These letters go to eleven!
I need to bring back “How’s tricks,” I love it! This letter really stresses to me the challenges for some of these young men being away from home for the first time and that they could no longer take for granted many of the comforts of home. A care package with some essentials and reminders of home clearly went a long way. Also, for the animal rights activists out there, I believe the “birds” he was shooting at were planes and not actually real life Woody Woodpeckers. I hope? Kurt (Kurdt, Curt) Cobain used to mess with reporters and spell his name differently all the time and in this letter my Dad signed his name ending in “ie” instead of “y.” Yup, my Dad was 45 years ahead of Mr. Kobain. I may have to start spelling my name Khris.
Dec. 1, 1943
Hi Folks,
How’s tricks? I hope that everything is okay and that everyone is well. The first thing I want to write about is to tell you that I received your package and it contained just about everything that I could hope for. The candy, peanuts, fruit cake, nuts, and apples are all gone now and they certainly were swell. Thanks for the soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving cream and razors, I still have plenty of razor blades left but I was running low on soap, toothpaste and shaving cream. I was wondering what I was going to do for those articles because I’ve only got a dollar left and they told us that we’ll be paid for October and November about the sixth of this month, so I hope that they hurry up and pay us so that I can put it away to save for my ten-day furlough. I hope that they also pay us for December before we leave this field because I want to have enough money to go home with, so that I won’t have to trouble you for any.
Well, we’ve been going out to the shoot range again, firing from turrets and a moving base, which is a moving truck and Monday I hit twelve birds out of twenty-five from the turret, and eight out of twenty from the moving truck; then Tuesday, we didn’t fire from the turrets but we fired twenty rounds from the moving truck and I hit twelve birds. We were supposed to go out to the range again today but for some reason we didn’t. The last couple of mornings we spent on the malfunction range, which is a range that consists of sixty four machine guns and each gun has something wrong with it so that it won’t fire. We then have to find out what’s wrong by various symptoms, repair them and fire a few rounds to make sure that it works and then put the malfunction back in it for the next fellow in line to work on. It’s been a mighty interesting week so far and I think we’ll do the same thing for the rest of the week, so this week we’ll get plenty of practice and experience in working on the guns and repairing them without some instructor at our elbow telling us how to do it and bawling us out if we do it wrong. Boy, there’s nothing better for learning than practical experience.
Well, how’s George doing in Cross-country or he should be starting track practice for the indoor season by now. I received a letter from him the other day and I haven’t had time to answer it yet but I’ll try to answer it tomorrow night.
I spent most of last night mailing Xmas cards and I think I mailed one to everyone but Mrs. Kennedy next door and the Delaneys. By the way, what is Aunt Eve’s address, so I can send her one also.
Well, I guess that’s about all for now, be good, take care of yourselves and God Bless you all.
Your loving son,
Frannie
P.S. Give my regards to the rest of the family. Thanks again for the package, it was swell.
Duke of Dead Air 