Pvt. W.D Johnson Jr. 34945847
B. F. R. S.
APO 545 c/o Postmaster
New York N.Y.
Feb 11, 1945
Somewhere in Germany
Dearest Mom & Dad
When I wrote Louise a hasty note yesterday I didn’t think I would have a chance to write today. I still don’t know if I can mail this today but I’m going to write it anyhow. As I’ve said before you all will just have to swap news of me when one of you hears & the other doesn’t.
I’m sitting in a log dugout in a thick woods that’s full of trees lopped off by artillery fire, but we haven’t been catching any artillery lately. We’re just waiting for the word to move or for something to happen. In the infantry we never know anything except that we will be slugging or getting set to just as long as there is a war. The job of the infantry is just as inevitable and inescapable as your dishwashing & housework, Mom. But there’s a lot of pride in the infantry boys and altho they don’t have any glamour built up around them like the air corps & some others, they know that the jobs don’t come any tougher than the ones they get.
Mom in the past 10 days I’ve received about 5 letters from you dated from about Jan 2 to Jan 11th & one from Dad with a note from you all at the bottom dated New Years Day. None of the letters you all addressed to me at the hospital have caught up yet whereas those Louise kept sending to my address here have been coming right in. I also received notes from Macey & Rip. I wrote Rip from the hospital but he evidently didn’t get my note. I got a swell letter from Eliz Diggs enclosing a little brochure prepared by a Staunton woman in honor of her son who died over here. It’s wonderful so tell Eliz to send Macey & Rip one. I plan to write E. First chance I get and also I would like to write Mrs. Tullidge & tell her how much the booklet meant to me. (Snow is dripping between the logs overhead so don’t mind if the letter seems wept over as I’m really in fine spirit and mad as blazes at the Jerries for keeping me out in weather like this!) When you write Eliz express these sentiments to her as I may not have a chance to write her for some time.
Mom, I like to report that I didn’t receive any telegrams or any packages and I know now that I won’t. Being in the hospital, the packages were sent back and due to the large volume of packages the Army can’t afford to forward them around so they just get lost. Don’t feel badly as I got the spirit of the thing anyhow and altho I’m disappointed at not receiving them, I am not really suffering for anything. We get cigarettes & candy bars up here and there’s no way to carry much stuff with you, so its really not worth your trouble. I was sure jealous tho of all those USO Commandos who got to eat my birthday cake. What kind of a cake was it? I can just see a big fluffy coconut cake with pecans in it and icing that’s soft enuf to lick off your fingers!
I hope Macey don’t have to come over here, but he’ll probably get a kick out of it anyway. It’s a fascinating sort of misery. I Thought of the waxworks on London the other day when we came thru some woods when the worst deep snow was thawing. Dead Jerries, frozen into grotesque shapes and positions, emerged from the snow everywhere. One of them had his arm up and his leg thrown back like he was sliding into second base! You’ve read of the haughty Nazi prisoner but all we’ve captured have been sorry looking half frozen cringing critters. They really say “Kamerad” just like in the books. We throw a few grenades amongst ’em and yell “comin zee here” (I don’t know if thats German or a pidgin that they understand) and out they come. I’t great fun to take their burp guns and machine guns and wham them against a tree. Speaking of this burp gun (our nickname for it – also “paper cutter”) it sounds like a sawmill in operation – fast firing. A Jerry got on my right rear flank one time and shot at me for half an hour off & on. I was busy with stuff in front of me and this burp gun kept throwing dirt all over where I was laying. I fired a few rounds into the woods where I thought he was but the dirt kept splattering. Finally I got mad and turned around and threw about forty rounds into the woods just as fast as I could blaze the old M1. Either I hit the Jerry or he decided it was too hot there as he didn’t bother me any more. That burp gun fires so fast that you just get a cacophony of sound and its hard to spot exactly where it comes from.
I know you’ve got a million questions I haven’t answered but as long as you know I’m well and safe the rest don’t make much difference. It is a real inspiration to get things that you all say in letters and thats what you can do that can do me the most good. I haven’t gotten the frame of mind as depicted by Mauldin the cartoonist when he had the infantry soldier say “Sometimes I think I’m a fugitive from the law of averages!”so you all keep writing. And keep praying as I’m sure that yours and mine and all the other prayers are what get us thru. No man can come through this war unless God is leading him like a child by the hand. I believe that and I am at peace no matter what comes.
God bless you all David