Saturday · Feb. 6, 1943
I have no use for money where I am.
Cold wind, spaghetti and chili, and great news from Russia.
Feb 6, 1943
My Darling Wife
No mail has come in during the past few days so I have no word from you. Our routine continues.
Freddy is about a mile from me but I don’t know where Gil is. I’ll probably run across him some day. Isn’t Lucille expecting this month? If you hear of an arrival let me know and I’ll contact Freddy. There is just a chance my mail might get in when his doesn’t.
It has been very cold today but I guess I’ll live through it. The wind penetrates through [my five?] layers of clothing.
I’m rather sorry my Xmas packages arrived when they did. They would be worth ten times as much if they arrived here now. What candy we do have we treasure a lot out here. We had some more spaghetti and chili last night—and did I enjoy that. This morning we had cream of wheat, jam, & spam. No milk or sugar came for the cereal so the jam went right well with the cereal. This noon we had crackers (biscuits) & cheese and we feel O.K. Now we have to wait for the evening meal. That is about all we do except climb in and out of our holes. As soon as I finish writing I’m going to try to enlarge my hole a little.
I hope you are getting your allotment O.K. now and have received travel pay. I’ll …
… probably be sending my January pay home when and if I get it. I have no use for money where I am.
This noon’s news broadcast from London sounded very good. The Russians seem to be going great guns and I hope they keep going right into Berlin. It is difficult to imagine the magnitude of that operation.
Constantly on my mind is the thought of my wife and daughter back home—with the constant prayer that I’ll be with you soon. I love you both dearly and pray that you are both well.
All my love
Your
John
About this letter
Three pages in pencil from the front in central Tunisia.
FREDDY AND LUCILLEFreddy appears to be Lucille’s husband, also in North Africa. John offers to pass along news of the baby she was expecting.
NEWS FROM LONDONThe BBC was their window on the war. Four days earlier the last Germans at Stalingrad had surrendered.
READING CLOSELY
“Constantly on my mind is the thought of my wife and daughter back home.” He planned to send his January pay home: “I have no use for money where I am.”
He wrote “that” twice in the last sentence and crossed one out.
Travel pay: the Army paid for a dependent’s move. His Feb. 8 letter explains the dispute over hers.
The Big Picture
Two Axis armies
By February the Allies faced two Axis armies in Tunisia. Gen. Hans-Jürgen von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army (panzer means armored) held the north. Rommel’s army, chased across Libya by the British Eighth Army, fell back to the Mareth Line, a row of French forts in southern Tunisia. It got there Feb. 15.
The Allied front ran through the mountains in three sectors: British, French and American. Rommel feared an Allied push through those mountains could cut his army’s supply line from Tunis.
Where he was
Central Tunisia, at the front. He later recalled his 3rd Battalion on a blocking mission in the Ousseltia Valley, where the 16th Infantry held the north end of the line.
In this letter. “The Russians seem to be going great guns”: after Stalingrad, Soviet armies were driving west. Kursk fell to them two days later.