Category Archives: Dart’s Letters

February 8, 1945

February 7, 201517. February 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

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.

February 14, 1945

February 13, 201517. February 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

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.

February 20, 1945

February 19, 201517. February 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

I would not take kindly to anyone who maligned the Valentine’s Day letter Dart wrote recently, unless it was the author himself. Even then, I’d be hard pressed to agree with any negative critique, Still, that’s how this letter begins.

“This kid is ashamed of himself. Here he expects to make some money by writing after the war, and he turns out a bunch of run-down, corny, over-worked crap like that last letter to you. Such tripe as I wrote in that letter should best be forgotten. Anything nice I said about you, I’m not ashamed of, nor do I regret. But the rest of it – BAH! It must have been disgusting, or at least discouraging, for you to receive that one. Times before, I’ve threatened to start a little black book of hackneyed phrases, in which I should put all my complaints, do all my ‘hell-raising,’ do all my writing when I feel low, so that never again will the moody side of Peterson show in his letters. Enough for the borscht which had to come out in the last letter.”

I want to take a moment here to defend the letter he so viciously derides here. It was not an excerpt from a novel, nor was it intended for public view. It was the deeply personal, brutally honest confessions of a scared young man, far from home in very dangerous circumstances. In writing his truest feelings to the woman he loved, he was building on their intimacy in a way that could never be complete if constructed only with happy thoughts. He was bearing his soul and trusting her to accept it, dark crevices and all. For that purpose, it was a masterpiece.

He goes to tell a little about life on the USS Haggard. When he first arrived, the Executive Officer told the crew that they would go through frequent cycles of loving, then loathing this little ship. Dart confesses he’s completed that cycle at least a dozen times so far. The ship rides rough. She’s always wet, as are the men who occupy her. The food coming from her galley is mediocre at best, and there is terrible over-crowding that makes sleeping very uncomfortable and unpredictable. Still, the crew, while not particularly chummy, give the impression that they’re always there to help if a buddy really needs it.

He mentions there are three full-blooded American Indians aboard, named Whiteface, Two Bears and Smith. Smith is Dart’s watch captain.

Dart is assigned three four-hour watches out of every 24-day, with four hours of sleep and free time in between. He spends his time searching for a place to stretch out his long frame for a nap and trying to find the least-wet clothing to wear on is next watch. He has a hard time keeping clean, but he’s grateful for the ship’s laundry. His whites come back yellow and his denims have been bleached white, but at least he doesn’t have to scrub them himself. He seems slightly obsessed by the fact that, lacking a freezer on board, they cannot keep ice cream. The only time they get the stuff is if they can bum a few gallons from a larger ship and eat it all before it melts in the South Pacific heat.

He’s frustrated because there’s so much to write about, yet so little that can actually be said. Then he adds. “I hope this experience doesn’t change me too much, so that you won’t love me anymore. If I should lose you it would be the end of my world. There’d still be reasons to come back, but not the same reasons I’ve had for about a year and a half.”

There are so many reasons why it’s difficult to write while at sea, but he’ll keep on writing anyway. He’ll also keep on loving Dot and dreaming of the time when they can “grow up together.”

February 26, 1945

February 26, 201517. February 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

This letter from Dart is part “day-in-the-life” stuff, part nostalgia for simpler, safer times, a couple of bits about food, and some lovely thoughts about Dot.

He’s in a cheerful, not-too-romantic mood, but that’s a big improvement from the “drastically blue and disheartening” moods of some recent letters. He hopes he’s not disappointed her too much with his gloomy letters of late. It’s my belief that a young man risking his life to preserve freedom across the globe is entitled to express whatever mood he’s feeling. I suspect Dot may feel the same way. I doubt she was too disappointed by his recent letters.

He tells about the big, fast, dizzying adventures he’s been having. Lots of thrills, but not the kind people would willingly pay money to experience. The thrill of being slammed against the steel walls of the ship as it makes its rough way through raging seas; the thrill of being perpetually soaked to the skin with salt water and having to work in drenched, water-laden clothes. It’s the thrill of having your life in “real, wet, turbulent danger.” He only hopes his memory of such thrills will be short when this whole thing is over.

“Ah, but when the going is pleasant and the ship cuts the still water without trying to shake the human parasites off her back; when the wake and the bow waves glow green with the weird phosphorescence of the sea at night; when we can jump rope during the daytime watches on deck; that’s when all the discomfort of the rougher days is partly forgotten. It’s almost likeable then.”

He reports about the famous “battle breakfasts” the Navy serves on days when they expect to engage the enemy. A huge spread of pancakes, sausage, eggs, fruit, toast, etc. Dart’s first came quickly on the heels of his bout with seasickness, and had he been able to keep it where it belonged, he declares it would have had “amazing possibilities.” See how stealthily he mentions that he’s experienced combat?

The ship has a few radio speakers scattered throughout, in addition to the PA speakers. Often, there’s familiar music from home piped over the speakers. They even get recorded versions of the live radio programs from the States, played one week after their original broadcast. Dart sounds like an old man when he contrasts the high school kids who need a constant stream of new music to keep them interested with the men on the ship who prefer the “old standards,” the tunes that were popular before they left home to fight a war. Dart can’t get enough of Raymond Scott, Glenn Miller, Woody Herman and Fred Waring.

Some of the guys on the ship have the region of their bunks plastered with exquisite examples of pin-up art. “Unbelievably exquisite-looking females, in languorous and entirely unnatural poses designed to stimulate the imagination without leaving very much for the imagination to conjure up.” He appreciates that their colorful presence breaks up the stark whiteness of the ship’s walls and that they are nice to look at, but he prefers a real, live girl that he can dream of holding in his arms. He prefers to gaze at the pictures of his girl – the one who defines beauty for him – and dream of their real future together.

He claims that even though the food on the Haggard is not great, it’s generally edible. Most of the guys report having gained a few pounds. But not Dart. “I’ll never gain weight. I couldn’t do it on a diet of cream puffs, malteds and thyroid extract. Oh, why did I mention cream puffs and malteds? They belong in the category of ‘lesser dreams of past and future,’ along with juicy hamburgers, french fries and Cokes , ‘Dagwood’ sandwiches, football games and dances in the fall.” He also recalls once again the time Dot sat in his dirty workshop and helped him get his little engine running. Another man might have meant that last part as sly reference to some hanky-panky, but for Dart, the real delight was that she literally helped him get his little model engine running.

In case she needs reminding, he tells her that he loves her very much, then signs off for dinner.

Dot writes two letters today – the first newsy and a little goofy; the second one uncharacteristically romantic.

Dot’s had to neglect Dart for a few days because Toni Gale spent the weekend at the Chamberlain house and it was Dot’s job to make sure she didn’t burn the house down. By the tithe tot had “wound down,” Dot was ready to collapse into bed.

All the newscasts this weekend have been about the bombing of Tokyo. It seems to Dot that it involved primarily aircraft carriers of the 5th fleet, so she assumes Dart had no part in it. In truth, the carriers were always the “media darlings,” garnering lots of film footage and attention. Still, those big ships didn’t go anywhere alone. It took lots of lesser vessels to support these floating cities. I recall Dad telling stories of the Haggard’s role in hovering close by as pilots returned to the deck of the carriers. If they had to ditch to avoid crashing, the crew of the Haggard was on hand to fish them out of the sea. Dart may very well have had an intimate view of the bombing of Tokyo. If so, it’s probably best that Dot remained in the dark.

She goes on for a few silly paragraphs about the new law going into effect that requires all bars, restaurants and places of entertainment to close at midnight. She makes a big deal of how much this will cramp her style and cut into her drinking time. “Whatever shall I do? I’m quite beside myself. Now, if you were beside yourself, you’d be just about the right size. But with me beside myself, well, I’ll tell you I’m a bit dubious about walking down a narrow sidewalk for fear I’ll overlap into the gutter. Oh well, such is life without a wife, and here I am without a man, unless you would make the great mistake of call Mr. Goldstein a man.”

See what I mean about goofy? I’m sure Dart got a little chuckle out of her comedy routine when he read that letter.

But she’s not done yet. “It’s raining cats and dogs. Of course, that gives Greenwich an over abundance of pets, but who cares? They’ve always said Greenwich was the cat’s meow, so a few more could hardly spoil its reputation.”

Time for Dot to go home for lunch and finish this later.

She picks up again in the evening after she and El return from having seen “I Love a Soldier.” The movie made Dot miss her sailor all the more. It touched close to her heart because the film was shot in San Francisco and made her homesick for the times she used to receive letters from there. At the beginning of a scene with the cable car, Dot told El the street on the screen was Market St. When it turned out to be so, El asked her how she knew that. “I recognized it from a sketch Dart drew once,” she replied.

It’s time for places of entertainment to close, so she thinks she better stop writing because her favorite form of entertainment is her little “chats” with Dart. “A letter from you does an even better job of boosting my spirits. Old letters help some, too, so I’ll read a few of your past masterpieces and wait patiently for the coming ones.”

She says that she loves him so much it hardly seems possible she’s seen him only eight times in her life. “I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. In fact, I can’t remember when I didn’t love you.”

She signs off with “Goodnight, Dearest. Sleep tight. All my love, always.”

She enclosed a couple of cartoons clipped from magazines.

March 1, 1945

March 1, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

Dart begins “It’s really hard to believe that I’ve been aboard the Haggard for almost a month now. Slowly but surely, I seem to be getting adjusted to the conditions, and my curses are getting softer.”

His watches come in rapid succession, helping to make time go by faster. He stands watch with the same three guys. Their schedule is such that they get to observe both sunrise and sunset over the gray and silver sea. Every time, they think how much more beautiful that beautiful sunrise or sunset would be if only it were over Yuma, Arizona, the rolling farmlands of Nebraska, or the skyline of Boston or Cleveland. He swears that the coal smoke from Cleveland’s industries helps create the most impressive sunsets anywhere. Now there’s a homesick boy! He says that watching a lovely moon cross above the ship only serves to make one miss his loved ones more.

Last night, he had an interesting experience; he was standing watch, but thinking so intently about Dot and their future together, that he felt her physically standing beside him. “What a letdown when I reached out my hand and got it tangled in the cords of the battle telephone I was wearing.”

The guys have been hearing quite a lot about the curfew on entertainment places lately. (But he’s not yet received Dot’s letter on that topic.) He thinks the folks back home have had a rough time of things since December. He’s especially worried that the fuel shortage might have prevented Dot and her mother from traveling to Cleveland for Dot’s graduation. He truly hopes they were able to get there, and, if they did, that they had a chance to meet his parents. It seems strange that so much has happened in Dot’s life that he’s unaware of. Not only did she make it to Cleveland, but she stayed at his parents’ home for a whole week! How frustrating that mail takes so long to reach him, but I guess, in a way, it’s pretty incredible that it ever gets to him at all.

He writes that “the knotty finger of work beckons, and he must heed its call.” He misses her terribly, but way out where he is, it doesn’t do any good to mope about it. (I love that word “mope”. I think one could almost guess at it’s meaning just by the way it sounds.)

Dot writes that a mild snow fall quickly vanished under sunny skies, so one can hardly claim that March came in like a lion.

The folks at work predicted she’d get a letter from Dart today, but they were all disappointed. It certainly does her heart good to hear from him, although she can’t exactly say why. “What have you got that any other sailor doesn’t? You’ve got ‘IT!'”

She babysat for Chris and Eric Miller last night – the first time in quite a while. Eric has grown so much since she last saw him that she hardly recognized him. With long eyelashes and beautiful dark curls, he’s going to be a heart-breaker. He’s already a flirt at just eight months! His big brother Chris is also a cutie. She tells Dart that as cute as they are, they are both little devils. If you blink away for a moment, Chris has Eric’s hair in his firm grip and Eric has Chris’ kiddie-car wheel in his mouth. I think Dot secretly loves the challenge.

Tonight she’s babysitting for Carter Ford, but he doesn’t appeal to her at the moment. He’s been a little stinker all night, but when he looks at her with his big, beautiful eyes, she’s powerless to discipline him. She confesses that her kids will be spoiled rotten, especially if they have beautiful eyes. (Well, either Dot found her backbone or none of us kids had beautiful eyes, because she never seemed to have trouble disciplining us!) She adds. “Beautiful eyes just about hypnotize me, but I guess you found that out already, didn’t you?”

She and El have gone into business. They even ran a little ad in the newspaper: Is there a curfew in your night life? Let us help you out. We’ll take care of your children (35 cents/hr.) or assist at dinner parties (50 cents/hr.) Phone Gr 2630 after 6:30 pm.

She says they both babysit a lot, but they’d like to be busy every night. El is saving for her wedding next year and Dot needs money for college. About the business she adds, “It ought to be loads of fun, if it works out. More variety, and I hope more cash.” This girl jokes about how lazy she is, but I’ve never known an 18-year-old willing to work as hard as she does.

Work at FS has been so slow that she’s begun taking books to read there. Now she’s enjoying “The Razor’s Edge” by W. Somerset Maugham.

There’s no more news, so she’ll close, with all her love.

March 2, 1945

March 1, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

Dart’s overjoyed by the mail call he got yesterday – four letters from Dot and three from his parents. They all tell the wonderful stories of Dot’s graduation and the lengthy visit they all had in Cleveland. The most recent letter from Dot was written on February 17 – not such a terribly long delay, under the circumstances.

At this point in the letter, he’s interrupted by another mail call. He’s had a total of 35 letters since arriving on this ship and he thinks the mail will now be coming in as regularly as one can expect while on sea duty.

Today, he visited a destroyer tender and met a “ghost,” a guy named Lester Stern who was a year ahead of him at Shaw, a year ahead at Case in the V-12 unit and roomed next door in the dorm. Lester just graduated from Annapolis and is now an Ensign. They had a long talk about old times and Lester told Dart that lots of their old V-12 buddies are out here in this area of the globe. Dart interjects that where they are is not where Dot and his folks guessed he was from his early letters. He hopes no V-12 guys get assigned to his ship because it’s “awkward business” to know an officer personally.

Because of censorship, Dart can only write on one side of the page (to allow for excising forbidden words or phrases, I suppose.) He’s really burning through stationery and it’s hard to get more way out where he is. The paper he’s using today is not worth much, but it’s priced high at a penny per sheet.

He asks Dot to let her mother know that he’ll write to her soon. He’s afraid he never thanked her for the Christmas gift, but magazines are prized commodities while at sea. The Readers’ Digest she gave him for Christmas are very popular with his shipmates and with him.

If Dot’s looking for an enjoyable book without message or purpose, he recommends Chicken Every Sunday by Rosemary Taylor. It’s light and amusing, along the lines of My Sister Eileen or Life With Father.

He asks Dot if, when she was a little girl, she took time out from playing football with the Alley Rats to play any of the little girls’ games like skipping rope. He tells her that the guys have great fun performing for each other jumping rope on deck. The ship’s always rolling and pitching beneath their feet and occasionally a wave washes over the deck, but some of the men are really good, nonetheless. He describes the fancy footwork demonstrated by the best jumpers, and then confesses he’s only managed to do “regular” skipping, and then only about 10 skips in succession without a miss.

“Here I’ve come all this way without telling you how doggone much I love you, and my paper’s used up. Don’t worry. I’ll write a love letter someday soon.” In Dot’s eyes, aren’t they all love letters?

March 3, 1945

March 2, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

It’s a hurried note from Dart today, but he crams a lot in. He’s very tired from an all-day working party he was part of yesterday. He’s not complaining because he says the other men had it much worse. No further details are forthcoming, so maybe he’s being mindful of the censors. Speaking of which, I’m pretty impressed by how long it’s been since we’ve seen any part of his letter cut out with a razor. He seems to be taking the censorship rules to heart.

He raises the issue of the “Dear John” letters he’s written about before. He explains that when he wrote that letter about them, he was “under the influence of current events.” He watched as some of the fellows received such letters and seemed very hurt by them. He’s since learned that in some of the cases, the fellow himself had been chiseling,” (cheating?) and in other cases, the girl was just a passing fancy anyway. Sometimes the girl was to blame, sometimes not.

His point in bringing it up now is to say that he loves her beyond anything he thought possible before he met her, and he trusts her thoroughly, without the slightest doubt in his mind. “So, Dearest, please forgive a sailor his blue moments. These are the things I should write on scratch paper and throw over the side.”

He gushes a final thought, “Goshamighty, you’re nice, Dot.” I love the simplicity of that line. Yes, he loves her looks, and he tells her so often. He thinks she’s funny. He appreciates her positive outlook and her way with children. I trust he feels his share of lust for her as well. But the sweet “you’re nice, Dot,” also reveals that he just genuinely likes her.

March 4, 1945

March 3, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

Does Dart finally have an assigned sleeping spot? Maybe so. He reports that after a month on board, he is happily ensconced in a nice little hangout with three other fire control men. All of them except for one bitter guy have their girl’s picture in front of them as they write. He’s so thrilled to have those pictures! He says if she’s received 400 letters from him, he must have received about that many from her, and each one still thrills him as much as that first one that came to him in the V-12 barracks at Case.

Another mail call today brought four letters from Dot and two from his parents. He lived every word of her letters over and over again. He tells her that a letter or a visit from her does his parents a world of good, and that clearly comes through in their letters to him. His mother says that Dot gets prettier every time they see her, although he doesn’t know how that’s possible because she was already so pretty the first time he laid eyes on her. How nice that his parents like Dot almost as much as he does. Nice for Dot, too.

He confesses that his mom told him “off the record” that Dot looks cute in curlers. He’d like to see that. In fact, he’s decided to grant her wish of surprising her when the Navy tells him he’s done, and he’ll show up unannounced. It would serve her right, he says, if he caught her with curlers, cold cream and dressed in overalls! “That’ll cure you of wanting me to surprise you!”

After mail call, Dart had another treat in store. He put his feet on solid land for the first time in a month. His liberty section got their turn at experiencing a little relaxation on the beach of a tiny island. “The recreation island is a tiny, very tropical place, covered with coconut palms, dense undergrowth and an occasional breadfruit tree. Also present are flies, sailors and innumerable beer cans.” The island is surrounded by white coral-sand beaches and clear blue-green water.

In explaining the beer cans, Dart tells her that the Navy carries large quantities of the stuff for use by recreation parties on shore. Because of the tropical heat, the beer has a more powerful affect on the sailors than it ever would in the States. Consequently, every sailor gets a beer ration. Teetotalers like Dart can become very popular fellows during shore liberty as guys buddy up to them in an attempt to get more beer. Dart prefers to hand his out to his real buddies, rather than the pseudo-buddies who are only interested in his beer and try to play him for a sucker.

Risking the censor’s blade, he talks a bit more about the island. He describes the small marine life he saw, including colorful fish and harmless little sand sharks, red coral and salamanders, crabs and other shell fish. The swimming beach is wide and white, with shallow water and a flat bottom. The guys go “natural” because there isn’t a woman to be found within a million miles.

He wraps up with “Gee, I wish you could come adventuring with me! Better still, I’d like to come there to see you, and skip this whole world-traveling mess.”

March 5, 1945

March 4, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

No mail for Dart today and he’s feeling a little let down. Sure, he has the big stack of letters that have been arriving this week, but he’s hoping to save answering them for the coming days when he won’t have any news he can tell from the ship and when no new mail is arriving from the States for days or weeks on end.

The film they’re showing on board tonight is “Meet Me in St. Louis,” with Judy Garland and according to Dart, “a whole slew of nice tunes.” If he can’t think of much to write, he may take in the show – his first aboard the Haggard.

He asks Dot if he ever told her how this ship feels in a moderately rough sea. He doesn’t have to explain it if she’s ever ridden a Euclid Ave. street car during a rainy rush-hour. The only differences are that here, the water washes over everything, the lurching and swaying lasts much longer, and there’s not as much of a crowd.

He wishes she could see him in his foul weather gear. (I think it should be called “fowl” weather, because he’s always talking about the duckings they get.) He wears a big jacket and nice, padded ski-pants, just like the girls back home wear; also galoshes. “A day’s not complete without a ducking while we’re under way, and if we get ducked more times than we have dry suits of clothes, we wear wet ones. Salt water ruins shoes, too. I bought another pair today.”

A lot of guys out where he is wear white sailor hats that have been dyed blue. He dyed two of his today, so he must be getting “real salty.” Some destroyers have tight rules about uniforms, but his ship is quite liberal. In port – such as it is – the uniform is blue hats, dungarees and black shoes. On the ship, just about anything goes for the head and feet. He says baseball caps are quite popular among the boys, as are heavy rawhide Marine shoes. When some destroyers are in port, crew members are required to wear regulation white hats, and some are even forced to wear their white uniforms. Still, the Haggard is one of the cleanest, best looking “cans” around and the crew is mighty proud of that.

He had is picture taken today by the ship’s doctor. At the time, Dart’s hair was a mess, his face was dirty and sunburned and he had paint on his hands, arms, face, shirt and pants. Although cameras are forbidden out here, a few officers have them. He hopes he’ll get to see the photo when it’s done, but it’s hard to get film developed way out where they are. New film has to come all the way from the States.

Well, he’s surprised by how much he squeezed out of a no-news day. He’s solved the problem of the second floor of their house. How he wishes he had his drafting tools with him to make better drawings. Now, they’re just sketches. “But there’s nothing sketchy about my love for you.” I’d say after a line like that, it’s time to close this letter. And he does.

Another weekend’s passed and Dot fears she’s neglected Dart. Friday night was spent at Nancy’s house, talking about…Dart! She says Nancy may have mentioned some guy she’d known once in California, but, says Dot, “I’m afraid I was a much better listener to what I had to say.”

All day Saturday, this girl WORKED! She scrubbed her bedroom floor, windows and woodwork, vacuumed the entire third floor and stairs, cleaned up the front lawn, washed all her clothes and did three sets of dishes. At bedtime, she crashed.

This morning, the light coming through her clean bedroom windows nearly blinded her, but it allowed her to make a remarkable discovery. She actually has a cozy, comfortable bedroom, when it’s clean. She enclosed a sketch of the layout of the room, complete with a photo of Dart on every horizontal surface. That way, nearly anyplace her eyes land, there he is! She says she plans to tape another one to the ceiling so when she wakes up in the morning, that’s the first thing she’ll see.

She and El recently saw “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and she hopes Dart gets to see it. (I’m not sure why a guy who is actually living in the war would want to see a movie about that same war, but maybe…) Anyway, she was so taken with the actress who played Mrs. Ted Lawson that she came home and cut her hair very short, like the woman in the movie. Then she tells Dart, If you do see it, notice her eyes. They sparkle like diamonds.”

She has no more paper with her at work, so she’ll have to end the letter. She added a P.S. that she got a letter from the Marine she mentioned a year ago. She got his last letter in May and never answered it, but he thought it was his turn to write. He’s in the Philippines, ‘bombing the hell out of the Japs.’ Dot says that since Dart is writing to a Marine, she thought it would be okay if she did, too.

Then, as has become her habit, she enclosed a few cute cartoons, which I’ll save for a day when no one writes a letter.

March 6, 1945

March 5, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

Old Faithful writes again! This letter from Dart begins with the announcement that another day has flown by quickly because he had a job to do. There’s no mention of what that job was, but he believes that keeping busy makes time pass faster, and that’s fine with him.

As he writes, some of the guys are lounging around looking at each other’s photo albums and talking about the future. They all have similar plans – marriage, a house, education and a job. Marriage seems to be of the most immediate interest to the men, but then they worry about how they’ll support a family. The worst part is they can’t discuss the priorities with their fiancees or would-be fiancees, nor with experienced older folks who might help them sort it all out. “We’ll have to wait and see what conditions are if and when we all return to our complacent life ashore, far from the Navy blue and white.”

Speaking of Navy, he remarks that in a long-ago letter, Dot said she didn’t care what he wore in his civilian life, as long as it wasn’t Navy blue. I think she meant that she didn’t want to see him in uniform after the war, but he took a different meaning. He thinks she has some aversion to the color and warns her that the only suit he owns is actually a navy blue shade. He assures her that by the time he gets released and can wear civvies, that suit won’t be good for much except the Salvation Army for a homeless ~~veteran~~ hero, or for shining shoes or waxing a car. I think it’s interesting that they had homeless veterans in 1945 and that Dart actually crossed out “veteran” and re-wrote “hero.” Sounds like modern times.

He comments that she seems a trifle obsessed about him meeting an Australian girl. He goes to some lengths to assure her that even if such an unlikely thing should happen, he’d be a darned fool to mess up the best thing in his life with the best girl in the world. He’s totally in love with the girl from Greenwich.

The plans for the house are nearly ready for her perusal, but he has a few questions about a bath upstairs. Do they need one? Could it be built out at a later date, if needed?

He bemoans another Easter coming when they won’t be together, but he expresses great hope that someday, they’ll celebrate all the holidays of their lives together. He ends with “I love you only, always.”

Dot’s full of news about her new business. She and El have received about 15 calls as a result of their newspaper ad. Tonight she’s sitting for a new customer and Sunday, she and El will be serving a dinner party at the home of Stanford White, a famous architect. When they said in the ad “assist at dinner parties,” they intended it to mean serve and clean up. Instead they’re getting lots of calls to actually cater the events. With typical “can-do” verve, they’ve dived head-first into catering.

She confesses to missing him “like sixty.” It’s been 16 days since she’s heard from him. Of course, she doesn’t blame him. She only wants him to know how much she misses him. Next to him being there, his letters are the best boost to her disposition.

Although she hasn’t written to him very often due to a lack of things to write about, she did write to his family right after her trip to Ohio. She still hasn’t heard from them. She asks that when he writes to them he remind his parents that they owe her a letter. She jokes that she’ll not stand for this kind of abuse much longer.

Having finished reading “The Razor’s Edge,” she’s moved on to “Jane Eyre,” which she says she should have read ages ago when she thought she had it rough at Andrews School.

She recalls that 17 weeks ago tonight, they were enjoying a delicious spaghetti dinner together in Cleveland during Dart’s whirlwind leave. Now, as she wraps up the letter in preparation for her client to come home, she wishes that he were with her now and that they could hold hands as he walked her up the stairs.

Spot and Arrow

A great love story