Letters from Home

(Source)

"Sorry Horst, nothing for you. Some of this mail is weeks old!" Unteroffizier Alfred Tryb was the company pay clerk and food supply officer, the Verpflegungsunteroffizier in official parlance. He also handled the mail, when it actually arrived. A single sack, stained and rather muddy, had indeed arrived from battalion that morning. Sorting through it in his dugout, he set aside the letters addressed to men he knew to be dead or in hospital.

Letters to the dead he would give to his company commander, those who were in hospital would have their mail forwarded to them. Grenadier Othmar Dietrich met him as he climbed out of the earthen shelter.

"Anything for me Herr Unteroffizier?" The young man asked, rather hopefully.

"Let me see... No, no, no, sorry, nothing here for you young Othmar. You do know that if you want letters, you have to write letters? Who does an orphan write to anyway?"

"I have a girl back in Kossen who..."

"Kossen? Never heard of it. Where is this Kossen place anyway? I'll bet you have more cows than people there."

"It's about 20 kilometers from Leipzig, near the Mulde River. It's a..."

"Oh, of course, that really nails it down for me. Hold on..." As Tryb had been talking he had continued to walk through the company area and going through the mail, the 12th Platoon was nearby and he knew young Dietrich was in that platoon, as was another man who he did have a letter for.

"Say, you know this fellow don't you, a young kid from the Eifel. Max Herrmann, he's in your platoon, yes?"

Dietrich stopped, which caused Tryb to stop as well, "Do you know him or not? There is only this one letter for your platoon, you can save me a trip."

"Yes, I know him..." Dietrich paused and looked off into the trees, "more properly I guess you'd say I knew him. He's gone missing."

"Missing! As in deserted?" Unteroffizier Tryb hadn't heard any of the latest news in the company as he had been up at regiment the last two days, trying to find food for the men, which was in pretty short supply.

"No sir, he went out to refill his squad's canteens and never returned."

"So he did desert?"

"No. We heard rifle fire that day where we assumed he went to, American rifle fire. The lieutenant sent out a patrol but the Amis were out there, in strength. So we never found him. The lieutenant has reported him as missing in action, presumed killed."

"That's terrible. Well, run along then young Othmar, I have nothing else for your platoon." Unteroffizier Tryb shook his head as he stuffed the letter to 'Grenadier Max Herrmann' back into his satchel. So little mail got through to the front these days, and when it did, so many of the intended recipients were no longer counted among the living.

"War is a horrible thing," Tryb murmured to himself as he pulled out the mail for the next platoon.

US Army Signal Corps Photo

"Damn Stump, here's another letter for you, what is that, like five? All different return addresses in Philly, except for this one, from what, King of Prussia? What the Hell man, do you have a Kraut girlfriend? Or are you dating the kaiser himself?" All the men around the platoon sergeant, SSgt Herbert Graves, laughed.

"C'mon Sarge, you're an educated guy, King of Prussia is an actual town near Philly. My folks' restaurant is close to a factory, this girl from King of Prussia came in for lunch every day. She writes me, she's nice. She ain't no Kraut, she's Italian, like me."

"Hey, the Italians are allies with the Krauts ain't they?" PFC Jack Leonard got a laugh with that one and a punch in the arm from Stump Gentile.

Rubbing his arm, Leonard said, "Gee Stump, that hurt." He looked upset as well.

PFC Flavio 'Stump' Gentile grabbed Leonard by the scruff of his neck and laughed, "Geez Jack, don't take everything so personal. My people are the good Italians, ya know, the Philly Italians, we hate Krauts."

"Damn Stump, ya got a package too?" Cpl Melvin Katz was incredulous as SSgt Graves handed a box wrapped in brown paper to Gentile. Stump was a popular guy, he usually got a lot of mail, but packages were special, his mother sent him food, Italian sausages and sometimes cheese. Stump was also popular in the platoon because he always shared the packages containing goodies that he got from home.

"C'mon Jack, I might introduce you to this one from the old neighborhood," Stump said, waving a letter in the air, "she's a swell dame, she might even like you!" Stump laughed as he looked at Leonard's face, the kid seemed amazed that some girl might actually like him.

"Gee, you'd do that for me Stump?"

"Hell yeah, we're buddies ain't we?"

As the men dispersed, most of them had mail, a couple did not, which was always the case, SSgt Graves saw his platoon leader, 1Lt Nate Paddock approaching. He held a letter up and said, "For you L.T., you got a brother in the Pacific?"

Looking at the envelope, Paddock could see that it was indeed from his brother, dated about four weeks ago. "Yup, he's a flyboy, navigator on B-29s. Flying out of Guam." As he spoke, he tore open the letter, he didn't hear from his big brother all that often.

Reading the letter, he paused and looked at his platoon sergeant, "Damn, my brother says that my best friend in high school was killed in action. He was..." Paddock paused, Jack Cleburne was more than just a friend, the two had been inseparable as kids. Cleburne's grades weren't good enough to go to college, he had really wanted to go to West Point with Paddock, but had enlisted in the Marines instead.

"Awfully sorry to hear that Nate. I know the feeling." Herb Graves did indeed know the feeling, he had lost two friends from high school in the war so far. One, a bomber gunner, had gone down over some manufacturing town in Germany, the other had been killed in action in Italy, at Salerno.

"Kinda gets ya, right in the gut." Paddock ran the sleeve of his field jacket over his eyes, they were starting to water. "It hurts pretty bad Herb. F**king Jap bastards!"

"Yup. They are bastards, so are the f**king Krauts." Graves was at a loss for words, then inspiration struck, he thought his lieutenant could use a drink, and he had just the thing. "Hey, L.T., let's go to my 'bunker', I think I still have some of that applejack from Normandy laying around somewhere. I don't know about you, but I need a drink."

"Yeah, good idea Herb."

"Maybe a couple..."