Hq XIX Corps Artillery
APO 270
18 July 1944
My darling Sminx,
For lack of new letters from you I have been reading and re-reading the last two letters of yours. I know them almost by heart now. They are almost two months old now but they are a great comfort just the same. Dearest, I love you, I adore you and you are everything in the world to me. Your ears should be burning almost all the time because I think of you so much. You are the finest wife a man could have and I am terribly proud of you....Let us hope that this miserable war will be over soon nd that we can be together again for good. In spirit I am with you now and I always will be.
* * *
My existence here continues about the same. It is somewhat interesting at times and I am learning a little but it is not all that could be desired.
* * *
We are getting pretty decent food now but have had no bread for a couple of weeks. What I miss the most however is fresh milk. I imagine that we will never get that. My mouth waters when I think of all those bottles of milk we used to get at Fayetteville. Remember how we would have a glass of milk every night before going to bed. Every day I think of those wonderful months we had together in our little house in Fayetteville. We were so fortunate to have them and we can look forward to similar ones in the future when this fracas is over. It will be heaven, darling.
Give my best to Papa and Mama Griffin, Kay and Sal [my mother's parents and her two sisters] and remember always that I adore you.
Your loving and devoted husband,
Bill
PS Excuse this poor quality paper. It is all I have. B.
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20 July 1944
My darling Sminx,
I am writing this sitting in the sun beside my foxhole. It is one of those rare moments over here where the sun actually does shine but I do not expect it to last very long. It is nice and warm now and reminds me of those beautiful days we had up in Maine last summer. I imagine that you and Billy both have good tans by now. At least I hope and try to visualize what you are doing but I am not too successful because I have had no letters and do not even know whether you are in our house at Hancock Point or not. I am addressing the letters care of Papa Griffin because I know you will get them that way.
To get back to my foxhole. It is about five feet long so I have to sleep all doubled up. But if I made it any longer this canvas would not cover me and I would be rained upon. My sleeping bag is getting an airing in the sun beside me. This country is very beautiful, full of orchards, tall hedges and hedgerows and trees. There is also quite a bit of livestock. The natives must get plenty of butter, cream and so forth. One thing that is amazing is that the people stay in their houses no matter what is going on around them and appear to lead their normal lives in spite of bullets, shells and bombs. I suppose they have no place else to go.
I love and adore you,
Bill
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27 July, 1944
My darling Sminx,
It has been a beautiful day today. There was bright sunshine, white fluffy clouds and a blue sky. It looked almost like home. As I was sitting on the ground looking across a green field with an orchard in it and bounded by high green hedgerows and with other fields, and orchards on the hills in the distance, I was struck with the beauty it all. The beauties of nature seem incongruous right in the middle of a war. There is a farm not far from where I am where there are all kinds of animals, including cows, chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits and sheep. The little girls go out in the fields every evening to gather grass for the rabbits. You love animals so you will be intrigued with the place I am and I neglected to say that they also have some dogs. Incidentally, how is Mischief [their Skye Terrier dog]? Are he and Billy still getting along well together?
Guess what! We received a liquor ration the other day. They gave me a bottle of some kind of French brandy which I had never heard of before. The Lord only knows what I will do with it because I have not even touched the bottle of whiskey which I brought with me from the States.
I have been a little [illegible] lately in a negative sort of a way. It has cut into my sleep and I think I was premature in saying that I was getting enough. I am in hopes now of getting a job that will keep me really busy. If it pans out, it will be a boon because the time will pass a little faster that way.
All my love,
Bill
These three letters are intriguing in several respects. The first letter is the first from his new assignment at HG XIX Corps Artillery, and his address is prominently displayed on the letter signaling Mom that he had finally been assigned to a position; his love for Mom expressed movingly again; his dissatisfaction with his status; and most particularly his expression of his strong craving for fresh milk. As I read this and re-read it, I thought that if Sugar or anyone in my family had received this letter, they would have instantly known that I had been captured and was trying to tell Sugar that and tell her that I was okay in a discreet way. Not so with Dad. He really did like milk, and we drank it with every meal. The second letter uses his foxhole to contrast with his lack of news from home and perhaps his description of the foxhole will allow Mom to visualize how he was living as he was trying to visualize how she was living; his description again of the daily life of the "natives" and the incredible understatement ending his letter - "I suppose they have no other place to go." Yes, were it not for the war, we suppose the natives would be traveling all about the countryside. And the third letter shows his appreciation for the beauty of his surroundings at a time when, by now, he must have seen horrific scenes of death and destruction, 1 1/2 months after the invasion with attacks and counterattacks, and heavy bombings of the cities of St. Lo and Caen; his mention of animals which he knows would be interesting to Mom who had had dogs all her life, and had trained horses and been a show jumper; his abstinence from liquor which would have been easy for him; and his anticipation of a harder (better) job which would make the time pass faster. To me, what is striking and would have been striking to Mom is the almost casual mention of Mischief, the family dog given as a wedding present - it was the first mention of Mischief in months, I believe. For Mom, that would have been her first question; her second would have been about Billy.
As circumstances approach for Dad that will make him much busier, we are taking it easy in St. Malo, a walled city in Bretagne. This morning, as suggested in our tour book, we mounted the ramparts of the city, some of the fortifications dating back to the 1100s, and walked around them counterclockwise. Just after Porte St. Thomas gate, we climbed up the ramparts and overlooked Fort National sitting on a small island near the city, perhaps 600 feet from the its outer walls. I knew that the tide was high, lapping up against the pilings driven into the sand beach in front of the walls. These pilings were placed there in order to protect the walls by breaking up the strong waves from storms rolling in from the Atlantic. Attached are two pictures, one taken this morning at high tide, and the other taken at 5:20 when the tide was low and when I took the opportunity to walk out to Fort National.
After our circumnavigation of the ramparts on a gloomy foggy day, a trip of only about a mile, we returned to the room where we emailed some pictures and replied to those of you who had written, and used WhatsApp to chat with those who have signed up to WhatsApp, and to check in with our dog, Maggie. Yes, I take after my mother in that regard but our children are more able to take care of themselves than Maggie is when she is attending boot camp at Bay's Camp Lejeune.
Refreshed, we headed out again on a mission to locate the house where Marie-Laure, a blind, young French girl lived according to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "All The Light You Cannot See." Her address was 4 Rue Vauborel, and looking at our map given out at the Front Desk, there it was, Rue Vauborel, running perpendicular from Rue St. Philippe which was next to the wall encircling the city. It was only about 10 minutes away or less, and we found Rue Vauborel and the building numbered "4" and I took several pictures of it, one or more hopefully attached here.
Being here helps us to visualize Marie-Laure's surroundings during the time she spent here, and not far away might be the gate she used to access the beach, a gate which is locked and closed now. I wish I had written down the measurements she gave for the bakery she visited, etc., but it would have been of little to no use. Shortly after August 6, 1944, the bombers came to St. Malo and destroyed over 650 buildings leaving only 180 buildings still standing in the city. The buildings have been replaced now and are in a style similar to the style of those which had been destroyed The bombings finally brought the German Colonel to surrender with his 600 diehard troops.
En route around the ramparts we came upon the statue of Jacques Cartier, "Founder of Canada," and later found his burial site in the Cathedral in the center of the city. In his honor, we return to WWII and to the attack by the Canadians at Juno Beach on D-Day. It was a particularly hard undertaking, one deemed "impossible" by the German Navy due to coastal reefs off the beach. General Keller's powerful 3rd Canadian Infantry proved the Germans wrong, but at very heavy cost. These Canadians were all volunteers as the Government, after the popular dissatisfaction with the draft in WWI, had renounced sending its troops to fight outside Canada without their consent. As is written in Jean Quellien's "Normandy 44", "the Canadians fought with savage determination.... Their losses might have been appalling, but nothing was going to stop them." Securing the beachhead and moving inland, they left behind a thousand of their countrymen dead on the beach. For those who were French Canadians, it was particularly appropriate that they should return from the land their forebears had left three hundred years earlier to free the descendants of those who had stayed behind in France. Marcel Ouimet, of Radio Canada, a WWII radio announcer, proclaimed, "[W]e can safely say that our soldiers have won the hearts of the liberated populations, and it is fine and fitting that soldiers from home can contribute to giving the Normans, the first Frenchmen to be liberated in France itself, the opportunity, the chance, of recovering their fatherland and their national self-esteem." Amen. Bien fait.
We had a nice supper sitting next to a couple from the island of Guernsey. They had a great sense of humor and had a hard time as they spoke not a word of French. They heard me try to order in French and so did not ask me to assist them with their ordering. And they felt that they knew Maine quite well because of watching Jessica Fletcher.
Bonne nuit. Love, Nat
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