Retiring To The Chiggers

Thurs. July 27, 1944

6:55 p.m.

Somewhere in Maxey

 

Well I guess they caught up with me. I’m out in the field and I guess I will be until morning. This may be too dirty to read by the time I finish. We are bivouacked on the AA range and I’m sitting off in a little shade I found writing this on my mess kit. I’d give a quarter for a quart of real cool water right now. This place gets hotter every day. Last night after I finished your letter I sat outside awhile to cool off and then at about 11:00 we went to bed. I woke at 6:00 when the operator called as I had asked her to. I dressed and lay back down until the Officer of the Day came in and I went to breakfast. I had Pep [?], milk and an orange. Then I went back to Hqs., took care of the beds & waited for the sgt. to come in at about 7:15. Then I went to work. I did my report and drew up a courts martial charge on one of my AWOL’s. I did some other typing and it was 11:00 in no time. My assistant was there today so I put him to typing indorsements. At 11:10 I quit for the day as I had orders to come out here this afternoon and also to come on the bivouac. So I rolled my pack and then went to dinner. I had string beans, sliced toms, bread, butter, and cold cocoa. Then I got my clothes changed and we took off at about 12:30. We are out about 4 miles or more from camp I guess. We spent the whole afternoon up to 5:30 firing 22 rifles at simulated airplane targets run on pulleys. They were horizontal, overhead, climbing, diving & parachute. I didn’t care what I did but I guess I hit about ½ of them. The score means nothing anyway as all that goes on our record is the fact we fired the course. When we finished we were put in our areas and then ate – potato salad, salad, bread, butter & apple pie. Now here I am. One of the boys is bringing us out some ice cream in an hour or so but it will probably be soup by then. You could make hot tea with the water in my canteen. We had cold water out here in a lister bag but it was hot in an hour or so. It was a little cool but you put it in your canteen and in about 10 minutes it isn’t fit to drink. Even that’s gone now & I guess we won’t get any. I could sure use a cold drink. My hands face & neck are really burned. I’ll be using that hinds [?] when I get back. I got your Mon. letter out here tonight and a letter from Bart this morning. I don’t think I’ll try to answer yours tonight. I tried to get back to camp on the excuse of a lot of work to do but it didn’t work. Well I’m calling this it and retiring to the chiggers.

 

Be seein’ you

Love

Son