June 11th Letter to Mom and All

Meiningen June 17th

Dearest Mom & All

Leona should have told you what my set up is by now so I won't go into it in any detail. There hasn't been any action taken as yet but the 285th is going to be demobilized and probably in the states. I still don't have any idea whether I'll be with the outfit when that happens or not. All I can do is wait and hope so, or hope that the unit I might be transferred to is slated to pass through the states on its way to the Pacific.

Our mail situation hasn't been defined to us as yet. All I know is that the only mail reaching us is some that has been floating around the continent for a while. It's pretty certain that the 285th mail is being held in New York. Maybe we're going to it instead of it coming to us! Then again if I get transferred, God only knows when I'll get a letter.

This business of being on the discharge borderline is hard on the nerves. My official 71 points would leave me pretty certain in the "Pacific bound" class but authorization on the two added German battle stars should come through OK and then my

score will be 81 and that's really got me "sweating it out".

Things haven't changed much around here. As I said once before this is a beautiful countryside, rolling green timbered hills, lovely farms and red roofed Meiningen nestled in the valley below us. The only trouble is we don't get much of a chance to enjoy it. Even though we do have Sunday off, the only place on limits is Main street. Special Service has a movie projector in town but it's about worn out and all the films they get are old and worn so they aren't worth going to. The German entertainment we've been allowed to attend has been very good-so far it's been one technicolor movie (Better color than U.S.) and two musical stage productions in the opera house. The last one I saw last night and it was good! It was mostly ballet with an excellent orchestra.

I hope everything is going well at home. I'd give a lot for a letter right now. Give grandma and all the rest my special love.
Love,
Lu

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August 28th 1944 Journal Entry-Rain and Rations

Aug 28th RAIN RAIN and mud Lu from his memoirs: We settled into a routine of extending and improving our control surveys and existing on "K" and "C" rations and sleeping in soggy pup tents. There was lots of rain and mud and finding ways to improve living conditions was a constant challenge. As Cliff pointed out in his book, we had some talented buddies with inventive minds. Tom Fourshes, of Cadiz, Kentucky built a compact, wood fired cooking stove on which we could heat our rations, spread hot cheese on crackers, and boil eggs obtained from farmers. We found straw and dry grass to put under our bed rolls, but we never found a way to keep the water our of our fox holes. We didn't have too much incoming artillery, but I noted on August 26 'Priebe hits fox hole as I leave it going for mine as shells land in river' We also began a close relationship with our Field Artillery gun battalions. The 561st next to us were equipped with "155 Long T...

September 29th Journal entry continued-Last day of travel to Ardennes

Sept. 29- Convoy 0830 Cloudy windy day-Saw Tiger tank-Montigny, Guise, La Cappelle, ?, Trelon (Belgium Border) Chimay, Petigny, Givet (Back in France) ( Briefly-mc ) Dinant, Chigny, ? and Bastogne. Bivouac area about 3 km out in edge of beautiful spruce forest. Hope, Bliesmer & Peltz- got kissed in Petigny. Marilu: I traced this route in google maps to confirm spellings of the sequential towns. I wasn't able to find all of them, but I could see that when they went through Givet they went through a little outcropping of the French border and out again. Fun to see him referring to the kiss Cliff Hope describes in more detail in his book, quoted in the other entry for this day. From www.warhistoryonline.com The Tiger Tank was without a doubt the tank which was most feared by the Allied forces during the Second World War. The thing that made this tank so feared and respected was the 88 mm gun, which could destroy a Sherman tank at ranges up ...

Oct 25th, Wednesday-Journal Entry-Bombs and Guns

Oct 25-Lellig to Matternach- Tied in with Party 1 on R.R.- Lt Jones & G. S. scared out of house by civilian in sports roadster0 In at noon- Transferring notes to correct notebook all afternoon- O1:20 Big Buzz Bomb barely 200 ft. overhead-going south Thundering 400 M.P.H. Machine guns fire but miss. Buzz Bombs going into 1st Army positions Lu from Rae Hight's book : For quite a while, we surveyed the areas back and forth between and through Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg. Though the distances were not great, the continued movement required a certain amount of reorganizing each time. By the end of October we were in the Mompach-Berbourg area of eastern Luxemboug, near the front. It was not long before German shells landed not too far away. Our main reminders that the army was just a few kilometers away were the nightly visits by "Bed Check Charlie," buzz bombs that whizzed overhead each night about midnight. The V-1 flying bomb...

Winsor War Notes-Luther Snow Winsor's WW II experiences

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