Attu, 12 February 1945 -- "such a feeling of waste about this year"

1 a.m.  

Darling, darling darling...

I feel six times lower than a sturmtroopen oberfuhrer, my pretty piltzer, for it must be almost a week since I wrote last. It is partly your fault for I have been expecting a letter from you for three weeks now and, not getting any, getting more and more frustrated as each mail call has brought heaps for everyone else and nothing from you for me, I have had a difficult time in not moaning and groaning. On three successive days I tore up letters I started because of their deep blue quality and then I developed a superstition that if I didn't write it might bring a letter. 

Last night I even sent a wire to you about mail, for each time I have wired it has brought mail the next day. But even that totem failed. Today there was no mail for anyone. I came very near crying about it today -- once before when Gene got three letters and I got none I had to get out of the room fast -- but Dave came to my rescue with a bottle of brandy from somewhere and now I am warmly convinced that tomorrow will bring manna from the mail plane...

If it were not for Gene and Dave I would be very unhappy here. We are as crowded as at Station One and other of the same complications which went into the "Change of Station" story are present. But I have finally got back to my writing, Gene is everpresent in off hours to brew tea and bullsession, and Dave is around from time to time to join in the chess, the music, or the bullsessions. 

As I told you, Dave is our first sergeant. He gets some very strange orders to carry out. Today, for example, he was told to find the depth of the snow in all parts of the ACS area. This would entail considerable digging, which of course Dave eschewed. How he came by his estimates I don't know, but late in the afternoon I saw him standing on one foot in a snowdrift, his right leg raised and his knee serving as a shaky desk, while he wrote down figures on the snow. 

For Whom the Bell Tolls: love minus politics

Earlier he and Gene and I went to see "For Whom the Bell Tolls." ... The movie was, naturally, completely devoid of political content. In fact, it was so much so that it may have defeated the very purpose for which it was emasculated. At one scene in the middle of the picture, where a troop of enemy cavalry is seen approaching in the distance, the boys behind us began a subdued argument about whether they were "American" or "German."

I'm still reading War and Peace, which is something of a life's work. Last night I got past the halfway point. I hate to agree with the critics on anything they are unanimous about, but it seems, at the half way mark, to be the best novel ever written. And the funniest thing is that nearly every sequence is essentially corny and could fit into a soap opera. At the end of each could be the question "Will Natasha marry Prince Andrew," "Will Pierre kill or be killed in the duel?" "Will Boris be promoted?" But it is wonderful. Oh darling darling how I wish we could be reading it together. 

I have such a feeling of waste about this year, so strong a feeling of what I am losing by being away from you. That is why it is so bad when there are no letters. They are my only compensation, this new medium of communication with my beloved, and when they don't come I feel trapped and frustrated and I pound the wall with my fist until it hurts too much and now my hair is long enough so that I can again get hold of it to pull. 

USS Essex in 1943, a blimp's eye view: National Archives

Dad forwarded a letter from Vic in which he mentions that his ship, the Essex, is "the fightingest ship in the Navy." It has wrought more destruction on the enemy than any other vessel and holds practically all records. From the articles, Vic says, "you will learn that I have been present at the invasion of the Palau Islands, the raids on and invasion of the Philippines, the raids on the Ryuku Islands and Formosa. We were very much in evidence at the second Battle of the Philippine Sea when so much of the enemy fleet was destroyed." 

 

The Essex was hit by a kamikaze pilot in November 1944. 

 

Little lover, it's only ten weeks now, and while "only" seems a strange adjective to apply to ten weeks away from you, it does seem possible that we will make it. For a while I did not think the year could ever end. Look both ways crossing the streets -- I worry about you so much, and get some sleep and eat three meals a day and be very very healthy for me. ..

My nunny, you are adored. Please keep loving me,

M