Preparing for Operation Husky: the Invasion of Sicily

The Invasion of Sicily: Allied landings by the American Seventh Army (Patton) and the British Eighth Army (Montgomery)

Bizerte, Tunisa

Around the first week in June we moved up to the area around Bizerte, a seaport off the Mediterranean Sea in Tunisia. We were not near the water but about five miles away. On one particular day there wasn't much for me to do so I was observing one of the rifle companies going through an exercise of following a rolling mortar barrage up a hill. Lieutenant Schultz came, looked at me and said "Beardslee get a hair cut." I responded that barbershops were very scarce in the area and I would need a jeep to go to town. He said," Go to the supply tent and get the barber kit and have someone cut your hair."

"Yes sir." was my reply. I saluted and was off to the supply tent. I got the kit and went around trying to find a willing volunteer. Private Lance said he would do the honors although his experience was very limited. I sat on a ration box with a cloth over my shoulders as Lance proceeded with the hand clippers. About ten minutes later I began to feel uneasy because he had been working all on one side and had not once gone to the other. Soon Lieutenant Schultz came by. He looked to see how my haircut was coming along and said, " My God give me those clippers."

In about one minute he gave me a haircut. I didn't have any hair left as he cut it down to the bone. It was cool and easy to wash my hair and when I put my helmet on I could do an about face and the helmet stayed in place while I turned under it. At least I wasn't the only skinhead in the unit since Captain Wilson had a buzz cut too, but I was probably the only enlisted man to ever get a haircut by an officer.

As the lieutenant's runner, Schultz and I got along fairly well but I thought he let me down by getting his arm broke just a few days before we left for the invasion of Sicily. He didn't come back till January 1944, six months later. All that time we never had an officer in the platoon. Sergeant Trembly was in charge of the platoon during this time. A week later we started amphibious training. On one of these training sessions we loaded on to new LCIs that were small shallow draft ships about a 120 feet long.

These small ships carried about 200 men with a crew of approximately 20. They had double ramps, one on each side of the ship that dropped into the water when the ship hit the beach. Between the ramps on the bow of the ship was a gun tub with twin 20MM machineguns. This was the ship's only armament. The ship had a very shallow draft, it drew only about three feet of water and most of that was in the rear so that the front end could almost set on dry land when run up on the beach. On about the end of June 1943 we went to Bizerte where there were many of these ships tied up to the piers. We boarded these vessels and sailed east to Sousse.

On the way I got into deep trouble. I knew that this was a dry run for our coming invasion of Sicily and I wanted to be sure that my B.A.R. was clean and well oiled so there would be no mistake about it working on the invasion. I spent a good two hours stripping it down and cleaning every little part. I did this while sitting on the foredeck of the LCI in 100-degree temperature. As I completed this tedious task, I placed the rifle against a four-foot high bulkhead that several men were sitting on enjoying our cruise. As I was cleaning up the mess of dirty oily gun patches lying on the deck, I glanced back at the rifle. The bolt was back and without a thought I reached back and pulled the trigger to make the bolt move forward. I never gave it a thought that there was a loaded clip in the gun. Three shots went off and they went right through the quarter inch steel lip on the top of the bulkhead that the men were sitting on and out into the bright blue yonder. However one of the bullets creased Sergeant Ellis's butt and put him in the hospital for two or three weeks.

For this little fiasco I was up for a General Court Marshal and Colonel Bacon was now after my butt. I was extremely worried that I was going to spend my military career in Leavenworth Army prison at hard labor. Later the charges were dropped, mainly because Captain Wilson put in a good word for me and also we were nearly ready to shove off for Sicily and every man was needed for the invasion. When Captain Wilson told me the charges were dropped I was greatly relieved.

Later when Sergeant Ellis returned to duty I told him how sorry I was that I had shot him, he told me not to feel badly about it because he missed the invasion, in fact he thanked me for it. I wished that Colonel Bacon could have heard that. About three hours after my accidental rifle discharge we dropped anchor in the bay of Sousse about 200 miles from Bizerte. As the ship dropped anchor, and since I wasn't yet in chains, I stripped off all my clothes thinking maybe I could get some relief from the heat if I could get in the water. The temperature was around 110 degrees when I hit the water. It was a complete disappointment as the water temperature must have been 100 degrees, so when I hit the water there was no relief at all. I had never had that experience before.

The following morning our ship pulled up to the pier and we disembarked and went for a little hike in the desert. We went out about 15 miles and came to a British army camp. They fed us lunch and we were all expecting something cool to drink. This was another disappointment as they served us hot tea. After lunch we hiked back to the ship and went out to sea and headed back to Bizerte. On the way back we saw several torpedo boats cruising along at 40 knots. They looked very impressive. But we were all thinking about Sicily and our turn to get into some real action. We returned to the place we had left only three days before; back to the flies and dysentery. So many men got dysentery that instead of sending them to the hospital they were sent to a roped area about 300 yards away. The infected people had their own toilet and were fed large doses of sulfanilamide and bismuth.

As many as 60 percent of the personnel had dysentery at one time. It was an extremely bad situation because at this time at least 25 percent of our company was sick with this illness. The flies carried the disease and it came from the Arabs they were immune to it because they lived in this horribly fly infested land. The flies were so thick that it was impossible to eat outside without a mosquito bar to sit under.

One man was detailed each day in the kitchen just to hang fly-paper, spray DDT — one of the most potent insecticides ever developed — and to make sure the screen doors were closed tight. I never got the disease at the time because I had my bout with it in January and I must have built up immunity. I was also lucky not to catch malaria, as many as 30 percent of the men got that disease also. Both of these diseases had the bad habit of recurring at times when you would least expect it but as we moved to more northern latitudes it happened less and less. I could hardly wait to get out of this filthy place.

On July 5 we again boarded the LCIs for the last time before for the invasion. The first night as we lay in the harbor waiting for everything to be loaded, 500 German and Italian planes came over to bomb the fleet. The Navy and the anti-aircraft shore batteries supposedly knocked down 300 of them but I found that hard to believe. I do know they didn't sink any ships and during the 45 minutes that it lasted the anti-aircraft shrapnel or shell fragments fell on the deck of our ship like hail during a storm.

All the soldiers had to stay below deck and there were no portholes to look out of to see the show. We all laid in our bunks hoping we wouldn't get blown to kingdom come. We all would rather have been in a foxhole on dry land. But our time was coming. It was only about a 150 miles to Sicily. We left Bizerte harbor on the afternoon of the second day. The sea was quiet but that was short lived as the wind came up and we were in a good old Mediterranean sea storm.

It seemed like everyone was sea sick, it was so bad that it was rumored that General Patton was thinking of calling it off. This was more easily said than done, we had 3,000 ships at sea, all headed for the invasion of southern Europe in Sicily. It was three-fourths the size of the D-day invasion across the English Channel so calling it off at this point was near impossible. This invasion had taken months to set into motion and now it was an unstoppable force.

Sicily July 10, 1943

Land of Spaghetti, Vino and Party People

On the morning of the Sicily invasion, everyone was still feeling sickly from the storm and rough seas. Just before 4 A.M. we were awake and trying to adjust our minds to the coming landing about to happen in an hour or so. As we waited to turn toward shore, an enemy reconnaissance plane flew over at 10,000 feet. It was odd to see the plane up there in the predawn light and we were still in the dark. The whole fleet threw up everything they had but didn't knock it down. We stood on deck and watched him fly through the worst ack-ack we had ever seen. He flew all the way through it and escaped and now we knew our secret plans of the invasion were no longer secret so we may as well get on with the landing. Our little ship turned toward shore at about four knots.

Being a battalion headquarters company we were to come in on the third wave right behind the first two waves of rifle companies. As we progressed toward the beach and still almost a mile out, a searchlight came on and it seemed to be focused right on us. We were expecting to be blown right out of the water, when a destroyer opened up on the light and knocked it out. The light went out like flipping your hand to put out a match. Everyone breathed easier and we proceeded on. Within 400 yards from shore a machinegun started raking the side of our LCI. I was standing in the doorway of our below deck quarters ready to run down the deck to the front of the ship, down the ramp and into the water to be the first one on the beach.

I was to be the first one off because I was the only one of a few that could swim I was to take a rope as I ran down the ramp and take it ashore pull it tight so others coming off the ship could hang onto it. Being the first in the doorway I wanted to get out on the deck and shoot back at the machine gun but Sergeant Leaser had his hand on the top of me and kept pulling back and saying, "This is the Navy's show until the ship hits the beach." After the sergeant had pulled me back for the third time, the ship gave a big shudder and a vibration ran from bow to stern as it came to a stop and then went into full speed reverse. The ship pulled back about a thousand yards from the beach.

We finally got to the beach about 45 minutes later. We learned later that the ship's captain had a machinegun bullet crease his helmet. I'm assuming that the he didn't have any one in the gun tub because we were in the third wave and that the beach would be clear. As it happened, we had approached the beach in the first wave, but we could have handled the situation because I was going to have my B.A.R. blazing when I came off. And if the captain had put someone in the gun tub on those twin 20mm cannons, those stupid Italians would have come running to us to give up.

By coming in later we hit the beach in full daylight. Everything was over with and I never got a chance to fire my B.A.R. The ship ran so far up on shore that I didn't have to hold the rope. We went in on the beach about 500 yards and took a break because everyone was still feeling queasy from the seasickness we suffered from earlier. I personally was coming down with a thumping headache. I found a medic and got a couple of aspirin and in a short time felt normal.

We moved out after a short rest and climbed a very steep bank that rose sharply up from shore. When we got to the top, about 700 feet elevation, we could see the whole invasion fleet of 3,000 ships including the British Eighth Army sector 15-20 miles away. I just sat there and was amazed at the strength of the invasion were viewing. I knew that there was nothing that could stop us and even though we had done very little, it felt good to know that I was part of this whole powerful thing that was taking place. It made me feel good knowing that we could not be stopped.

This mood changed abruptly when an ME109 come thundering right over the top of us. He couldn't have been more than 100 feet above us. We could see the crosses on the side of the plane and also see the head of the pilot in the cockpit. He let his bomb go just a short distance from us and the momentum carried it on to the target, which was an LCT that had just finished unloading. It was a direct hit right in the center of the ship. Since it had just off loaded there were only a few crewmembers aboard and most of them were in the stern so only a few people were hurt and nobody was killed, but the ship was a total loss.

This happened about 11:00 in the morning. Nobody fired a shot at the damn thing. An hour later three British Spitfires flew over the same as the Messerschmitt I grabbed my B.A.R. and started shooting until I saw the red white and blue bull's eye on the wings. My tracers seemed to be going right through the plane. I'm sure they must have taken some of my fire because one plane pulled out of formation and circled over our area. That plane could have blasted me right off my little pinnacle that was just big enough for two people.

About 3:00 in the afternoon 25 German bombers came overhead. They were close enough to recognize but too far away for our small arms fire. They turned to the British sector and dropped their bombs on a British cruiser and nobody fired one damn shot at them. The cruiser burned for about an hour then there was a huge explosion followed by a mushroom cloud. A few minutes later it rolled over and sank. It was like the death of a large beast and very disheartening to witness. The troops on shore could not depend on that ship for fire support anymore.

As the sun went down we came down off our lofty perch and away from our wonderful view. Everyone was feeling much better now so we were given a job to move 1,200 prisoners down the road four miles to Licota and turn them over to the M.F. station there.

It was about 9:30 PM and was starting to get dark. We had only progressed about two miles before it became totally dark and enemy bombers started flying in from the north. A bomb fell only a couple hundred feet away from our column of prisoners. No one was hurt but it took us another half hour to round them up and get them on the road again. I think we lost a few who took off and went home since they were all Italians. Only a few days later it was common practice to let Italians that could prove they lived in Sicily go home.

In the morning we learned that in all the confusion that went on the night before our anti-aircraft fire had brought down several of our own airplanes loaded with paratroopers who were assigned to jump ahead of us and then we were to fight to fight to join them. The following day we did just that with very little resistance to our large jeep patrol lead by a couple of armored cars. The whole parachute operation was poorly planned. They should never have come directly over the invasion fleet without having all anti-aircraft guns cease firing. We couldn't do that because the enemy was coming in from the opposite direction. I understand there were about 20 planes knocked down which was followed by a Congressional investigation but nothing ever came of it but some general should have been charged with that one.

The following day we started moving north across Sicily and as recorded in the military history books the Third Battalion marched 54 miles in 33 hours. As the history is written the First Battalion attacked San Stefono from the south at the same time we arrived on foot also It only took us twenty hours. If we didn't go 50 miles I'll be a monkey's uncle. We started out at 7 A.M. and by 10 A.M. the sun was beating down on us like a hammer pounding an anvil. Even with the temperature in the high 90s, we were still able to make the longest hike ever made by any American troops in combat.

To give you an idea what "hiking" in Sicily was like, read on. After moving along a hard surfaced road we came to a group of farmhouses. We would go off the road and up to the farmhouses to search for the enemy. While on these searches we would always ask the farmer for water. Most everyone carried two canteens and we tried to keep them filled but the heat was causing us to use up a lot of water. On one of these trips to a farm house one man took a step leading up to the front porch and it blew up killing him and the soldier behind him. That was my first encounter with booby traps and it made me a lot more cautious.

At around 3:00 that afternoon while I looked down at my shoes while I walked. They had a quarter-inch of mud on them and I hadn't been near any mud. It took a few seconds to figure out that I was perspiring so profusely that my shoes were wet and the dust was collecting on them and turning into mud. I had never had that happen before because I am not a very sweaty person.

As the day wore on water became more and more of a problem by 5 P.M. we were starting to drink water from the horse troughs along the side of the road. We were told not to drink the water but it the men filled their canteens anyway. You can't imagine what extreme thirst will make a man do. As the night darkened the temperature lowered and it became a little more comfortable, but fatigue was a problem. We were now already down to less than half strength since many soldiers had dropped out from heat exhaustion, blisters and other foot problems.

From 10 P.M. on, every time we took a rest break, I fell asleep as soon as my butt hit the ground. I think it would have been better to keep moving. At around 11 P.M. they men were dropping out from just pure exhaustion. The next day I saw a couple of men that were leading a mule carrying a heavy machinegun and ammo, which weighed around 250 pounds. They used up three mules this way. I saw the first one go down around noon. Also around 3 P.M. one of the rifle companies stopped a train and found one of the cars was loaded with new motorcycles with about a quart of gas in each of them.

About three miles down the road there were another 20 brand new motor bikes laying by the side of the road because the bridge had been blown. Everyone had to climb down into a deep canyon about 300-feet deep to cross a dry riverbed and then climb up the other side. The enemy must not have realized they could have held us up for hours with just a couple machineguns properly placed We continued on to our objective which we reached at 2 A.M. after twenty hours. The battalion started out with 800 men and by the time our objective was reached there were only 200 left since so many of the soldiers fell apart physically. I am proud to say that I was one of those who made this life-draining hike.

Now the town had to be taken, but fortunately there were only Italian soldiers there so it was just a matter of walking through, taking cover as you went and firing a few rounds that bounced off the stone walls. In 20 minutes the town was ours. When I reached the other side of town I was so completely exhausted there wasn't an ounce of strength left in me. My bones ached and even my skin was tired. I collapsed between the rows in a vineyard and didn't know a thing until the next morning. About 10 A.M. we were awakened by some disrespectful enemy soldier firing a 37mm cannon at us. After about ten rounds our newly arrived cannon company zeroed in and blew the gun to kingdom come along with about 30 trucks and about 30 Italian soldiers. Anyway I think that the guy that was shooting wished he had never learned how to shoot that peashooter he was trying to kill us with. It was an excellent job of shooting by our cannon company.

The next day when we moved out we hiked through the area and we saw the destruction. There were many dead lying around bloated and smelling like something that would gag a maggot. It was my first real smell of rotting bodies on a battlefield but not to be the last.

Palermo

Our hike was taking us toward Palermo on the north coast. We approached an Italian Army outpost about a mile away and 500-feet above us in the hills. When we got closer, they hoisted a white flag. The patrol that went to investigate found about 1,000 soldiers at attention with their rifles stacked before them. We radioed an MP unit, gave them the details so they could earn their pay, and pushed on. As a combat team that was what we had to do.

About four days later we reached Palermo meeting little resistance which was agreeable to us. We had covered 150 miles in six days and we needed a rest.

While resting the first day, somebody found an irrigation flume made of wood that carried water over a depression. Since it was made of wood we took an axe and chopped a few holes in the bottom to make the "perfect" shower. The water cleansed our dirty bodies that hadn't seen a shower in weeks. It was so refreshing after that long, grueling hike.

We spent about five days resting, washing clothes, cleaning our rifles and just healing from the torture of the hike. During this time, Corporal Sheldon and I gathered onions and tomatoes, sliced them into a large frying pan and added two or three cans of corned beef hash. We would eat every last bit of it and still go to lunch in the field kitchen.

The battalion surgeon, Doc Daly, lost about 30 pounds during our hike across Sicily. He went from about 210 pounds to about 180, which seemed to do the pudgy guy no harm. After the five days rest we had to relieve the 45th Division that was taking a beating by the Germans since they weren't as lucky as us to only run into Italians.

We loaded onto trucks and advanced by motor this time. This was short-lived as the Krauts had blown the shore road away to delay our progress. They delay was temporary because the engineers attached to the Third Division produced one of the engineering marvels of the war to deal with the problem. The road here was carved into the side of a solid basalt cliff and was at least 300 feet above the water. The Tenth Engineers repaired the damage in less than 24 hours and we were on our way. This action was written about in engineering books and journals for years later as a great engineering accomplishment. It wasn't only brains that achieved this feet but it took one heck of a lot of sweat. I was there and watched the engineers work like beavers, never stopping. They deserved any honors and decorations they received.

The Third Division was able to move about six more miles by truck up the road where we dismounted and then walked another ten miles into the mountains. The next morning we were shelled by the enemy with 80mm mortars. They had my platoon zeroed in. When I hit the dirt my arm was only a couple inches from Captain Wilson's shoe and he had his big toe cut off from shrapnel. I caught a small fragment in my arm, which somebody picked out with a jack knife, put some sulfa on it and a small bandage. I wanted to get a Purple Heart for this but everybody laughed thus my first wound didn't rate a Purple Heart.

Mules

After the shelling was over, the anti-tank platoon was told they would be mule skinners because there were no tanks in the mountains and we were ordered to the rear to bring up rations water and ammo. I was glad to get a new job that took me out of the area. We never saw Captain Wilson again. While I was in the rear loading my mules General Patton's command car came up behind me. I spun around and saluted He asked me how things were going up at the front. I told him about the shelling that morning and about Captain Wilson being wounded but that basically it was under control and that we were to attack in the morning. We saluted and he drove up to the top of the hill to try and see some action. Later, just before sunset, the anti-tank platoon turned mule train, returned with supplies.

Third Division Soldiers with a pack mule.

We unloaded the mules and tied them to a picket line. Kind of sounds like the Civil War days but the mules were the only way to go through the mountain trails that we were on that day. As night came on we all gathered around a fire we had inside a mountain cabin. I ended up with a dinner ration, which was not my favorite K ration. The main entree was a can of cheese. I opened the can about a quarter of an inch and placed it by the fire to melt the cheese inside. After several minutes, all of a sudden the can blew and spun around like a top and all my cheese flew over everyone sitting near the fire. I was informed the cheese-sprayed soldiers that I would be shot on the spot if that ever happened again. Needless to say I ate my K ration crackers without any melted cheese or any cheese at all on them.

The following morning before daybreak a British cruiser going along the shore prepared the town ahead of us with a barrage of fire so the rifle companies could advance. The ship was about 15 miles away. They fired one round of smoke that hit near us and they adjusted their fire from one round and in ten seconds they fired for effect and in five minutes the whole town was a pile of rubble. We were told later by the soldiers that went into the town that the only thing they found alive was a goat. There was a German horse artillery outfit in the town so the barrage killed many people along with about 200 horses. It seems animals always get the short end of the stick in modern warfare.

My platoon didn't move forward with the rifle companies. We went to the rear with the mules. When we got to the rear the mules were loaded into trucks and we moved with the mules about ten miles forward. The following morning we loaded the mules with supplies and we were told where to go with them. It was about 9 A.M. when we got on the road. I was leading a string of three mules and a white horse. The sun was beating down. After a mile we approached a dry riverbed and I was getting warm and sweaty.

I think the Krauts spotted the white horse when I started across the riverbed because all hell began to break loose. From a distance, a tank was firing and its target was me. The more I cursed at the stupid mules to the slower they seemed to go. The shells bursting around us seemed to have no effect on the animals.

The tank fired about 15 rounds at me and the mules, they were really trying to kill me. I finally reached the other side of the dry riverbed and since neither myself or the animals were hurt, we continued up the road to the top of the mountain. The tank fired a few more rounds at the rest of the pack train with no results and nothing like what was hurled at me. It was just pure poor shooting.

The pack train went about a mile up the mountain road to a place where we were in the open again. I was moving along as fast as four pack animals can move when all of a sudden a shell blew the guard rail away just behind us. I got the mules settled when I glanced across the valley and saw a muzzle flash so I hit the ditch as a shell exploded only three feet above me into a bank. Fortunately, when a high-velocity shell hits beyond you, the fragments continue in the same direction. This shell exploded in the bank, the hill absorbed the explosion.

All I could think of was that the Krauts were intent upon ending my life right then and there on a mountain road in Sicily. Thank God that was the last shot they had at me. I was getting a bit tired of it.

The pack train proceeded up the hill and finally reached the top about 2 P.M. to find that the rifle companies had moved ten miles ahead. The mules were grazed in a grassy spot and we stayed the night. Trucks arrived in the morning and mules and all were loaded for a drive to the Mediterranean Sea. HQs anti-tank platoon was only happy when it was ordered to stay and feed and water the mules. We spent seven days swimming and working on our tans and of course taking care of the animals that only took a few minutes a day. This is a good part of my war memory.

During this break in the sun, while the rest of the battalion was chasing Germans over the hills, I went for a swim. As I came out of the water I happened to glance at my dog tags, and to my surprise, there was a hole clear through one of them. It was obvious that it was made by a shell fragment. How it got there without going into my body was a puzzle to me. I thanked God for keeping me out of the hospital. Then I checked my pack and ammo belt where I found two more shell fragments buried in my ammo clips going clear through one and into the second ruining both clips but also saving my butt.

Messina

After our short week of lazy living we were loaded into a truck and driven to the front. It was only an hour's drive but by the time we got there the war in Sicily was over. General Patton had made it a contest between his American Seventh Army and the British Eighth Army commanded by General Montgomery as to who could get to Messina first. We made it there first and pissed off the British because they didn't think so much of our fighting ability. This was not the last time we showed them we could fight better than they could.

Fifth Army commander General Patton confers with 30th Regiment, 2nd Battalion C.O. Col. Lyle Bernard near Messina.

I personally never got to the town of Messina. My unit sat on a hill overlooking the straits between Sicily and Italy. Most of the Germans had escaped during the night across the straits but there were still a few stragglers that the Air Force was strafing and bombing and we just watched the show.

The next day everything was quiet so all the infantry soldiers were loaded aboard trucks and taken over a 100 miles back to the town of Trapani. We set up camp on a farm that had a lot of fruit trees that provided shade during the still hot days. We pitched our pup tents, took showers and got clean clothes and ate food from the kitchen. We did a lot of just laying around, got mail from home, wrote letters and read everything we could get our hands on. Some soldiers got two-month old newspapers from home. They were passed around and read over and over.

After three days in this location, we were told that Bob Hope and Francis Langford were going to put on a program for us. We were asked who wanted to go and there was no response. Nobody seemed interested in going so we were ordered to go. We had to hike about three miles in the hot August sun and sit on the side of a hill in a stubble field while Bob Hope did his thing and it was a little entertaining. It did help cheer up the troops somewhat. But when men have just been through six weeks of a kill or be killed type of life it takes a lot to cheer them up. There was a lot of complaining about sitting for an hour and a half in the hot sun. I think the program helped raise the spirits of some of the dogfaces a little but many of them had been in the battlefield three days prior and needed a little more time to adjust.

I had carried my B.A.R. across Sicily and the better part of the length of it and only got to fire the thing a couple of times and both times were at airplanes that flew over (both friendly and hostile). I was a little upset and envious of a fellow from message center whose name I cannot now remember who had shot and killed an Italian army officer. Some of the men were making him out be a hero, and I was a little envious but we still had a lot more war to fight.

So there we were resting and getting passes to go to town. The only thing to do was to sight see, get drunk, and go to a house of prostitution. The fellow I went to town with wanted to do all three. We started by walking around town and one of the more interesting sights was an outside public urinal where there was a pipe with holes in it about four feet above the sidewalk. Water ran down the wall so if you had to go, you just stood there on the sidewalk and let it go against the pipe right there in public. Being "civilized" Americans, we just couldn't see our way to do this.

In the afternoon Shelton, the guy I was with, decided it was time to go to the house of prostitution. After a couple more drinks we headed for the Army sponsored house of ill repute.

We went in and were surprised to find that we were the only potential customers. The ladies were all about ten years older than either one of us and were not very appealing in my book. One of the women did grab my hand and put it on her bear breast and held it there while she groped at my crotch with the other. I tore myself away because I was so afraid of venereal disease. I was still thinking of a military career and at this time anyone with a venereal disease on his medical record could just kiss that good-bye. I think the girls thought I was queer but it didn't bother me any since I had my objectives and they had theirs. Mine was to get a battlefield commission.

Shelton finished his business with the ladies and we went to find a truck to take us back to camp. When we got back to camp there was a mail call. To my surprise there was a letter from Patricia Fischer. She was a girl who lived in my neighborhood and we went to school and had some classes together. She was now in her first year at the University of Washington. We had done many things together like hiking, playing tennis, swimming and horseback riding but we never went on a dinner date or to a movie. She never thought that I was her type. About two months earlier I wrote her to ask if she would find out about Gracie Saniford, a girl I had been seeing when Uncle Sam called for my help to serve my country.

Patty only lived two houses away from Gracie so I knew she saw her once in a while and so I asked her if she might know why Gracie didn't answer my letters. She told me it had something to do with the fact that Gracie had gotten married six months earlier and she doubted that any amount of "V" mail would be answered. So I wrote back and thanked her for the information and this started my correspondence with Patty for the rest of the war. I waited eagerly for her letters. They were always long and informative. She told me that she was going to Washington State next year. When she started her second year she was chosen homecoming Queen.

I was happy that she was having a great time. Of course I teased her about the football team being all 4-F rejects but I wished her a good time at the homecoming ball. Our letter writing became regular I wrote and got answers every two or three weeks. She kept me informed of much of the news in our neighborhood at home. While my letters were always extremely limited because every place I went was classified information. Wherever I was located on the frontline was where the generals put their pins to show the army's progress. I was even unable to give the name of our organization so nobody at home knew where I was. I was always ready and eager to get Patricia's letters and would carry them to my pup tent or foxhole like an old dog that just dug up one of his prize bones and was protecting it from anyone else. I had been overseas for five months without getting a letter from anyone so it was good to start hearing from home regularly. Mail was not a priority item but it certainly was an important item.

Charles O. Beardslee |  Prelude |  Signing Up |  Africa |  Sicily |  Italy |  Anzio | 
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