This is Dart’s first letter aboard his new ship! He’s been assigned to the USS Haggard, a destroyer of a new design. He says most guys wouldn’t trade their destroyer duty for anything, so Dart is hopeful he’ll learn to like the small ship eventually. “It’s a good thing I’m already stoop-shouldered. Now I won’t have so far to go when I duck for the low overheads. I guess I’ve bumped my head a dozen times on things, as these ships do not seem to have been designed for long people,” he reports.

He explains to Dot that he’d tried to send more letters from the Admiral Coontz but running a censor board for such a huge ship became problematic and the men were ordered  to stop submitting letters. Now, he says that his active duty will render his letters shorter and less frequent from now on.

At orientation today, Dart was assigned to the deck force, along with all tho other newbies who came aboard with him. He hopes to get assigned to the fire control stations in short order so that he can use the technical skills he was trained to do. For now, he’s a lowly deck-hand.

He was one of three fire control men added to the Haggard crew today. The other two were in his barracks at Shoemaker and in his compartment aboard the transport for the last several weeks, so he’s not entirely friendless on the ship.

He’s fervently hoping for mail very soon. He says he’s read all of the letters he’s received from Dot lately about 20 times. Now he longs for the time they can hear the sweet endearments rather than read them.

In his spare time on the previous ship he did several more sketches for “their” house, which he’ll send along as soon as he’s able. “We don’t have to have a second floor, do we?”

He loves her so much that he can hardly believe she happened to him. After his signature of “Goodnight, my Darling,” he signed his first name, but he also wrote his full name at the very bottom of the page. I’ve noticed that is his new practice for all the letters he writes from the ship. Perhaps that’s to help the censors identify whose letter they’re reading, although I don’t think it would be too hard to nail down which “Dart” was the author.

With this two-page letter, Dart’s prediction about the his letters getting shorter came to pass, if not the one about their frequency.

He begins by telling her about another meeting today that explained more policies and regulations to the new guys. The ship’s Executive Office even said the Navy had no trouble with the crew griping about conditions. With that permission, Dart begins, “They can take their tin can Navy and push it as far in any direction, any place, as they care to. It’s rough, wet, cramped and crowded. I slept on the deck inside last night. Some fellows were not so lucky. They slept on the deck in the rain. It threatens to be months until we get bunk space. I’m disgruntled.” Bear in mind, all this was said in clear view of the censors!

His next complaint was about the daily “Dear John” letters received by men on board. He refers to the bitter pills wrapped in sugar that announce that Miss So-and-so is now Mrs. Somebody Else. Dart says it’s tough to watch these men as they read the painful news and feel their hearts break. He confesses he wouldn’t know what to do if Dot left him. He hopes this letter doesn’t give  her any ideas. “I’ve seen stronger, more level-headed guys than I am sit down and cry like babies.”

Finding his way back to a more positive note, he thanks Dot for the pictures she sent of the Chamberlain house at Christmas time. He thinks Gale has a cute, devilish look and Doug looks much like Dart’s brother Burke at the same age.

He reminds her that even if he can’t write as often, he thinks of her just as much as before and his love grows daily.

This is an rather upbeat note from Dart, except for a brief commentary on the war near the end of the second page.

He was put to work in the fire control area today – an assignment he hopes will last. He can say nothing more of what he’s doing, except to say that it’s “interesting.”

The ship is having an inspection later today, so all hands are polishing shoes and scrambling to find clean clothes in their sea bags.

Dart reports that last night he found a nice airy section of floor (deck) on which to unroll his mattress and get some sleep. When he returned there today, he found “wet paint” signs, so he must locate another place for his nightly snooze. What a strange set up!

He writes that Dot’s comments about the people getting rich inventing tools for the killing of people closely reflect his own recent thoughts. “Here I am, with most of the fellows my age, chasing all the heck over the biggest ocean in the world, taking pot shots at a few measly hunks of coral or lava with only useless monkeys and palm trees for shade on them. When we get through, the monkeys are dead, the palm trees are charcoal and toothpicks, and we have to erect our own shade. Why did we ever teach the monkeys to throw rocks anyway? It’s a giant farce.”

He’s decided that he and Dot’s new friend Nancy Lou have something in common; they both like the way Dot sparkles when she’s having a good time. “Your eyes and teeth are brilliant and your whole face radiates warmth and joy. Boy! do I want to see you again.”

At first blush, this seems like a simple, chatty letter. If you read between the lines, however, I think you’ll find much deeper meaning.

Dart opens with a comment that having a brother in the Navy, Dot must be accustomed by now to the Navy mail service. Perhaps she has gone weeks in the past without hearing from Gordon. He suggests that things might be that way for him shortly. He talks about his “work beginning to pile up,” making it necessary to cut way back on his correspondence. Could that be his way of getting past the censors his hint that he has seen, or is about to see some real sea battles?

“If the time ever comes when you must go for several weeks without a word from me, please keep writing. Remember all the letters you’ve had from me in the past. Remember our visits to each others homes; our dates; the little things we like to remember. Remember our plans and hopes for the future, and when you write, if it’s at all possible, enclose a picture or two. A snapshot once in a while does worlds of good.” I believe this is his effort to nullify the notion of “out of sight, out of mind.” He doesn’t want her to either mistake his silence for a loss of interest in her, nor for her to forget what they mean to each other. I think the “Dear John” letters that so many on his ship have received might haunt him a bit. We’ll see more evidence of this fear when we learn shortly of things he’s written to his parents.

He refers to some of her letters he received while on the Admiral Coontz – now already a month old. He says he’s heard the song she mentioned, “You Always Hurt the One You Love” several times on the ship. He hopes that’s not true, and he believes they’ve never even had a quarrel. “That’s nice. I hope we keep it that way. (But if you don’t stop making political cracks, we’re going to have mild altercations.) Your letters aren’t censored, so you can say anything in the way of politics that you please. I don’t think Mr. Roosevelt will eat your head off for saying things about him.”

Referring to the note from Bob (Dot’s boss) that was enclosed with one of her recent letters, Dart sends his greetings. He’s confused about one thing, though; Bob refers to Dot as Dart’s “best girl,” but Dart insists she’s his only girl. He also said Bob reports that Dot will soon be a “perfect 12.” Dart thinks that might be a little small. He also tells her to remind him to tell her the story of another “perfect 12” he knew once. She did him wrong, and he’s not too impressed by her these days. He can tell that Bob is crazy about Dot, but Dart wants to remind her that there’s a sailor from this war who likes her a lot, too. In fact, one might say he even loves her.

Responding to her request that he someday tell her everything he and his buddies talked about on the long ocean voyage, he says that before he can tell her what half of the conversation was about, the big fireplace and all of their plans will have to have become reality. Then, he hopes there’ll be no need to tell her. The other half of the time, they talked about food and machinery.

He closes with “Good night, my darling. I love you with all my heart. Don’t ever think any differently.” That sounds like one last effort to drive home the message that his feelings for her are constant, and he hopes she feels the same about him.

We don’t hear from Dart again until February 14, but it’s an incredibly powerful letter. Don’t miss it. Meanwhile, Dot writes again on February 12. See you back here then.

This is not a typical Valentine’s Day message. The letter from Dart is sometimes grim, sometimes majestic, always powerful. They only way to do it justice is to quote most of it verbatim.

“This year, like last, there can be no stereotyped Valentine’s day message, No printed card to proclaim my love for you. I prefer the more personal approach of a letter, but the cards would be a welcome supplement. But this year, there can be no poem, either. All that poetry that was in me has been pushed aside by the realities at hand. One doesn’t often write poetry when he realizes that every word he writes, every word he speaks, every thought and action may be his last. Morbid, yes, but so is the business in which I’m engaged at present.

None of us knows for sure if the words we’re writing now will ever reach the intended sweethearts, wives, children, families. They may be written in vain, only to repose in, and be obliterated by, salt water. Let us hope and pray that the words will arrive at their destination, undisturbed and dry, and that other words will follow in due course of time.

I really should not be writing this letter. It’s so hard to keep it from becoming apprehensive. I should have been writing daily, as I wanted to, but will resort, instead, to an excuse or two for not doing so.”

He continues with an explanation that he suffered a recurrence of terrible seasickness for several days. By the time he recovered, he was standing watch several times a day and trying to find time to wash his clothes and his body. The tasks were made especially difficult by the fact that his gear is stowed in four different locations around the ship, due to lack of space.

“This business of fighting a war demands that we be at our posts many hours a day, ready for all that may come. Then too, there are the incessant tasks of maintaining the equipment, of keeping abreast of the eternal battle against salt water spray.”

It has now been nearly a month since his last mail call, and that was the only one since the day before they left Shoemaker. “Oh Dot, how I long for a letter or two addressed in the familiar block lettering! They are the only link between me and the girl I love so dearly. Those letters are my bread and butter.”

Having said that the war has suppressed whatever poetry was within him, he nonetheless writes in lyrical prose of his growing affection for his little ship, the love he has for the beauty of the sea. Of the ship, he writes, “She’s rough and wet and rugged, a busy little gal in a big blue ocean. She wallows sedately, (if it’s possible to wallow sedately) in the huge swells, then takes out like a dog hunting for a trail, scouting here and there, now fast, now slow, now going as if all the searing flames of a roaring hell were reaching out for her little fantail.” Of the sea, he tells of water so calm and smooth that it seems a shame to run a ship through it and disturb its unruffled loveliness. He writes of being enchanted by the phosphorescent waves, the brilliance of a nighttime sky, the splendor of the rising and the setting sun. “When I mentioned a few letters ago that there’d be so much to talk about after this war was over, I was making a vast understatement.”

“Darling, if (the ‘if’ element looms terribly large out here) we come out of this unharmed, I want only to spend the rest of my days making you happy in that little house with a big fireplace. Would that we could forget forever that all this adventure were connected with war.”

He beseeches her to never forget that he loves her until the end of time.

A pretty good Valentine, after all.