Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, August 1, 1945

Well honey, here it is the first day of August, and God how I am hoping we don’t see the 1st of many more months over here. The time seems to drag so much now that we aren’t moving so often and it will probably be worse than ever if we are to be here most of the winter.

We didn’t receive any mail again today which makes the fifth day since my hearing from you. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to tomorrow.

Some of the boys, mainly Max Musenblatt, found a nice place here which we are going to use for an enlisted men’s club. They plan on getting beer and wine to serve over the bar if possible. Max has had a large sign made to hang over the door “Slapsy Maxies” and with a Rainbow in each corner — of course. We also have a nice large room for a day room where we have ping pong tables and card tables. There is also one alley with pins similar to our bowling alley except considerably shorter. I understand our kitchen is to move tomorrow to larger quarters and where we also have a larger dining room. We were told not to bring our mess gear as we will eat off plates. Can you imagine that?

The weather here is still very cold and gloomy with rain falling occasionally. Last night I slept under two wool blankets and got cold even then. Early this morning I found another blanket and was then just comfortable. It seems rather odd to be sleeping under three blankets here in August.

I went down to a barber shop for a haircut today and believe it or not a lady cut it. She spoke some English so I asked her how long she had been a barber and she stated 8 years. Said when all the men went to war, Hitler made them learn the business. She said before the war she had worked in a beauty shop at Salzburg and that in order to work there they had to speak some English because of the tourist trade. Surprisingly, she did a fairly good job in cutting too but not as good as the average man barber.

Well darling, Im all out of news for today so will close—