Sunday · March 21, 1943
Read the newspapers for this date.
El Guettar: watching the battle from the shade of the palms.
March 21, 1943
My Darling Wife
This is rather an unusual time to write a letter—read the newspapers for this date and you will know why. We are having quite a time and I hope everything comes out alright.
I got a shave today—after a few glaring looks by a general who likes his men clean-shaven. At present I am sitting in the shade of a huge grove of palms. It is a beautiful sight to see and it is much like the best pictures of an oasis that you have seen.
Mail is supposed to be near but still not up with us. We’ll have to wait until this show is over before we will get it—and only a few miles from us too.
After watching the effect of artillery fire and bombing, we feel quite confident that with reasonable precautions that we will come out alright. The odds are much in our favor. For that reason, we are able to sit and watch such things with the eye of an interested spectator—at a very serious show.
Lunch is about to be served and since I don’t know when I’ll get my next one I had better rush this to a close. Food is a hobby in the army—we sweat out each meal and eat whatever we get with gusto.
Goodbye for now, honey. I love you more than words can tell and I think of you even at times like the present. Give Linda a kiss for me—and I’ll try to catch up on kisses with both of you when I get home
All my love
Your John
About this letter
A V-mail written in the middle of the battle at El Guettar.
THE V-MAILOne V-mail form in ink. His serial number at the top is blurred.
“A GENERAL WHO LIKES HIS MEN CLEAN-SHAVEN”Likely Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, who took over II Corps on March 6 and enforced shaving and neckties at the front. John doesn’t name him.
READING CLOSELY
“The odds are much in our favor. For that reason, we are able to sit and watch such things with the eye of an interested spectator.” “—at a very serious show.”
“Sweat out” was Army slang for waiting anxiously for something.
The Big Picture
Squeezing from two sides
In mid-March the Allies began to squeeze the Axis from two sides. On March 17 the 1st Division took Gafsa, which its Italian defenders had already left. On March 20 the British Eighth Army attacked the Mareth Line.
Patton’s orders were limited. His Americans were to threaten the Axis from behind and draw German troops away from the British. There would be no drive to the coast.
Where he was
El Guettar, Tunisia, in a palm grove during the 1st Division’s attack on the hills east of the town.
In this letter. “A general who likes his men clean-shaven” was very likely Patton, newly in command of II Corps and known for enforcing shaving and neckties at the front.