Skip to main content

November 23-1944 Thursday-Letter home






Belgium November 23rd

Dearest Mom and all,

Just a note to go with the card. I've been waiting in vain the past few weeks for mail, but it just doesn't come through. I've had three letters from Leona and that's all.

My case of the G. I.s (Gastric trouble-running to the little outhouse at all times of the day or night) is all over and I'm feeling great again.

All of the first snow is gone now and we're having a siege of mud and cold rain. Boy, what I wouldn't give for a little of that good old Utah fall weather. Oh, it rains and snows there in the fall, but nothing compared to this place.

Well today is Thanksgiving day and I certainly wish I could be at home to enjoy it there. Oh boy, what meals we used to have and with all the family around the table too!  I think our turkey dinner today is going to be plenty good, but being with the family is the best part of Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I'll write again soon.
Love, Lu

Cliff Hope from his book. A few days before Thanksgiving Day I went to church services at Oudler that day with Winsor and came back to a complete turkey dinner. "Best eal I've ever had at Hdq. Kitchen." I told my diary. The kitchen crew had gone to great lengths to prepare this dinner, complete with a mimeographed, folded menu with a turkey sketched on the cover.

Menu for Thanksgiving Day
Thursday, November 23 1944

Cream of Tomato Soup
Dutch Roast Turkey
Cranberry Sauce
Creamed Giblet Gravy
Buttered Sweet Potatoes
Escalloped Corn
French Peas
Cabbage and Apple Salad
Layer Cake
Apple Pie
Peach Pie
Bread-Butter-Coffee
Assorted Candies

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

November 4th 1945 Embarkation! Headed Home on the USS Westerly Victory ship

Watch for Lu's binoculars in many of his photos. They might be his best used acquisition from the war.  This mimeographed newsletter is an interesting view into the voyage home. 

July 20 1945 Letter to Mom

Bensheim Germany July 20th 1945 Dearest Mom, I started to get a letter off to you last night about midnight. I was corporal of the guard on duty in the orderly room. But an electrical storm was commencing and I no sooner got paper and pen out than a crash of lightning hit the power relay station nearby and all the lights went out. That storm was a beaut. Great jagged forks of lightning playing everywhere and the thunder sounded like all the artillery in the E.T.O. (European theater of operations) was sounding off in unison. In between flashes it was pitch black but most of the time (for about a half hour) you could read street signs a block away it was so bright. One triple forked bolt lit up the castle up on the hill and really made an eerie scene. You (You) know this is the first place I've seen actual balls of lightning. They looked like balls of fire.  Mail came in at last yesterday. A big batch of it and it was really swell to hear what's going on at hom...

August 29th Journal Entry-Hedgerow Fighting, Plougastel taken

29th SAME- Still eating K's & C's Germans blow 1 span of bridge-Plau. taken Lu from his memoirs: The infantry fighting, as the circle around Brest was tightened, was brutal. This was "hedgerow" country, which provided great defensive cover and a huge obstacle to attack forces. The countryside was covered with a patchwork of small fields, each surrounded by "hedgerows". Over centuries of cultivation dirt collected in the hedges that surrounded each field. The hedges gradually became raised on high walls of soil, some of them eight to ten feet thick. The brush and small trees that formed the hedges were cut, dried and used for fuel to heat and cook with.   Since the stumps and roots were not disturbed, they grew back rapidly, and were an excellent source of energy. There was an entry way to each field, and cart roads back to the farm buildings but it was extremely dangerous for American Infantry to try to attack along these roads and through ...