A very short letter tells Dot that Dart’s mood changed overnight. He and Sam are leaving in a few minutes to take their final “last” leave in Stockton. There’s all kinds of scuttlebutt about their departure, but he’s not permitted to discuss it with anyone. In any event, he advises that Dot refrain from using the FPO address he sent her last night until she’s sure he’s left Shoemaker.
That’s all.
Dart is Officer of the Deck from midnight until 4:00 in the morning, putting him in charge of the outfit. He calls himself “King Snipe.”
He gives Dot a run down of his liberty in Stockton last night. He and Leffman met up with Chudy, and the other two guys grabbed a couple of pints. When the others got too drunk to suit Dart, he headed back to Shoemaker. Neither of his companions had returned when he got up for chow at 0700. So much for his last stateside liberty.
Tomorrow Dart will be a “busy little demon,” packing his sea bag, mending some things, mailing letters and books home, and doing a little shopping at Ship’s Service. This will be his last chance for a long while to fill out his personal stores with a fifth pair of dungarees and some Ivory Snow laundry flakes. This boy sure knows how to live it up, right?
The draft definitely leaves tomorrow for some undisclosed departure point – maybe Treasure Island, San Diego or some out-of-the-way place. From there, they’ll board a transfer ship.
Tonight he attended a USO show at camp. It featured lots of great acts and was headlined by Harpo Marx. Dart says it was the funniest (and least “dirty”) USO show he’s ever seen.
Like another Thursday night of long ago, there is no time for love, tonight, no matter how much love he has to express. The pressing matters of the world take priority over the “sweet nothings” he’d like to write. “I can’t see why they call those endearing whisperings ‘sweet nothings’ when they mean so much to two people who love each other as much as we do.”
In addition to military matters, he must bow to social order and answer some long-ignored letters from friends and family.
Dot’s letter strikes a perfect tone for a young man off to war. It’s tender and loving, let’s him know how much she wishes he didn’t have to go, yet is filled with hope and confidence for his safe return.
Being no “Hard-hearted Hannah,” she was not able to hold back her tears completely when she learned of his imminent departure, but she only shed a few. She knows that with both Dart and Gordon in the Pacific, Japan doesn’t stand a chance.
According to Dot, those who say that war is hell surely have it right! Not just for those fighting it, but for those at home, too. Although they’re not sacrificing much except their men folk, when a particular man is all you want in the world, it’s “no bed of roses” to worry about him and wait for him to return.
She’s grateful she was unaware of what a miserable Christmas he had. She’d envisioned him laughing it up at a USO show and enjoying a fine holiday meal. She thought the Navy was supposed to make the guys as happy as possible on the holidays, but perhaps they hadn’t heard about Christmas at Shoemaker.
Another full moon will go to waste tomorrow as she wonders where he’s headed. While she’s thinking of him, she’ll be talking Janie’s ear off about him during their cousin’s sleep over.
Although Dot wasn’t home last night when his telegram arrived, her mother told her today how impressed Arthur and the rest of the family were by Dart’s considerate gesture. The whole family seems to love this young man, but only a fraction as much as Dot does.
Wherever he goes, she begs him to take care of himself and “don’t get your feet wet.” (Is that the Navy equivalent of the advice to soldiers to “Keep your head down?”) She says if he sees a ship in the Pacific with a great big sailor on deck, sitting in front of a fan and mopping his brow, Dart should just swim on over and introduce himself to her brother.
“God bless you, Dart, and please hurry home to someone who loves you more than anything in the world.”
This letter was written from Treasure Island, Dart’s pre-embarkation point. He arrived this morning and the place feels like home, even though everyone is confined behind a high barbed-wire fence with no phones or letters allowed. The men appreciate the quality of Treasure Island chow, especially since the entire huge draft is suffering some intestinal distress from something they ate yesterday at Shoemaker.
“We are here for ___ hours, so unless those hours are lengthened, this will be my last letter for sometime, and those to follow will have to conform with the whim of the censuring officers.”
He tells Dot that all letters posted from the barracks here will be held for six days before being released to their destination. Somewhere around January 10, she’ll be getting word of today’s happenings.
Dart, as always, finds the right tone to describe his thoughts as he pens his last letter from the USA. I’ll include it here, verbatim.
“I wish now I could think of all the things I wanted to say in this letter. For a last States-side letter, this seems rather ineffectual. I wanted to mention the beautiful moon of last night when I looked at it and hoped you were watching it, too. It would have been beautiful on a snowy carpet, or coming through a window into a room where the only other light came from a crackling fire and the glow of two pairs of eyes. (Ours?)”
“This is a poor time for regrets, but I guess it’s natural to regret having so little time together. I’m happy and thankful, though, that I have you waiting for me, and that we had even our small days together. To know that his love and respect is returned is one of the greatest consolations a man (or boy) can have when he leaves his country and the girl he loves and respects.”
“So, my Darling, it is with this that I close one chapter of my life and open another. Peterson the boy is slowly leaving, and in his place, Peterson the man is slowly and painfully coming into being. I’m always looking forward to coming home and ‘growing up together’ with you.”
Dart is still confined at Treasure Island. The Navy has a rule that men can only be held in the pre-embarkation barracks for 72 hours. That leaves just 42 hours until they must be returned to Shoemaker to begin their wait all over again, or be loaded onto transports.
Everyone is over their intestinal disturbance caused by Shoemaker’s horrific food. When they’re not standing in long lines for the superior chow at Treasure Island, they’re getting a little “sack duty.” I guess there’s not much else to be done but sleep while they await the next step of their adventure.
Dart transferred all his photos, accounts and identification into his new billfold today. Now he requests that Dot send more pictures to fill up the empty slots.
Recalling Dot’s practice of stepping on discarded Lucky cigarette packages for luck, he tells her that the only brand of cigarettes available here are Luckies. She has his mother and even Lefty jumping all over the place to stomp on the things. Doesn’t anyone throw things in the trash?
He ends by asking her to imagine a million of these pages filled with “I love you.” That’s how much he does.
Dot’s last letter of 1944 is one of her joyful, effervescent ones, full of happy reminiscing and high praise for Dart.
When Janie spent the night with her yesterday, all they talked about from midnight until 3:00 was Dart – how funny and smart and handsome he is. Dot read Janie some of his funniest letters, like the one he wrote when he came so close to getting a leave and then missed out, or the time he cut out a string of paper dolls to prove he had gone nuts being in the hospital for so long. Dot wonders how he can think up so much funny material, but I’d say she can hold her own in the humor department.
She agrees that the snapshots he sent of himself are not the best she’s seen, but she’s happy to have them. It looks like the photographer was lying on the floor to take them, but Dart is looking straight at the camera, so she likes that.
The store gave staff an unexpected day off today and Dot had the blissful experience of sleeping until 10:00 in the morning. Tonight, Janie’s dad, Uncle Ralph took his family and Dot to dinner and a movie. Although “Winged Victory” was about the Air Corps and not the Navy, Dot enjoyed it anyway.
When she came home from the movie, she hung out in El and Betty’s room, talking more about Dart. “I wonder how many times I’ve told people how we met and how I fell for you – Bingo – just like that. It must be in the millions by this time. And yet, with each retelling, I get the same thrill I got when all of it was actually happening. I can remember certain things you said and be almost as happy as when we were together and you were saying them.” She goes on to recall the details of their few dates – her kicking a leaf under the sofa in her dorm, the young sailors from Case who were so proud of their new GI raincoats, the first kiss Dart gave her at her friend’s house. “I want to sing and shout and let the world share my happiness.”
She gets a little philosophical about the current state of the world. There are men and women who are building instruments of destruction and others who are perfecting drugs that can heal a wounded soldier so that he can go back to battle to be injured again. “War is something I have never understood, and God grant that it doesn’t last long enough for me to learn to understand it.”
Perhaps feeling a need to lighten the mood, she asks Dart if he’s begun his list of New Year’s resolutions. “My list is only begun, but at the top is ‘I highly resolve to love Dart for the rest of my life.'” I
Tomorrow night, Dot will be babysitting for the Miller children, but she’ll have company. Her new friend Nancy Lou Clapps invited herself over to help with the kids and have a little party once they’re in bed. Both girls will bring some Cokes and their record collections. When Dot asked Nancy why she wanted to spend New Year’s Eve that way, Nancy said. “I just love to hear you talk about Dart! You get so enthusiastic and your sparkle so.”
She wraps up with the news that every day she loves him twice as much as she did the day before. Then she advises him not to get sea sick.
Dart begins, “New Year’s Eve, and the eve of a truly new year.” His time at Treasure Island is growing short. There’s a special muster scheduled for about an hour from the writing of this letter, at which rampant rumors will be confirmed or dispelled. The rumor is that they’ll all be sent to either destroyers or destroyer escorts to replace veteran crews. You may recall that these are small ships – destroyers nicknamed “tin cans.” Dart had been “promised” a battleship or an aircraft carrier by a guy at Shoemaker who supposedly had a hand in assignments. But there’s no complaining from Dart today. He, like the other men in this draft are just eager for any news about their destiny. In fact, any announcement is greeted with cheers, simply because everyone is hungry for information.
But those aren’t the only cheers being heard at Treasure Island today. I’ll let Dart tell you in his own words.
“But today we heard the cheers of a different kind. Cheers of war -weary men setting their feet on the soil of this land they left many months ago. A harbor ferry brings them from the transports to the island, where they are outfitted with new clothing and from where they leave on their ‘vacations.'”
“It’s really a thrilling, happy sight to see those men arriving. They all look lean, tan, and healthy and their eager eyes drink in all the beauty of the Bay. They gaze with wide-open wonder at this, their country, and they’re glad to be back. ”
“This may be my last letter for a month and there may be one more. But whether it’s the last or there are a million more, always remember that I love you, and I have loved you since I met you, and I want to love you all through our lives after the war. I don’t care what the rest of the world is fighting for, but I’m fighting for us, for the right and ability to get home, get a job and an education and a home, and above all, to be married to you.”
There was a post script to this letter, telling Dot that the special muster was simply to announce a free movie night for all the pre-embarkment men. Dart declined the opportunity and instead washed some clothes and reflected on New Year’s Eves from his past.
Dart’s letter reads a little like last-minute instructions before leaving on a trip; I guess that’s exactly what it is. After noon chow tomorrow, he’ll be boarding a ferry that will take him to the troop transfer ship. The good news is that he will probably be a “passenger” on a brand new transport vessel. It’ll be squeaky clean, with great dining and laundry facilities and handy storage to keep his belongings with him.
He gives Dot another new address to use until he gets his ship assignment. He advises that she be prepared to write quickly when these last couple of letters arrive in Greenwich if her letters are to reach him in a reasonable time frame. Already it’s been three days since he’s received any mail and even longer since hearing from Dot. It feels more like a millennium to him.
He’ll not be allowed to mention the name of his ship in the letters, or even what type of ship he’s on. However the name will be in his mailing address and the type of ship will be encoded in initials in the same place. Dot can get a little booklet at the dime store to look up what the initials represent. He’ll try to put stamps upside down to signal “I love you,” and he’ll talk about Tonsilectomy if he can get it by the censors, but he’ll no longer be allowed to put any coded messages inside the envelopes.
He’s decided to forego any mention of how much he loves her and misses her because it might make him sound homesick and full of longing. “I am, but why make the letter sound like it?”
Dot’s first letter of the year is a rushed little note saying she has no time to write, but wants to wish him a happy new year. She’ll try to write him a longer letter tomorrow to bring him up to date on how her holiday weekend has been going. Until then, she sends wishes that 1945 will be the best year of his life – so far.
Dart’s letter, sent from an undisclosed location, chats about his recent dinner with two Ensigns and their wives and a movie he saw, but I can’t make out what it all means. Has he left the country? Is he on a ship or in a port somewhere?
The last couple of sentences out of the 10 or so that make the entire letter are particularly perplexing. “This morning, we go back to the yard for ten day’s availability. More trouble, of a more serious nature. Must chase off to run checks on our guns.”
Perhaps this will all be cleared up in future days.
Dot writes this rather long, lazy letter while at work in a nearly deserted store. It’s so dead that there’s not much to write about.
The family received five letters from Gordon yesterday, the most recent mailed on December 23. As of that date, he had received none of the eight packages they’d mailed him for Christmas. He wrote that the ship’s carpenter had crafted a plywood Christmas tree for the men’s enjoyment. Gordon said that he would be able to endure this Christmas so far from home by living on his memories of last Christmas surrounded by his family in Greenwich. “And to think I got homesick when I was at Andrews! I should be ashamed.”
It’s already driving her nuts not to hear from Dart every day. She supposes she’ll get used to it eventually, but she’s not happy about it. Then she thinks of her co-worker, Mrs. Crowley, who hasn’t heard from her son in over three years. He’s a prisoner in a Japanese camp and she recently got word that he’d been transferred from the Philippines to Tokyo.
She includes a silly paragraph about the store being so slow that they wouldn’t know what to do if a customer happened to walk in. Then she says that he should forgive her silliness. She’s in the mood to write a long letter, but since there’s no news, she must fill in the pages with nonsense “that would sound much better if left unsaid.”
Dot has convinced Mr. Goldstein to write Dart a letter. He was in the Navy during the last war as a Fireman 1/c (first class). To hear him tell it, being Fireman 1/c is the next best thing to being President. Quips Dot, “Most Firemen I have met could do a much better job being president than that guy in there now.” She then asks Dart if he’s sure her letters are not run past the censors, because if they are, that last line will certainly be cut.
Mr. Goldstein just handed her the note he wrote to include in this letter. She hopes Dart can make out more than she can. Since Bob Goldstein is not much for writing letters, she says Dart must be pretty special to get a personal note from him.
She must stop now or she’ll have to make things up to fill in the letter. She tells Dart to wear his rubbers and write when he can. I assume she’s referring to galoshes.
There were no letters written on January 5, so I’ll meet you back here on the 6th.
Dart writes that there is a lot of “stuff” going on that he can’t write about because it would be cut to ribbons by the censors.
He writes that there’ll be so much to talk about after this war is over, but he thinks it might be best for them to forget there was a war or a Navy keeping them from leading the normal, happy lives of two kids in love.
He says he uses the term “kids” because he has heard from several happily married couples, both young and old, that as long as they feel that love, they remain young and happy in spirit.
“Say, this sounds like a lot of over-rich marmalade, doesn’t it? I better stop now and let the memories of a precious few hours together and a precious few million tender words in letters take over until next time.”
Gee, all of this is very pretty, but I’m sure Dot is eager for details. Looks like she’ll be cultivating a lot of patience in the coming months.
Dot writes a quick note telling Dart that she and her new friend Nancy went ice skating today. There was a four-inch snowfall on the ice, so they had to shovel it all off before they could begin skating. They were out in the snow and cold for over two hours and had a ball. She suggested to Dart that if he liked to skate, they’d have to add that to their list of things to do after the war.
It’s been just two days since she got his letter saying that he wouldn’t be writing for a while and she’s already desperate to see that familiar handwriting. She says that if she should ever forget for one second how much she loves him, he should remind her how hard it’s been for her to go all these months without seeing him.
She wishes him goodnight and suggests that if he imagines her saying all the pretty things she wishes she had said it will make the time go faster until she can say all them all in person.
Here’s a wonderful, newsy letter from Dart, full of many details that Dot will hungrily devour, but scant information on where he is or where he’s going.
He’s hoping to get the hang of writing under the watchful eye of the censors. “We can say less while we’re on the move than from a more permanent assignment, which is why my last letter was so brief and newsless.”
Before getting into port on their first stop, they were given the uncommon treat of being allowed to mail two letters from the ship, thanks to an impromptu panel of officer censors. There’s no news when they’ll have another chance to mail anything home, but Dart will keep writing whenever he can.
He describes the transport he’s on as brand new – in fact, she’s on her maiden voyage. She’s sleek and clean and still smells of fresh paint. They have fresh water for showers and laundry – an unheard of luxury. Dart says he can see that this ship was designed for easy conversion to a private passenger vessel after the war.
The first part of this journey was made alone, but now they are in the company of ____________________. (The censors have excised two lines of detail here, so we’ll never know who travels with them.) He apologizes that he was unable to get off the ship at their first stop to buy Dot the gift he’d promised. Reading between the lines, I think we can assume that the port was Pearl Harbor and the gift was the grass skirt.
Dart confesses that he was not a very good sailor during the first day and a half at sea, laid flat by sea sickness. After a day of calm waters, a full stomach and a lemon to suck on, he has recovered completely and can hold his own. Mostly the ship rocks from side to side, occasionally hard enough to send unsecured items scuttling across the deck. Sometimes, however, they have a deep fore-to-aft roll that reminds him of Euclid Beach (roller coaster?).
He confirms that he’ll not be at Dot’s graduation from Andrews in February, but hopes his folks will be there in his stead. He also hopes his parents and Ruth Chamberlain will have a chance to meet while she’s in Ohio for the occasion. He wants Dot to remind him to give her a big kiss of congratulations when they see each other next – one of many kisses they’ll have to catch up on.
Dart’s description of the great Pacific ocean reveals his new found love of the sea. “Ever since I first saw the beautiful blue of the Pacific, I’ve been trying to find words to describe it or something to compare it with. Maybe you remember the deep blue of the world globe in the living room at home…The Pacific is about the color of that globe, only more pure and transparent looking, with dimpled swells and fresh whitecaps stretching without end on all sides.”
“A curl of white foam breaks from the plunging, racing bow, and a wide, effervescent wake like a king-sized lime phosphate trails behind us. Beautiful and thrilling sights.”
He supposes that when she steps outside into the Connecticut winter, she envies him his tropical one. As he sits, bathed in perspiration on the searing hot deck, he envies her. He adds dryly, “The scenery on the east side of the Golden Gate is more varied and interesting that on the west side.”
Except for the lack of waiters, deck chairs and female companions, this feels to Dart more like a pleasure cruise. He and his fellow sailors hang out on deck watching the flying fish glistening in the sunlight and the array of sea birds following the ship for hours without moving a muscle. Perhaps they, like Dart, are watching the other ships in the convoy practice their maneuvers.
In a paragraph about the leisure activities on board, the censors take another bite out of the page. Dart talks about radio programs and recorded music playing over the loud speakers on the deck. Then, as he describes the games of checkers, cribbage and the like, about three lines of text are carved out. Hmm.
The “boys” must wear their lifebelts at all times and they’re grateful not to be using the old “Mae West” style of hot, bulky flotation devices.
In the time he’s not been dreaming of their past and future, he has been making a few more sketches of their house, which he’ll send her as soon as the opportunity arises. He misses her daily letters, but looks forward to receiving a big stack of them in the future.
No mail on the 13th, but Dot will be back on the 14th. See you then.
Today we have two brief, unrelated letters from Dart, both written on the 16th, but as he’ll explain, the date is irrelevant where he is. His ship crossed the international dateline sometime last night, so he went from January 14 to January 16, sleeping right through the six hours of his birthday.
Anyway, now that he is 21, he can sign contracts, own cars and houses, and marry without his parents’ consent. He assures her that no consent would be necessary in his case, because his folks heartily approve of his choice in girls. Now he hopes they don’t have to wait until she’s old enough not to need the consent of her parents!
How he hopes things work out the way they’ve dreamed! He hopes they still feel the same way about each other when he gets home and they’re able to spend more time together.
He says that several days ago he wrote a long letter full of restricted information. In it, he also talked about his memories of their limited time together. “I still think you were surrounded by a halo and heavenly music that first moment I saw you, when you came downstairs with Betty Wolf. I was fascinated by your presence all evening. Ever since I met you I’ve been thanking the Lord that I recognized the one girl for me so soon, and captured her heart as well.”
Anyway, he dare not try to get all that restricted material past the censor, so he cannot send the letter.
His next letter begins with the hope that they’ll soon be able to mail letters home. He says this life of ease he’s been leading recently has become a habit. He’s read every magazine and book he could put his hands on, including a raunchy thing called “Shore Leave.” In a rough way, it’s humorous, but definitely not family reading!
He asks her to remind him the next time they’re together to describe Marines. “On second thought, you’d better wait until you’re accustomed to my cuss words. I can’t describe Marines in anything but profanity.” Well!
As we might suppose, he sends his love.
