#238 Navy #3247 (Mil. Govt) FPO San Francisco Thursday 31 May 1945 8:30 am Dearly Beloved Yesterday morning, furnished with a list of hospitals and a telephone by Dr. Jacobziner, I called every one of them: Walter was not registered. Next I checked at Headquarters thinking that, although he's not connected with M.G. here, Walter would surely have dropped in to see the local setup, and he had; one of the enlisted men remembered him by name, said he had been in two days before. I decided to spend the afternoon tracking him down by jeep, finish the morning off talking to the Education Officer. We sat in his office for twenty minutes, then walked to another office where I had left my briefcase to look at some pictures of the school I’d brought with me. We spent half an hour there. Meanwhile Walter, out to see as much of the island as he can while he's still at liberty here (he's been out of the hospital for a week), went to FEA headquarters to look up a certain man he knew of but hadn't met, just to satisfy his curiosity about the FEA program. That man happened to have come here with me, as Walter discovered halfway thru their conversation. So when the Education Office and I walked back to his office, there was Walter, grinning from ear to ear. It was a fortunate coincidence; otherwise I might have spent my entire time here [?] for him and had just a brief chat, [pg 2] or might even have missed him altogether. Moreover, I chose the last possible time to come see him; he is under orders and awaiting transportation to go back, might leave any time from today to next week. He looks exceptionally well - better than I ever saw him at Columbia. Vigorous, full of energy, rested and diverted to the point where he's had enough of this sightseeing and is ready to go back to foxholes and K-rations, he shows no sign of having been through a strain except, of course, for the story he has to tell. He was remarkably fortunate; men were killed all around him, while he suffered relatively minor and not very painful wounds. He did have a shell fragment go right thru the calf of one leg, and has a dozen or so lesser hits where shrapnel splattered on one side and arm; he showed me the sears and all are healing nicely - there's some shrapnel left in him, but not apparently where it will bother him later, and no bones injured. Although the incident in general was far more serious than I’d realized, I can reiterate what I said about the chances of such danger now that I've heard his story. It was a freak hit. I can't repeat the details, but such a thing just wouldn't happen again to the same person. It was not at all the sort of thing that MG men would ordinarily be subjected to, and it was the sheerest freak of fate that it happened this time as it did. Walter has already applied for release from active duty (like every man who's been out for even a week, he [pg 3] just wants to go home!) on the basis of 34 mos. in the Navy already and his being 38, but we agreed that he was not likely to be released now. If he can't get home, then he doesn't mind too much the prospect of returning to the same assignment. It will be uncomfortable at first, and a good deal of sleep will be lost over nightly air raids, but if one takes the necessary precautions the latter are not very dangerous. Walter and I had lunch with Jake and then drove several miles to a place where the latter had to hold a clinic - left him there, drove back to Walter's former hospital to visit with two other men who’d been with him (both from Princeton) and some others whom he’d just met at the hospital. Amongst this other group there was an Army lieutenant named Ray Davis who owns a house in Carmel at 7th and Monteverde - I promptly asked him whether he was satisfied with his present rentors, and he laughed and said unfortunately his tenants were very satisfactory people and wanted to stay indefinitely. (Davis’ family are living somewhere else in California right now). If by any chance you should know or meet the people who live in that house, Davis is looking well and cheerful; was dressed and about (I don't know why he was in the hospital). Afterward returned for Jake and had brought him back to his office, we did some more driving (talking all the while, of course), stopped off at Walter's current temporary [pg 4] quarters so that he could leave a bottle (fifth) of rum I brought him (Bacardi Light Rum - it cost me $1.20 at the Officers’ liquor pool at which we can buy a fifth per week. Walter says it's $5.60, or something like that, in Carmel. Selection is limited but as a rule we can get a good brand of bourbon (Old Granddad) or rye (Mt. Vernon, Old overholt) or rum.) At a nearby, very large and very crowded Officer's Club we managed to elude a half-hour long line and pick up two drinks apiece right away - Walter had Tom Collins and I whiskey sours. We took them outside to a grassy slope on the edge of a cliff affording a very pleasant view of the ocean and other things I can't describe, and continued our conversation, which came back always to the same two things - our respective experience to date, and our respective families. More about the latter later. Next we returned to where I was staying, dismissed the jeep and went to the affiliated Officers’ Club for another drink apiece and dinner. Still talking, we followed this in a leisurely manner with two or three beers apiece, were joined again by Dr. Jacobziner (you remember him, I'm sure) and continued to use up the tickets to which we were entitled by finishing off with a couple of whiskey and sodas. We stopped just in time [pg 5] (at least I did, and Walter said the next day that he’d just about had his limit, considering that he had to hitchhike four or five miles back to his quarters). I went to bed about nine and slept till an hour and a half ago, breakfasted quickly and came down a mile or so from where I stay to Dr. Jacobziner (hereafter Jake)'s quarters where I now write. Jakes has just returned from making the sounds of his children's ward and as soon as Walter comes in we shall go out for most of the day on a long drive which we planned last night. Walter is hellbent on getting everywhere, has done so except for the remote place we’re going to now - a desirable place to go because it was almost untouched by the war. Friday 1 June 1945 9 pm Hello, my darling - back home again (home right now is where I get my mail from you) and glad to be so, even tho I was sorry to leave and could easily have used another 2 or 3 days. There were several good letters from you waiting for me, but I suspect that most of all you'll be eager to hear about [pg 6] my doings for the past 3 or 4 days, and I'll continue to describe them which I can remember everything clearly. Yesterday's trip was delightful. There's not much I can say about it without revealing locations but Walter is in a slightly different position right now and perhaps he already has. (There are so many things I’d like to describe, but most of them I shall not easily forget and will be able to tell you about them when we’re together.) The only signs of war where we went were a sunken Jap ship and a beached, rusty midget submarine-curiously incongruous with the place. Our driver, Bill Barbour, was the native son of an American father and, coming from one of the two remote towns which we visited, was able to tell us a lot about them. He was interesting - looked American and had spent several years in school in the States: Indiana or Illinois. We drove for miles along a narrow road skirting the ocean, but usually a few hundred feet from it and overarched with palm trees. Bananas, papaya, [aggag?] (one of the trees from whose leaves cigarette cases and other woven [pg 7] materials are made) and other tropical growth formed dense forests in spots, merely fringed open fields in others. We frequently saw caribou (water buffalo) and little scurrying pigs - and lots of children and pretty girls walking along the road. The towns were charming - nothing elaborate, except for old white walled and crumbling Spanish Catholic churches - in one place we visited a fort built by the Spaniards in 15-something - and lots of little bamboo-wave (walls) and thatch-roofed huts. The first of the two towns was in area like what I've just described (along the beach, lots of palms); to reach the second we had to cross 3 miles of rolling hills covered with a copse-like growth which formed a total impression startlingly like that of Carmel Valley. I think it was Walter who remarked that it reminded him of Carmel, and I could see the resemblance right away. Finally we reached a point on the last hill where we overlooked the second town as it lay, several hundred feet below on the opposite side of a small cove, strung along the beach with one of those old Spanish churches in its midst. It was a charming sight. In this town, which could be reached only by that [pg 8] one dead-end road, was a school house which I explored (no classes because of religious holiday) to find to my surprise and amusement, a series of wall charts - “This is my hand [This is my] face These are my ears” Etc. - the same thing we are using. Tel copied the idea from them last November, or rather from the Central Education Office. Not that it's particularly original - I'm sure that the primary grades in the states use some such system - but it did strike me funny. When we returned in mid-afternoon I took my leave of Walter, tho I’d have been glad to spend several days in his company to hear more about you and Wendy - the kind of things it's hard to ask questions about, but which came out from time to time as he reminisces - but I had only a day left in which to pay my respects to certain people, look up some Boulder men and see a little more of the school setup. As it is, I had to crowd it in and hence would have liked more time. Part of my being glad to be back is just in being able to relax again. [pg 9] More on Walter after I finish recapitulating (which may be tomorrow morning, because I’d no sooner returned than I had to teach my English class. I spent half of it describing my trip in simple English.) When he left for his quarters I picked up another jeep and set out to visit a certain group of Boulder men - just two of them were there, one a classmate of Tel's and the other Johnny Clark (you've seen him 2 or 3 times at the Buchanan's). A half hour with them and I went to see two others in another place - they have charge of a stockade of prisoners - where two others fresh from Okinawa also happened to be visiting. You will be encouraged to know that the translation section with headquarters in Hawaii but a lot of men further out has never lost a man (except a suicide a long time ago) and has had only a couple wounded, those not recently - to my knowledge, that applies to all Navy Boulder graduates including those who went thru the Marianas and early campaigns and those now at Okinawa - a considerable enough number to surprise me and everyone here who has learned of it. Some, like Tom Murfin, are with M.G.; others are doing straight intelligence work in the field; others [pg 10] ferrying prisoners; still others, like Henry May are offshore. I finally learned the nature of Henry's work and tho I cannot say what it is, must agree with my informer that it's about a interesting and probably as satisfying a job as any Boulder man has got into yet at least it sounds perfect for Henry and I was pleased to hear about it. I spent the rest of the evening with these men (one was tubby, affected with Jim Wells of J.H. affiliation) and heard a lot about the Okinawa campaign, as well as about future operations which they seem to have all the dope on, and probably the right dope. As a rule word of impending operations gets around ahead of time even here in this relatively quiet place, and they are in a better position than we are to get such information. I sometimes wonder how it fails to reach the enemy. Maybe it does, and just befuddles them. No relay on that, of course, but there’s nothing important coming up during the next few weeks. Darling, I had better close at this point and resume in the morning if I can. I love you. [pg 11] Saturday 7:15 am Morning, sweetie - it felt good to sleep in my own bed after 3 nights in a mosquito ridden transient tent where I had to keep getting up all one night to move my cot out from under rain drips, and where there were no clean sheets to give me - It was Thursday night when I saw Jones and Oliver (April 15th class), Wells (Mar 15th) and Ed Wahn (Sept - Tel Mook's group). Friday (yesterday) morning I stopped in to see the Education Officer, did a couple of necessary errands via jeep, tried to buy some stuff to send you but found that it was sold only at PXs and Ship's Service Stores and since every visit on the island gets its allotment, they are quickly sold out - and then I drove several miles to see someone Jim Wells had happened to discover the day before - guess who? Our old friend Dr. Dunlavy. I caught him on his ward (full of Okinawa patients, as all the Marianas hospitals are) and he greeted me most cordially - finished up his inspection in about ten minutes and hustled me into a little room where we talked for half an hour. He has been out here 6 or 7 months; [pg 12] is still a lieut. (there's one man who should be at least a lt. cmdr) - knows Jacobziner well: both of them sent their regards to the same doctor up here, a Doctor Kennedy - curiously, Jake never mentioned Dunlavy during the several times I saw him - Dunlavy looks very well, was full of his usual bounce and quiet vigor, having some small personal thing to every man in his long ward - he's about ten pounds lighter, just a trifle - his family are living in California about 25 miles north of San Francisco. He caught me up a little on Boulder. We both chuckled at the thought of pipsqueak [Conover's?] being part director in some little neglected Pacific stinkhole, after a couple of months training in another special school. He mentioned Miss [Walue's?] marriage and I forgot to ask for details. Rooney is out again in the Pacific, I think on a ship. Dr. Stanton, the dentist (whom I didn't much care for) is on Saipan - a little later, just as I left him. Dunlavy picked up his mail and in it was a letter from Bernie [Stum?] in Washington - I'm sorry I forgot in [pg 13] my haste to send a message back for the Williamses. He remembered you, and seemed very pleased to see both your picture and Wendy's. He acted surprised at the latter - so big and so full of personality. He asked especially to be remembered to you. Like everyone else I ran across to whom I had occasion to comment on the immediate occasion for my visit, he was eager to hear of the details of Walter's incident, having already heard of it roughly. (Everybody has, a fact which may indicate further its exceptional nature.) He was also curious to get my view on the future progress of the war: of course I had little to offer beyond what I’d just picked up. We agreed that it was impossible to judge yet whether Japan will just disintegrate like Germany, so that every little segment of her imperial armies will have to be ferreted out in the main islands and on the continent (absolute minimum of 2 years); or whether she would [pg 14] surrender after a partial invasion (minimum of 1 year, with added time for all the continental troops which act independently); or whether she might possibly surrender after Okinawa is secured and the threat of further invasions looms large. Six months is certainly rock bottom for the most optimistic alternative. I managed to accomplish one more thing yesterday: I visited the high school in the company of a man who has been for many years supt. Of schools for the island, and was shown around by the woman principal. That in itself is a story which I can comment on with more detail in a separate letter. Again your psychic timing comes to the fore: I returned yesterday to find a long envelope containing an article by Dos Passos which featured, in a photographic illustration, a picture of the very woman whom I’d been talking to and had [pg 15] found so delightful that very morning. It's getting time to put this letter to bed and get out to work. I'll probably think of more things from time to time, but here in brief is the description Walter (who had a lot to say about you, much of it repetition by way of emphasis) gave me as the nicest present I've had in a long time - You are the most devoted wife he has ever seen. You seem to live just for the day when I get back (when I knitted my eyebrows and asked whether you were bad company because of it, he said, not at all; it was a good impression and a pleasant feeling he had about our relationship) It is safe to ask Walter's impression of anything within the range of his observation, if you want an honest answer; rather naively but quite forthrightly, he says exactly [pg 16] what he thinks. He added that you were also as capable a mother as he’d ever seen - always exempting Helen from any of these comparisons, of course - and when I put him to the test by asking whether you overdid it or spent too much time with Wendy he thought No, you were just right. He felt that you were taking our separation very hard but implied no criticism of your judgment; just wondered that you should have the constancy to prefer solitude at times to live company. He evidently enjoyed you and thought your company good for Helen, and he was bemused by Bobby B.'s attraction to Wendy and his playing with her. (He read part of a letter from Helen which described the incident of the baby turtle which you mentioned briefly, in a letter that awaited me here.) So much you know already, even if it is pleasant to hear such things from a third person (I certainly knew it already, [pg 17] and it felt awfully good to me) This next you may also know, but it's one that I wasn't looking for quite so much as his description of your wifely role - you have a perfect figure. “Yes,” says Walter, quite seriously, “You know - she's - she's really filled out in the right places. Got a very nice build, Bobby has.” At that I couldn't resist showing him your little picture; meant to anyhow, because I'm pleased with it and it never occurred to me to think of it as immodest - in fact, I couldn't quite understand your comment at first. Maybe one's standards of “decency” change out here. I also showed it to everybody else I met who knew you well enough to be interested, especially Jake and Dunlavy. Have just got to go now, sweetie. I love you very, very much and will write some more tonight. Warren