Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, February 22, 1945

I didn’t get a chance to write you last night or rather I was so tired that I slept through from shortly after chow until I went on C.Q. Consequently decided to drop you a line this morning. We had no mail call yesterday so of course I am looking forward to receiving a couple of letters today I hope.

Suppose you are holidaying today being Washington’s Birthday or maybe you are busy packing in preparation for departing. Have been wondering if Mr. A was lucky enough to find a local girl. I hope so as he certainly deserves a few good breaks for his kindness.

I am still wondering if you have received any of my air mail letters. If not there are between fifty and sixty on the way. I think I shall continue to use V-mail until I hear that you are receiving the air mails. Perhaps that will give you some news until the others begin to arrive.

I read several newspapers clippings about the outfit that some of the boys have been receiving. Some of them were from Muskogee papers and had quite lengthy write-ups. One was a very interesting article taken from the Chicago Tribune.

Went out yesterday afternoon and looked over this little community we are now located in. It sits up high on top of the mountains and you can get a beautiful view from the rear window of the building we are quartered in as you can look far down in valley which is covered with small gardens and green vegetation. We found a couple of spots where we can buy beer and one is only a few doors from us. The beer is better than Southern France but still a little more flat than that in good old U.S.A. Plenty of salt seems to help the taste considerably. When serving they use a hand pump on real thick old wooden keys with an ordinary turn faucet. It is quite similar to the equipment we used for keg beer at picnics. Most of the people wear the wooden shoes with some sort of knit or felt house slipper. When they enter a building they slip off the wood shoes and walk in the others. Most of the farmers still use oxen instead of horses however I have seen a few beautiful Percheron horses at some of the more wealthy districts.

There has been very little damage to the buildings here but I have seen several small communities with hardly a building left standing.

Practically every large bridge either highway or railroad has been destroyed and temporarily rebuilt by our engineers. Many were destroyed by our equipment to halt the retreating Germans. I have also seen scores of railroad locomotion and box cars that were bombed and wrecked. The more of this you see the more you get to feeling that war is so unnecessary and costly. The French are still using the old 40 & 8 box cars that we have heard about from World War I. They are surely dinky little things in comparison to our equipment.

I finally received my laundry today, the boys at Personnel picked it up and sent same out to me. It seems good to have all clean clothes again and the French lady did a good job even to pressing my OD’s after washing. They look much better than I expected as they were terribly dirty. We have to take them soap with our laundry as they get only four very small bars per month for their usage on rations.

Well darling this is about all my news for today so will close. Will tell you again that I am constantly thinking of you and loving you.