks owt into the pasific oshun heer in the mithikal sitty of oshunside that they had to leev withowt ordering ennything!!! ok bye
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They have cures for seasickness these days, hopefully your dad will look into them.
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On a troop ship. I would be terrified the whole way even before reached the battlefield.
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Being crowded and bored should be about it. but I’m guessing maybe you can’t swim?
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Had never hear coke a cola described that way! 😀 Certainly not what the advertisers promoted. 😉
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What a sad letter. I almost feel more sorry for your grandmother than your father, thinking of how she must have felt reading it.
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She stood about 5’1″ and she could be either the life of the party, the hostess with the mostest or a Drill Sgt. it all depended on you or the situation. She was tough when she had to be.
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I am glad to hear that!
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Smitty sure could write interesting and funny letters. Keep ’em coming G.P.. And in reading your posts I never felt you were ever glorifying war, just reporting how it was from historical facts, and from the eye witness accounts of those on both sides, that were actively or passively involved.
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Thank you, Don. I sincerely appreciate that.
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Your dad shows a sense of humor . Also , regarding the food , my father was a naval officer on a transport . The officers ate better .
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That’s what I’ve heard. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to run a ship if they’d be forced to eat awful food every day!!
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Thanks for sharing these intimate letters with us, GP. I can only imagine how bad it must have been, given how much he was happy to complain about conditions in his letter home. Reading between the lines, I am sure that it must have been much worse than he describes. As someone who gets sea-sick crossing over to France, I hate to think of being stuck on a ship for so long.
Well done to all those brave young men for enduring it.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I do know Smitty didn’t get seasick, after all, he did grow up on a fishing island and started a boat rental place. It sure would have looked bad if he was green most of the time! haha But like you said, you can read between the lines because he wasn’t about to let his mother dwell on anything bad happening to her son.
Here’s to the beginning of another week!
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Glad to hear that your Dad was a seafaring man, GP!
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Guess it would have worked out just fine if he was British, eh?
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Most Britons are at home on the water, GP. After all, we are an island race. I am the exception, it seems!
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Oh no, have you been disowned?
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I am one of a few, but happy to accept my situation. After all, Admiral Horatio Nelson was often sea-sick, and not only did he manage to overcome that to win many victories, he was from Norfolk!
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I sure could see why the boredom would set in. Your dad’s letter made me smile when he wrote ” To call it food in the first place is flattery at its best ” I have heard it’s terrible.
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Yet, I always hear how great the crew eats, at least the officers. Have I heard wrong?
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Interesting peek into that trip. I don’t know if they’ve gotten much better. My daughter served on an LPD so I got to tour the ship. I don’t recall a lot of amenities for the enlisted guys!
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No, Smitty doesn’t talk about too many. He must have been allowed into someone’s office though, these letters coming up as the cruise progresses were the only typed ones he’d sent home.
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I look forward to more from Smitty because it shows a side of war and military life many of us will never know…and you know me! As a mom I can so relate 🙂
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Oh, I know you will. You have been stopping in to visit Smitty and the other troops for quite a while now. And I sincerely thank you for that.
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And I thank you for all of your wonderful posts but Smitty is so much more personal, for you obviously, but I can feel it too.
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28 days on sea in the dark and not a lot to do must be a bad dream
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For me it sure would have been, but I know my dad would have already made friends and kept busy somehow. Thank you for reading.
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Enjoyed reading Smitty’s account of the troop ship cruise. From my father’s letters, on the same subject, they had chow twice a day, morning and evening. By then, they were famished, and it wasn’t fit to eat.
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In these 28 days, he wrote more than once. So there is more to come out of all this sailing around. Thanks for dropping by, Adam.
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I suppose it could have been worse. He might have had a CO who had them do PT and drills the whole way — or maybe that would have been less boring and better (but would have resulted in the same amount of gripes – it’s the Army).
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That’s right – where would the Army be if no body complained?
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I like his dry sense of humor.
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Sometimes he’d throw something at me, a phrase or word and it would take me a sec to realize what he’d said. He could keep you laughing when he was in the mood!!
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I did not know who to feel sorrier for Re the letter , the son or Mom!such a great article GP. You serve us well in keeping these young men in mind and that these are very real human beings we send off to war. ❤
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You definitely get my point of reason, thanks!
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🙂
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28 days! I had no idea.
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Nice post though
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Gee – thanks.
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Only if we could ever understand that war doesn’t hold any meaning in long term. It has been given unduly glorification but then we do need dopamine in some way
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I don’t try to glorify it, but show what these men went through for us to keep our freedom, and keep them remembered. I in no way advocate war as a method of solving any problem.
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Think,how long will people really remember things,anything but ya you are right we do live by stories. Sometimes the stories do bring in hope. Thanks for sharing.
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For all you that have been in the military, Did you notice how he “toned down” his language for this letter? I remember doing that SO MUCH when I used to write home. Curse words become like adjectives in the military!! It’s crazy. Thanks for sharing this G.P, really, really cool stuff.
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To his dying day, my dad refused to curse in front of a woman, so he sure wasn’t going to write it to his mother. Besides, all 5′ of her would have tanned his hide when he got home (after all the hugs and kisses).
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28 days being kept in the dark, sounds pretty rough to me.
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Dad just complained about the boredom though.
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I am not surprised, add in the lousy food along with nothing much to do
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