Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, July 30, 1945

I didn’t receive any mail from you yesterday or the day before so am looking forward to having some luck tonite. If I don’t get some tonite chances are that I won’t receive any for two or three more days as I guess we are definitely moving tomorrow afternoon. After all our planing and dickering around regarding our next move it looks as though we are now moving the whole distance of about six miles to a little town by the name of Hallein. There is still some talk however that a portion of our company will move to Vienna to support portions of the 222d that are going there. I would like to have a chance at going there just to see the city and surrounding country. Battalion Hqs and Company “B” are moving down about 45 miles to the Zell Am See and Co “C” is moving back west again I guess. Div Rear will remain in Salzburg with a possibility of Div Forward going to Bad Gastein. Any way we will be pretty well spread out and far enough from Bn to get away from a lot of petty details and “chicken”. I havn’t seen our billet in Hallein but the boys who have say they aren’t too bad. Personally I don’t care as long as I have a good bed in a warm dry place. Thats about all one can expect over here. I don’t know whether I have written this before but all these beds over here look like they are built for midgets. Practically all of them are very short in fact many of them even I cant straighten out in. They sure as hell weren’t built for any six-footers.

Cap’t Martin return from his trip to England today. Said he really had a swell time and enjoyed the trip a lot. He had been there for a while before coming to France so isn’t exactly a stranger there. I havn’t heard from Insull or the other boys since they left, probably too busy seeing the sights to drop a line.

I worked with Bob all day today posting circulars since I didn’t have any thing else to do. I would prefer to have some thing to do most of the time since the time passes so much faster. I like the present set up as if a scenic town or any thing similar comes up I can take off and leave without getting some one to replace me.

Well I suppose by this time you are all prettied up with your new permanent. I sure wish I could view you in person honey, then I could tell you whether I like it. Ha! As if I wouldn't!

Honey, I am inclosing a picture of our Red Cross GI’s club in Salzburg taken from the Stars & Stripes. It really is a beautiful place, however I think I wrote you that about three days back when writing at the club. One consolation in staying at Hallein, it is only about twelve miles from Salzburg so we can manage to get in for some good entertainment. I understand they have some good shows scheduled to appear there including the music festival in August.

Well darling its time for chow so guess I better close and get in line.