Letters To Home

I’m at the Aero Club, as I have been nearly every night since coming here (Jayne likes that! – doesn’t want me “fraternizing” with the English lasses).  Bob, Herb, and I worked all of today, having taken our day off in the middle of the week.  It’s nearly ten now and beginning to get dark.  We are somewhat south of Belfast’s longitude here – it gets dark earlier – and we set our clocks back an hour last Sunday – now have just one hour of daylight saving, which will probably be lost sometime in October.  (Jayne and I were thoroughly disgusted the way it stayed light so late in N.I.  – I knew her and went out with her smack-dab in the middle of summer’s (?) longest days – one could often have read a newspaper outdoors at 12:30, were one so inclined!)

But I’m not in Ireland tonight!  Have had two strong cups of coffee and some raisin-less raisin bread here at the club since supper-time.  I sort of got into the habit of having tea and sandwiches about now back there in N.I. you know.  One can’t break such a habit, just like that!

I’ll be darned if I don’t see myself getting back into some of my old habits, concerning my spare time.  Jayne upset them completely for a while, but I notice them cropping up again!  Take this evening, for example.  I have knocked off 35 pages of the April Reader’s Digest and attended a concert of recorded classical music in the club “lounge”.  That’s the Vern Mackliet of yesteryear, not last month!  Don’t necessarily like to go back to those things, but I must do something to occupy my leisure hours (they are not too numerous here anyway).  I spend a lot of time writing — this pen and ink business is slow as hell for me, and I write Jayne as often as I write home (it won’t last, though – I don’t think!?)  That girl writes pages and pages to one – takes an hour to read one letter – she’s very clever in her correspondence – knows just what to say to make me want to return to N.I. in a hurry!

I turned a worn-out tie into the supply room and got a fairly decent one back for a change.  The Army seems to be very short of clothing in this area.

We have two officers in our department and a few days ago I learned that one was from Spokane.  So we talked the whole thing over – for a Spokane boy, I surely don’t know much about the city, I’ve forgotten most of what I learned those few months.  Anyway, the lieutenant said Euclid & Mansfield are in his neighborhood — his home is on Augusta.  He mentioned Nora and N. Adams but I don’t recall where they are.  He was ass’t. manager of one of the Penny stores in Spokane and seemed to know Ferald Dell.  Was surprised to hear that Dell was in the Army.

[letterstohome copyright 2008]

The letter that Mom and Dad mailed to Cleon with part of my address on the envelope must have kept the post office department jumping for a good two months! That is what is known as getting a letter “the hard way”. Well, he did eventually get it, and that is something. I hope Mom won’t take any ribbing over that because such errors are easy enough to make (for us people who do a lot of writing!). I’ve come close to making a similar mistake once or twice. For example, I must be careful to use a somewhat different return address when writing Jayne. When addressing an envelope to me, she must substitute “c/o U.S. Army” for “c/o PM, New York”, otherwise the letter might possibly go to New York and then have to come back. That’s getting a letter the hard way, too! The set up is complicated enough as it is. You see, Jayne’s letters to me start out in the British Postal System, and at some point along the line they are turned over to the U.S. Army Postal System, which takes over the job of delivering them to me. The reverse is true when I post a letter to Jayne: I must put a British 2 ½ pence stamp on it (!) and drop it into the Army mailbox, and it is later turned over to the British for delivery.

So “Heffie” has already returned to the states, eh?   Good for him! You know, I believe he has enough points to be discharged. He’s been in the Army 38 or 40 months, overseas at least 33 months, and probably has some “battle stars”, worth 5 points each toward discharge! Battle stars are one of the biggest (and bitterest) jokes of the war – the Army does not distribute them at all fairly. I think men in combat should get them and no one else! But they have been given to many thousands of men holding down desk jobs in the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces, men who were no more engaged in combat than I have been, men who have been doing the same work that we in the Air Service Command have been doing. In fact, Air Service Command personnel are about the only ones who didn’t get the battle stars! I don’t care about being “decorated”, but they might help me get out a little sooner.

A recent letter of Cleon’s is a dilly. I can’t help but feel that he has grown up a lot since I left home – the Army and Navy are the places to do it! I can’t get over the way he is always taking off from his camp — going out on liberty whenever he can! Don’t get me wrong. I am definitely in favor of it; it’s the proper thing to do, keeps up morale, makes the time go more rapidly, and all that. But, in that respect, he is quite different from me, for I am a terrible stay–at–home boy — that is, I was before I met Jayne, and I will be from now on). Maybe it can be explained by the fact that I was in the states so short a time and had no real buddy there. It’s different overseas. Speaking of time going by rapidly, that last month in Northern Ireland was the shortest one I’ve ever seen!!

My, but I’ve had a lot of enjoyment out of the things that my family has written about “Jayne and I”—- it’s really good. Cleon thought we must be damn good friends by now! Ha Ha! That smart boy said one darn smart thing in the letter: “Numerous circumstances will keep it a platonic friendship”. How true! One of those circumstances, my coming to England, has already been realized.

My family seems to be very curious about a pin that Jayne was wearing over her left pocket in a picture that I sent home, so I will tell all. The pin has the letters “MN” on it, standing (she said) for the (British) Merchant Navy. She was forever kidding me about she liked all the Navy boys, “each and every one of them”, she’d say! Perhaps she wore that to make me jealous? We don’t give these girls of ours half-enough credit sometimes! Anyway, in time I trained Jayne to wear my winged-propeller lapel insignia, and her sister Jay wears my “U.S.” lapel button. Jayne has already written that she’s sorry she teased me about the Navy – the Air Corp is now here favorite, and if I were in the Infantry, that would be her favorite, she says. What some girls won’t say to cheer up a fellow a long way from home!

I’ve been in England only twelve days, and already Jayne wants to know if I can get a furlough while I’m here and go back to Belfast and see her! Cute kid, eh? At the moment she is taking her two weeks vacation at Bangor, N.I. She and her mother and sister went on their “holidays” on the 7th; they will probably return to Belfast on the 22nd. A few days before I left, Jayne explained to me exactly what busses, trams, and trains I should take in order to visit her in Bangor during those two weeks.

I guess there’s no harm in my telling you that Jayne was very sorry to see me leave N.I. I knew that Sunday (July 1st) would probably be my last opportunity to go to town, so I went in to say “So long”. During my last hour or so with her, Jayne was so upset that she could hardly talk or look me in the eye. The next day she somehow talked our operators into putting her call thru to me (contrary to recent post regulations), and she apologized for being “poor company” the previous evening. She also told me that she had gotten up early that morning and had written me a letter before breakfast, explaining why she acted as she did Sunday night. And she wrote again that same evening. Both letters were sent special delivery (there’s no such animal in the Army Postal set-up), but I didn’t get them until the end of the week in England. I felt terrible after reading her letters. Judging from what she said, I gather that she just got into the house in time Sunday night. And she says she “broke down again” when she arrived at the office Monday morning. Everyone in the department wanted to know what was wrong, and the girls were bathing her eyes, and I wonder what the heck all. Anyway, the entire thing was very depressing. Sometimes I think I did wrong in ever going out with her.

I wasn’t going to mention any of this, but now that I have, I’m sure that you’ll realize that it’s “personal” to me – and a secret between us.

[letterstohome copyright 2008]

It’s that old Friday the Thirteenth again! —Dad’s favorite day, from what I’ve heard. Nothing unusual happened to me so far. Two more letters from home were forwarded to me – thanks a lot to Mom and Dad! I’m always glad to hear from home, and it is a special treat when I first arrive at a new base and don’t know nobody or nothing! I also enjoyed Bonnie’s letter – very fine of her to send me all “the news”.

Mom and Dad are too squeamish about bringing up certain subjects, but not my sister! She came right out and asked, “Vern, are you going to Germany, to occupy it or something?” V-e-r-y interesting, yes? Well, it is still too early for me to answer that definitely, one way or another. You understand, of course, that with my points, I’m destined to stay in the Army quite a while yet – and I will be serving “someplace” overseas, that’s for sure. Now, carrying on from that point, I would say that there are just these three situations:

1. remaining here in the European Theater of Operations and eventually being shifted to the force occupying Germany (all installations in Great Britain, France, etc. will be closed down as rapidly as possible).
2. being shipped directly to the Pacific (many are going that way)
3. being shipped to the Pacific via the states (giving me perhaps a month’s furlough – and then, overseas again!!!)

Naturally, I haven’t got a choice between those three (except in a very indefinite and uncertain way), but if I did, I wonder which one Mom and Dad would rather I’d do. If it were up to them, which would they pick for me? (P.S. Is the Pacific area large enough for two Mackliets?) I’ll ask Mom and Dad to write me exactly how they feel about this. If the mail service is good, perhaps I’ll still be here when their answer comes!

As a joke (?), I asked that same question of Jayne before I left the country, and she thought I should stay in Europe (even though she would like someone to send her a grass skirt from the Pacific! A job for Cleon?). As a matter of fact, she narrowed “Europe” down to Northern Ireland —– I guess about the only G.I.s over there now are on furlough from England.

I recently asked Mom to find and send me a pair of those manicuring-type scissors with the very sharp-pointed blades. I hope she doesn’t go to too much trouble looking. I already have some large shears and a pair of stubby “sewing kit” scissors. I have been expecting a package from home with a toothbrush, but it must be temporarily (I hope) lost. It has never come, anyway. I hope Mom and Dad know how greatly I appreciate the “buying jobs” they do for me. And they won’t even let me pay for my own stuff and junk!

I have missed Mom, Dad, and Bonnie very much lately. Also, I neglected my boy friends while going with Jayne, depending solely on her to be my “pal” overseas. Now I’ve left them all behind except Bob and Herb. I enjoy knowing those two boys and working with them, but neither of them are the type with which I would regularly go to town. They simply must have their liquor and both have already found new girlfriends around here already!

I heard from Cleon a few days ago. Now there is a fine boy – I would give anything to run into him, now that he is grown up. We should have a lot of fun together after this is all over. Am looking forward to that day! Maybe we’ll be “green Frosh” together in college—-

Well, folks, there’s your post for today —- hope it’s okay. You’ll probably be hearing from me again!

[letterstohome copyright 2008]

This evening I wrote a letter home using an old-fashioned-style of pen that must be dipped in the ink bottle now and again.  (Takes one back to my early school days!).  Thought I would give the thing a try – it might be an improvement over the fountain pen, with which I have been having a lot of trouble.  So far, so good ——–!

Mom and Dad responded to some pictures of Jayne that I sent them.  I agree that Jayne is “just darling”.  I still think my best picture is where I’m standing.  Mom and Dad asked about the negatives; as far as the negatives are concerned, I gave them all to Jayne, so do not have them to send home.  If Mom and Dad insist, I’ll write Jayne and borrow the few negatives that they would most like to have additional prints of.  (P.S. I certainly hope I’m not losing my hair already!)  My smile is okay, eh?  I haven’t had one on my face since hitting this place, I’m afraid.

I have a bit of a headache right now – been working too hard here.  I put in long hours.  It’s statistical work, something like what I have been doing back at Langford Lodge.

Dad told me that he thought seeing a girl seven out of nine nights (I had to work the other two!) is serious.  Well, I haven’t been out with her at all the last nine nights, so it’s less serious than it might have appeared.  Or is it?  I last saw Jayne on July 1st — between the 2nd and 8th she wrote me five letters, all of them very long ones.  Very nice of her, to say the least!

My Mom asked, in a recent letter — Do you know you’re leaving Ireland or are you guessing?  What do you think?  I don’t need a crystal ball to tell that I’m in England now – and this isn’t at all permanent, thank goodness!  I’m now able to keep a little more closely in touch with such goings-on than was once possible.  I’ll keep Mom and Dad informed to the best of my ability.

I wonder how Bonnie likes the job at Wards.  I hope she writes to bring me up to date on everything.

I wonder if Mom and Dad got all those postcards and the cartoon booklet about N.I.  Was just wondering – they haven’t said anything yet.

While I’m jumping around, I wonder how Mom feels now.  She seems to be getting around again.  I’ve almost forgotten I had an operation.  In case you would like to read about it, there is a good article on “hernias” in a recent Reader’s Digest.

I was happy to hear Mom say all those good things about Bonnie.  I’m sure she is as fine a girl as Mom pointed out to me.  Decent girls are very nice to know – I don’t know of anything more disgusting to me than one that is otherwise, though.  As little as I have had to do with girls over here, I feel that I was very lucky to meet a girl like Jayne, with so many of the other kind running around.  I guess you already have heard that Yank soldiers in general are not well thought of here.  Many of the “better” families will not have their daughters going out with GI’s.  To some extent, they are probably right!  What too many of these people overlook is that not all Americans are alike!  Jayne seemed to think I was okay — and she claims she is very particular about her friends.

[letterstohome copyright 2008]