Sunday · Feb. 7, 1943
Lauten Field Order #1.
A clipper haircut, a deeper foxhole, and orders for the home front.
Feb. 7, 1943
My Darling Wife:
Your “goon” husband is quite a sight. I finally got all that hair cut off. There isn’t enough to part—the longest being about 1”. The clippers were used on everything except the very top. The sand, rocks and dandruff were present in force but are now completely removed. I no longer need a comb—just a 60 second rub and my hair is combed.
This afternoon I did a little more digging on my hole. I hope to enlarge it enough to be able to sit in a little room built off my original slit trench. Then I’ll be able to smoke at night and have all the comforts of home. A pot of coffee, p-nut butter & biscuits at 4 P.M. fixed me up in pretty good shape.
Another hour and we get our chow. Time is estimated on how long it is before we eat. The meals have been pretty good the past few days and I hope they keep up that way. The P-nut butter we got today made everything perfect. If you ever send me packages again, enclose some cans of P. nut Butter & small jars of jam. The men seem to be getting a lot of it in the mail—regulations to the contrary.
Rumor has it that we will receive more mail today or tomorrow. I have to see it first—and how I want some mail—and especially some letters with pictures in them. Major Stone gave his wife orders that at least one letter a week contain a picture. (Lauten Field Order #1—at least one letter per day shall be written to Lt Lauten by Mrs. Lauten and at least one picture a week shall be sent.) Failure to comply will bring great pain & suffering upon Lt. Lauten.
As you can probably guess I’m pretty homesick and a letter and picture mean more than anything over here in the field.
Today is Sunday and things have been pretty quiet, I hope they stay that way.
Darling, I hope you are getting along O.K. and that Linda is well. I love you both and want to hug you both to death. Goodnight sweetheart
All my love
Your
John
About this letter
Three pages in pencil on a quiet Sunday at the front.
THE FIELD ORDERField orders were the Army’s numbered operation orders. His “Lauten Field Order #1” borrows the form for a request to Ginny.
MAJOR STONEThe officer whose wife had to send a picture a week. He first appears in the Dec. 23, 1942 letter.
READING CLOSELY
“A letter and picture mean more than anything over here in the field.” “Failure to comply will bring great pain & suffering upon Lt. Lauten.”
“Goon” was 1940s slang for a clumsy or odd-looking person, from the Popeye comics.
“Regulations to the contrary”: packages were now restricted (see his Feb. 10 letter).
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. It was a quiet Sunday on his front. A week later the Germans opened the offensive that led to Kasserine Pass.