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Journal Entry Jan 10-Packages! Cliff Hope-Battalion History





Jan 10th Survey on N 4 Hwy west of Bastogne. Gliders in fields all over in various states of completeness. Moved to Siberet in afternoon. Window of house w're in are full of bullet holes or completely out. Moved to Sibret

Jan 10 Packages. Mom-Airmail stationary. Sept 14.  Amy-Raisin cookies Oct 12
Leona-2 Hershey Bars, Cocoa, Tiddley Winks, TALK (talcum) powder Bouillon Cubes, comb, laces, handkerchief, spam, mik, (milk?) peaches, ink. 5 letters.

Stayed in all day. Shaved. 290th signal company boys took pictures of us in evening.

Cliff Hope: We surveyed for three kilometers on the Marche road out of Bastogne on the morning of 10 January. In the afternoon we moved to Sibret. Elting impressed Christine again. I left Wideumont with a heavy heart. I told all about it in my diary: "Elting starred with Christine again, and I muffed an opportunity for kissing her goodbye. I don't know how to say it exactly, but I really fell for Christine---beginning with that first night until the very end when Elting 'took over' and I was more or less put in the shade. It was an experience which I'll not forget for a long time. My meager knowledge of french and inability to jitterbug, which she loves, gave me an inferiority complex which I just couldn't seem to break. I have a lot to learn I know, and I seem to act more childish over things like this than anything else. "



Tiddlywinks is a game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called "winks", a pot, which is the target, and a collection of squidgers, which are also discs. Wikipedia

I had to add this image of a 1958 Game that I'm pretty sure we had in our family. 
Battalion History: The American drive to push the enemy out of the Bastogne pocket gained momentum and on 10 January it was reported "The enemy showed more signs of adopting a defensive attitude." Though the battalion was to run into tough sledding later, there was a general feeling that we were on the downhill side of the war, that there no longer was any doubt as to who was to come out on top.

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