Monthly Archives: September 2014

September 1, 1944

Despite his promise of no letter today so that he might study for his tests, Dart manages to pull his head out of the books long enough to jot off a short one.

His optics instructor knows next to nothing about the subject and has managed to teach exactly that. Dart is completely in the dark and his frustration shows. He’s quite certain he’ll be in night school after this test. Maybe that’s where he’ll find a qualified instructor.

Noting at the top of the page that this is the beginning of the twelfth month of their courtship, he asks Dot to remind him of the exact date they met. He’s sure it was sometime between the 22nd and the 25th of September. He spends his final paragraph lovingly recalling every detail of their first two dates. He and two buddies hitching a ride from Case to Willoughby, wanting to get to know Dot the moment he first saw her, the movie and walk back to Hobart House, talking and dancing in the dining room… For Dart, the most magical moment came at the end of the second date when Dot told his buddy Rausch to let Dart know that she liked to get letters. Dart took the hint immediately and here they are today. “Oh, Dottie, I’m so glad things have turned out so well and that I love you always, Dart.”

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September 2, 1944

Dart crams a lot of information into the opening paragraph of this brief letter. Tests over for the week. Weeks flying by. No liberty this weekend. Had his blues professionally dry cleaned this week. “The creases are sharp. I almost cut myself when I leaned against a wall.” Again he confirms that the tests this week were “killers” and he expects to get somewhere between an 80% and 90%. Continuing the theme of repetition, he tells Dot that it is only the fear of a long stay in the hospital that keeps him from reporting his back pain. It must be getting worse because he’s complained twice and that’s not like him.

Today’s mail brought a little card from Dot, a letter from his dad and one from a buddy telling him how much he hates the Army. “He’s been in two years and has had nothing but dirty, rotten deals every since. Wishes he’d joined the Navy instead.”

He asks about Dot’s friend Cynthia because Dot hasn’t mentioned her in about six weeks. “She seemed like a nice kid,” says Dart. That’s the only opinion of Cynthia I’ve ever heard anyone express.

Not recalling whether or not he ever thanked her for the sewing kit, he thanks her again. He’s especially enamored with the thimble that will make attaching a button to a heavy coat so much easier.

Wishing her a lovely visit at Sunapee and reminding her that he loves her always, he signs off.

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September 3, 1944

This long letter from Dart packs a lot into six pages. First, he asks Dot if she has noticed the lovely moon these last few nights while she’s been at Sunapee. He tells her that it has brought on a bout of homesickness among the married guys and a couple of the single ones who are very much in love. It reminds him of the moon he and Dot witnessed just eight weeks ago tonight in Greenwich.

The moon has brought back the glorious details of that night they were parked in front of Dot’s house, preparing for Dart to leave later that evening. There was a phone call – perhaps from his folks in Cleveland – telling Dart he was free to stay on another day. “I wish I hadn’t been so shy and had hugged you tighter and kissed you more just then….From our moments together, I’ve known that my arms were made to fit around you, that I want it to be that way always. Oh, Dot, you’re so soft and sweet and lovely I can hardly stand being away from you.”

From that tender opening, he switches gears abruptly to an apology for boring her with all the shop talk. He knows that the technical subjects near to his heart are not of much interest to her. He will try to write less about them in the future. He also wants to set things straight about another matter; he doesn’t want her to think he’s trying to impress her with any kind of “genius” when he is elated over his good fortune with grades.  For others, he may occasionally boast a bit, but for her, he only wants her to be proud of him. It is for her that he works so hard. She’s the one who inspires him to do the best he can. Above all, she shouldn’t feel awed because he thinks she is very intelligent herself.

He confirms that the “sweet potato” is not very difficult to play, but he makes a hash of it anyway. It’s painful to hear him try to harmonize with the real musicians he plays with, but he loves to be a part of making music. He claims the others in the group grudgingly say, “Okay, Pete, you can sit in if you won’t blow your whistle very often.”

He asks her about her job at the department store when she starts working for the Millers. He was under the impression that she had to hold her retail job until graduation, so maybe the Miller job is just evenings and weekends. He hopes the Millers will cooperate if he is able to visit her before the war is over. If she’s stuck at home minding the children, he’d be happy to offer his willing but not very able assistance at the task so he can spend more time with her.

How he wishes she could see some of the sights and sounds near him. He proceeds with one of his impressive descriptions of  a scene he witnessed the other day. With unusual grace and his flare for details, he tells of the thrilling sight of five massive flying boats taking off in formation under the bridge, across the bay and into the western sky. I’ve never read anything that conveys the power and majesty of machinery more eloquently than Dart did. These two pages are definitely worth a read from the original letter posted here.

It’s chow time, which he can’t afford to miss, although he’d love to keep writing to Dot all night.

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September 4, 1944

Dot’s “letter” today is a postcard with an aerial photo of a section of Lake Sunapee. On it, she’s traced a pencil line hugging the shore  into the mouth of Sunapee Harbor. This, she explains, is the route she took on her early morning canoe trip. She writes that she wishes she had more than a day in her beloved spot, but she’s happy to be there for even that short a time. How she wishes Dart could be there with her. Be patient, Dot. You have years ahead of you…

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September 5, 1944

Pull up a chair and get comfy. There are 12 pages of letters today – long ones from each of the young lovers.

Dart’s first letter of the day is a quick one-pager. He didn’t write last night because he and a couple of guys went into town to celebrate. The reason for the celebration will be revealed in the following paragraph. Instead of getting drunk, they went slumming. “We didn’t do anything bad, but oh, Brother! What we saw! It defies description in genteel terms.”

His test scores were (surprise!) better than he expected. He’ll leave it at that and say no more on the subject.

He reports that he’s making progress in swimming. He finds the crawl to be exhausting, but he must qualify using that stroke for at least some of the required distance.

He must march to class now, but requests that she send him the phone number at the Miller’s house – just in case.

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His second letter of the day begins with an almost desperate plea – desperate enough for him to send an airmail letter. He refers to Dot’s letter of August 30 which she ends with a nonchalant comment about his letters seeming different lately. She sounds as worried as he is. “Please, Dotty, please tell me what seems different about them. I’ve been worried myself lately that I wasn’t keeping my letters up to par, or that I wasn’t getting as close to you in my letters as I feel in my heart. I know it now, but I still can’t seem to find out why. I certainly wish I knew what to do about it.”

He suggests that maybe he’s been loafing too much, wasting too much time and going out on liberty too often. “Seems to me I wrote some hurried letters a couple of weeks ago and perhaps that was what you were referring to.” I agree there’s been something amiss in his recent letters. There have been a few that struck me as being rather self-focused. He wrote about his classes, his swimming challenges, his liberties, letters from his friends, his grades and his back. Somehow, his declarations of love, squeezed into the final lines on the last pages often seemed almost rote. As mature, romantic and thoughtful as he is prone to be  it’s easy to forget that he is a 20-year old kid with lots of responsibility, too much free time and he’s homesick, too.

He writes that although his swimming classes are having a great impact on his progress, he’ll never shine in the sport like Dot does. He’s learning to have fun in the pool, but manages to get a snoot full of water while doing the back stroke. He expects that he’ll drown himself tomorrow during the abandon ship drill. They are required to jump from a 10-foot ledge, fully clothed into the deep end of the pool. There, they must remove their pants, knot the legs and create a flotation device out of them. For someone with the knack for sinking like a stone, that could be a frightening challenge. Imagine what it would be like in the open sea!

He describes his most recent liberty, taken with another guy from his class who had the same “good fortune” as Dart concerning test scores. The first thing they did was shop for a first anniversary card for the other guy’s wife, who had their first baby the day he got to Treasure Island. Then the boys ate at Dart’s favorite waffle house that reminds him of the Mayflower back in Cleveland. They cruised Market Street “looking for some devilment that wouldn’t cost us too much or get us drunk.” They decided on a movie that had been panned by the public but highly endorsed by sailors. “One of those movies which is advertised in such lurid terms as ‘Daring’ or ‘Educational’ about the dope racket.” (“Educational” is lurid?)

After swearing Dot to secrecy, he confesses a dirty little secret. On Sunday when he was answering so many letters to friends and relatives, he based each one on four carefully constructed paragraphs, with minor variations in each letter. By the time he got to Dot’s letter and the one to his folks, he was so tired of writing the same thing that he was kicking himself for not being more original.

He writes about how envious he is of El for being able to spend an entire week with her beloved Don. “Why, all the time I’ve spent with my best girl hasn’t amounted to a week since I met her a year ago.”

After seven pages, he still has the urge to stay up all night writing to Dot, but he owes his folks a letter because “they’re awfully lonesome.”

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There was a jackpot of four letters awaiting Dot when she arrived home from New Hampshire. She certainly hopes her mother is wrong about there being no more for a few days.

She was happy to read that her package made such a hit with Dart. She enjoys sending him things, so when he has another request, he should remember how much pleasure it gave her to shop for it.

Hearing that Burke has started back to school, she’s a bit envious. She always claimed she didn’t really like school, but now that’s it’s all but over for her, she misses it. She’s still considering what college to attend next year and has been thinking about a junior college. Instead of studying retail, she might switch to physical education.

Her job at the Miller’s starts tomorrow. She’s confident they will give her a few days off if he can manage to get to Greenwich. She admonishes him to stop saying things like “If I survive.” What makes him think he won’t, she asks.  After all, math can’t be that difficult, says Dot. I wonder if she was naive enough to think he was talking about failing his classes or if she was being intentionally obtuse.

She’s still wishing she could have taught him how to steer a canoe. She could have used his help this weekend on the lake. She was out by herself when the wind picked up and she had a devil of a time controlling the craft. In fact, she says he nearly had one less correspondent on his list!

She’d like to tell him about her lovely dinner with a charming companion, but she hasn’t had any. She’s glad he was able to enjoy such an evening in San Francisco. She did, however fall asleep on a man’s shoulder on the trip back from Sunapee. “It wasn’t my dad, either, and I hardly consider Doug a man. I wasn’t feeling well, but, believe me, he made me feel lots better. (Probably ‘cuz I pretended it was you.)” Wait! What? Who was this mystery man? No word on that from Dot. Perhaps I’ll ask her and see if she remembers.

She liked his story about the “sweet potato” orchestra. The other day, she saw a tall, thin sailor playing one in the Greenwich park and nearly had heart failure.

She’s never been in an airplane, but would like to justify the expense when she returns to Cleveland for graduation in February.

Again responding to his letter, she asks if she is the reason he might need to go to night school. If so, less letter-writing is in order. She also addresses his “genius” in a sweet passage. “I’ll be just as happy, if not more so, if you aren’t one. And I wouldn’t care if you’d flunked kindergarten at 15; I’d still love you.”

Dot launches into a mock scolding, calling Dart the most suspicious man she’s ever met. “Whenever I write you anything that might be taken two ways, you always take it the wrong way.” He suspects that El had a hand in Dot “winning” the bridal shower game which presumed to predict the next bride and how many children she’d have. He also suspected that Dot was hinting at something when she wrote a silly little code in a letter a while back. “Honestly, Dart, I have to think an awful long time before I write anything for fear you’ll figure it to mean something I had never intended.”

She’s concerned about his back and urges him to check it out with a doctor in case it is something that should be attended to now.

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September 6, 1944

Another brief note dashed off before muster is called. “In a few minutes they check us to see if we’re all here. (all present I mean) Of course we’re not ‘all here.’ I’m not only ‘half here,’ but I’m ‘there’ (where you are) in spirit. Let’s leave that subject alone, for it’s neither here nor there. At any rate, too darn much of me’s here.”

Did you get all that?

He has a mountain of clothes to wash, so as soon as muster is over, he and the boys will make a mad chase to the wash house and scrub the daylights out of their stuff before it gets dark.

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Dot’s letter is also a simple one-page job. She’s writing from her new home at the Millers. She describes quite a nice set-up with a bedroom and a living room, complete with two sofas, a fireplace plus a radio and phonograph. She needs to get up at 7:30 to start caring for the boys, so she wants to hit the sack.

She tells Dart she took her mother to see Christmas Holiday this evening, but she prefers the light and carefree roles Deanna Durbin used to play.

As she bids Dart goodnight, she informs him that his photo is in place by her new bed. It has already garnered two more fans in Mr. and Mrs. Miller. But she assures him they can’t love it as much as she does.

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September 8, 1944 – Another Masterpiece

Dart’s letter today is a fascinating one, in what he calls two volumes. It opens with a beautiful description of a perfect dawn over Treasure Island. The fog burned off early, the sky and the water are almost the exact same shade of crisp, deep blue. For once there is no wind and the brilliant sunshine is illuminating the buildings of San Francisco in sharp relief. “All we need is Tschiakovsky’s fifth or seventh symphony playing softly in the background, and you beside me with our hands intertwined, to make this scene a perfect solitude.”

He notes that today is the halfway point in his stay at Treasure Island. He says there’s almost no chance of anyone in his class going to advanced school in San Diego from here; no one has out of the last three classes. Nearly all have been assigned directly to their ships. He doubts there is a chance he’ll be seeing the east coast or Ohio any time soon. He’s learned that before Navy men are released from service, they must have some sea duty. Married men with families will be released first, when the war is finally over. But before that can happen, the Amry forces will be disbanded. As an unmarried sailor with no sea duty, he falls to the bottom of the list for discharge. But first, he must win the war.

With a sense of gravity, he writes that the Navy’s toughest work is still ahead of them. Until now, their main job has been to protect and support the ground forces throughout the world.  But now, in addition to those duties, they must begin to fight; fight harder, farther and longer than ever before.

He believes the job is going to be a very tough one. “The Japs have not been resting while we’ve been building up our Naval strength. Their ships and planes are good ones and they are crafty imitators of the machinery and tactics used by their enemies, in addition to having a few cruel and ruthless tricks of their own.”

Dart gets a bit political in his next thought. He writes that despite repeated warnings from the State Department and military heads that the U.S. was unprepared, certain people are criticising the Administration for our unpreparedness. He says these are often the same people who “sold us down river” for fear of inciting the Japanese, or because they trusted her. Now Japan is exceedingly well-prepared with sophisticated equipment and knowledge. Says Dart, “We really do have a rough road ahead of us…but it’s not the fault of our leaders.”

Switching gears, Dart discusses one of his classes called battery allignment. He sticks to his promise of not boring Dot with details, but he explains that the course consisted of the guys receiving a thick technical manual to mull over while the instructor read the newspaper. Later, they were allowed to play with a couple of guns in the gun shed. No one could figure out if the material was so simple it could be learned by osmosis or so complicated that even the men who devised it didn’t know how to teach it. This morning’s test gave them their answer. Dart aced it.

Volume II of the letter begins with another political message. He was happy to read a reprint of an editorial from the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the SF Chronicle this morning. The op ed piece was in support of Dewey for President. Dart goes on to say that the PD has long held a reputation for having the best editorials and political writing in the country – no mudslinging or bitterness – just reasonable and factual arguments for candidates and issues. Dart hopes all parties on both sides will run clean campaigns. He believes Dewey will beat FDR, but in either case, a good man will be chosen.

He tells Dot of his plans to see LA if transportation details can be arranged. Several guys he knows have taken Naval flights down state to visit the city. With the planes ticking off the miles at a rate of between 150 and 400 mph, it’s a great way to spend some liberty time.

Dart seems to be in an expansive mood tonight with a lot on his mind. Next he tackles a lively description of the frequent fire drills on the island, made necessary by the flimsy, temporary wooden buildings that pepper the place. Because a fire here would be a catastrophe, they drill at all hours with plenty of apparatus.

He tells Dot a cute story about his classmate named Peterson, with the wife named Dorothy. She has moved to San Francisco to be near her husband until he is shipped out. For a while, the guys were calling the other Peterson “Young Pete” until they realized he’s two years older than Dart, and married, to boot. Now they call him “Little Pete” and Dart is simply “Pete.” The other one is too mild-mannered to complain about the nickname he’s not thrilled with. Dart simply says, “The fellas never think of just calling us ‘Dart’ and ‘Bill.'”

Now he poses a gripping question. Would Dot like it if he returned home with a moustache? Several of the guys are emulating Errol Flynn in their shaving habits. Others look more like Groucho Marx. Both Pop and Dot’s Dad wear moustaches, but Dart suspects he’d end up looking “like a fugitive from a cat fight.”

A recent letter from his friend John Angel brings news of a few of the old neighborhood boys. The lucky Angel may get a furlough over Thanksgiving and marry his fiance then.

With the sun glowing so brightly Dart says it’s hard to get into a woo pitching mood. He hopes he gets a letter from her later in the day. (And in the margins, confirms that he got a great one.) He hopes his letters to her get back on track. Perhaps his studying has affected his sense of humor. “Now you’re seeing the more serious, less affable side of Peterson! I hope it doesn’t frighten you away. I surely don’t want to lose you or have one of us get tired of the other now that we’ve fallen so deeply in love.”

Don’t worry, Dart. Keep writing letters like this one and you’re good for life!

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September 9, 1944

In spite of receiving a great airmail letter plus a postcard from Dot yesterday, Dart only has time for a quick letter tonight. He confesses to spending most of the day loafing and he’s run out of time.

It could be that the reason for his unproductive day is another cold he seems to have caught. He plans to try to rid himself of it by getting more sleep tonight.

On Dot’s previous recommendation, he saw “Bathing Beauty” last night and agrees it was a pretty good picture. (Or as Dart playfully writes, “a perty fair pitcher.”) He must admit that with all those beautiful women with “undraped charms,” he still likes Dottie best.

After signing off with love, he adds a P. S. “I can’t let all this lovely space go to waste without telling you again how much I love you. But again I can’t find words to express it. Love goes on, words or no words.

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Dot’s long letter actually covers two days. She’s so sorry that she made the comment about his letters seeming different. It wasn’t a complaint – just an observation. They seemed short and vague to her and now she thinks it’s because he really didn’t have the time to write. She’s happy to get anything he has the time or inclination to send her.

She confesses that she has had the same difficulty mastering the back stroke that Dart has. She also had to do the deep water, fully clothed jump to pass her life-saver test at camp. She jokes that her true handicap was her shoes. They are so big that when they filled with water, she sank to the bottom.

She picks the letter up again the next evening after a long day caring for Chris and Eric. She comments that they’re cute kids, but they take a lot of tendin’.

She’s happy to read that Dart is finding swimming more enjoyable. In her next letter, she plans to send some photos they took at Lake Sunapee to “help show you why, when we have a beautiful lake like that, we love the water so much.”

She doesn’t object at all when he crows about his good grades. “I can remember (once) having the same feeling and it was wonderful.” She wants to keep hearing about his success so she can celebrate with him.

In response to his question, she answers that they met on September 25th in the year of our lord nineteen forty-three. She can’t believe it’s been nearly a year, but even harder to believe is that she survived 17 years without knowing him.

Like him, she enjoys the memories of their few dates on an hourly basis. Memories are so comforting and can brighten her darkest hours. Best of all, no one can ever take them away.

Dart had asked what was new with her sweet friend Cynthia. In truth, Dot doesn’t know too much about what’s happening with her now. She’s studying hard at school and holding down a job in the cafeteria. She plans to be at Dot’s graduation in February, so maybe Dart will have a chance to renew his acquaintance with her then. “She’s certainly one of the swellest girls I’ve ever known.”

Dot refers to Dart’s letter from September 3 in which he asks if she noticed the full moon recently. “Sailor, when you’re right on Lake Sunapee with tall pine trees all around you and a full yellow moon reflecting its beauty on the shimmering water, you don’t ‘notice’ a moon. You sit and gaze at it, wishing it weren’t just a picture you were holding, but the ‘real thing’.” (Dart, I would assume.)

To set things straight, she is not bored with his shop talk. She only wants him to know that she can’t make any meaningful comments about it because she doesn’t understand much of it. She teases him about being a genius, but she hopes he’ll never change.

Mrs. Miller says Dart can move into their house when he visits, as long as he doesn’t take Dot away.

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September 10, 1944

Here’s another charming letter from Dart, ripe with nostalgia and dreams for the future, all inspired by the fall-like weather he’s experiencing on Treasure Island. To get the full affect, I should probably quote the whole letter, word for word, but I’ll try to just pick the bests bits.

“The weather here today reminds me very much of autumn in Ohio. Brings to mind the football games, the picnics, the long drives in the country.”

“Boy, how I wish I could be there now. Put on my tennis shoes and heavy sox, my old baggy corduroy pants with off-color patches; cover up a ragged shirt with a heavy red sweater and leather jacket; pile some lunch into the car; include some stuff to play games with, then go. Nowhere in particular, but preferably somewhere with a nice view. The roads don’t have to be good – I can take the faithful green Ford through most anything.”

(Here’s my favorite part.) “Build a nice fire among some stones in a woods; cook hamburgers (and onion) over a rusty piece of tin; tramp through the woods (and maybe fall in some mud.) Can’t forget the cider, cool and refreshing. Must have apples too, and all the trimmings for the woodsy burgers. No matter how many ashes, how much smoke, even some sand in the burgers, they taste swell under conditions like that, with ketchup, or mustard on toasted fresh buns, with half-burned onions. Wish we’d brought along some lettuce and tomato for the burgers. Had ’em all ready to pack and forgot the things.”

“Hey, what happened to that gallon of cider we brought? Don’t tell me it’s gone already. I only had four glasses!”

“Play a game of catch while the dinner ‘sets.’ Sit around and talk while we keep feeding the fire. Then, as a big yellow moon comes up, drive home, too tired to talk about much.”

He tells Dot that dream includes memories from countless family picnics from the time he was sitting on his mother’s knee until he could pick the place and drive there. Somehow in these dreams he has now inserted a sweet, happy exuberant girl who is Dot. He wants them to have times like that, and very soon. For me, this letter conjures up the many breakfast picnics my parents favored when we were kids. Fall was our favorite time and the early morning hours practically guaranteed we’d have the great outdoors to ourselves.

After a little more strolling through his pleasant memories, Dart turns to answering Dot’s latest letter. He thinks junior college would be a fine idea and physical education is right up Dot’s alley. He asks her how a strong swimmer like her could have been frightened by a little wind on her lake. He asks if the route she outlined on the postcard was close to where her “summer lodge” is located. That choice of phrase proves he has not seen the Chamberlain’s place on Lake Sunapee. Think several notches down from “lodge.” In fact, go to “humble cottage” and you’re much closer to the truth. The only thing grand about their place is the view and proximity to the water. (Well, there’s also the scent of the air, the family history, the sounds of the woods…)

His head is pounding as a result of the cold which has taken a firm hold on him. He wants to grab a nap before chow, so he’ll close with love and kisses. He only wishes the kisses were as real as the love.

Neither Dot nor Dart wrote a letter on September 11, so I’ll meet you back here in a couple of days.

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