Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, August 13, 1945

Well darling as things stand now, I am to leave for England tomorrow night. I am to be at Div Hq’s in Salzburg tomorrow evening at 7:30. I understand we ride a truck from there to Munich a part of the trip I do not relish. At Munich I think we take a train and ride it into Paris. Most of the trains over here are a pile of junk in comparison to the coaches we have in the states. Also the boys say they crowd them so there is hardly room to even sleep on the floor. The trip to and from the destination in the thing which has kept me from getting to enthused about taking furlough over here.

The boys in the Infantry have a new job now. They are guarding prisoners who are cutting wood for the division for fuel this winter. We were wondering if we would have to cut our own so guess we will be taken care of. This prisoners are to cut 85,000 cords which they claim if stacked four feet high and four feet long it would reach for a distance of 120 miles. They figure we will use half that amount but if the winter is worse than usual they will have a reserve to fall back on.

I picked up several good pictures of Hallein today which I will send a few at a time.   The two I am inclosing are especially good of the building in which we are now located. The other is the picture of the grave and home of the composer of “Holy Night, Silent Night.” Austria has been in the past probably the musical center of the world. I guess all that was stopped when Hitler invaded here. The “Music Festival” opened in Salzburg today for the first time since Hitler invaded. They have always had world famous conductors including Toscaninni (?), anyway it was rated the greatest musical concert in Europe.

Insull, Keese, Jessen and I were all over this town this afternoon trying to find a shower unit but to no avail. Tomorrow I am going to have a shower if I have to hitch a ride to Grodig. It seems we have a shortage of gas right now however I know some of the vehicles are used for less important things. I wouldn’t care except I want to be half way clean when I start on my trip. Lord knows when I may get another. Miller left tonight to fly to Paris for a three day pass so i told him I would meet him there Thursday morning at 10:00. We are to meet at Rainbow Corner which is a section of the Red Cross Club so the boys say.

We had some excitement here in town tonight while we were eating supper. It seems one of the Infantries gas stoves exploded in a large frame building and of course the thing burned to the ground. They had   quite a time with the fire fighting apparatus in that they couldn’t get the motor started on one of the trucks. I guess the battery was down. It finally wound up that the G.I.’s did most of the fighting. I think almost every inhabitant of the city was there to see the excitement.

Our radio went bad last night so we don’t know wether Japan is out of the war yet or not. According to today’s Stars & Stripes they expected the answer from Japan in 17 to 24 hrs. I think without much doubt they will sign as I dont believe they want any atomic bombs dropped in Tokyo.

Well darling, think I better close for tonite and go to bed. It is now 10:30 and I have plenty of things to do before leaving tomorrow.