Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, September 16, 1945

Gee honey, I hit the jackpot last night receiving five letters from you. The latest was Sept. 11th and that is the best service I have yet had. Four days from Omaha to way down here in Austria sounds almost unbelievable doesn’t it. Our ambulance usually returns with the mail around ten or 10:15 P.M. and of course we are always waiting for it. Last night they didn’t return until almost twelve as when coming back they found a wrecked jeep so had to turn around and take the soldier back to Clearing Co.

Well honey I heard a good rumor last night, at least it came from a pretty good source. Lt. Zander was here from Frankfurt and he told me had recently talked with Col. Turner our finance officer from Division Hq’s. He said Col. Turner stated the 42d would probably ship for the states sometime in February. That is still a hell of a long time to wait around here but it wouldn’t seem quite so bad if we could definitely plan on such a date then perhaps we may get a better break some how in the meantime.

We had to set our watches back one hour at 1:00 AM this morning so as to standardize the time in all of Western Europe. We now have the same time as Britain as previously they were one hour behind us. Our C.Q. forgot to change his watch so awakened us one hour early for breakfast. Most of the fellows went back to sleep but I felt I had enough so got up, went over to the kitchen and thru the bull   with the cooks and then had early chow. We had pancakes and oatmeal. After breakfast I hadn’t much to do so got Zelnick, our podiatrist, to remove an ingrown toenail from my big toe and a corn from my little toe. He really does good work, doesn’t freeze it or anything and yet there is practically no pain whatever.

Honey I had forgotten my anniversary day in the Rainbow but as you mentioned, I would now forget that day a year ago when we arrived at Gruber. I too hope that long before another anniversary we will be back in good old Lincoln.

I had another chance to fly to the Riviera again today for a week but decided to decline again in favor of the Switzerland trip. The boys who have been to Switzerland say it is marvelous. I was glad my letter from Glasgow came thru in such good time, apparently it beat my letter I had written earlier from Etretat, France. Pete was furloughing at Bath at the time I was in London and in his letter he told me exactly how I could contract him by phone from London. Its too bad his letter had to arrive after I had left because I would surely liked to have talked with him if only by phone. Honey I have been trying to locate something suitable to send your dad but so far have been unable to do so. For one thing I would like to get him one of these long stemmed pipes the Austrians smoke but cant locate any here in Hallein. I think he would get a kick out of one of those. Perhaps if we move to another locality I can find something he would like or if by chance I get to go to Switzerland think I can find some thing there.

I was surprised to hear of Earl Olson’s marriage, was she a Council Bluffs girl? It was   nice Don could be home to help Ernie so Earl could leave for a while.

No, we didn’t get to hear the formal surrender of Japan. Our German radio has a tube burned out and we have been unable to locate one. We sure do miss it too and especially now because there is a radio station operating in Salzburg. Many of the boys operating it are from our division.

So you finally got to hear a sermon by Rev. Perkins. I wonder if he is still one of the bottle pool champions at the Elks Club. You mentioned the Cpl there with the A on his shoulder, it was probably either 1st, 3rd, or 9th Army patch. The 1st is a big block A on an olive drab background, the 3rd is a white A on a round blue patch with a red border and the 9th is a with A on a bright red background.

I am inclosing another group of pictures I took on the trip and also the one I took of the wedding coach here in Hallein that I wrote you about a couple of days back.

Well darling think I better close for today as this is getting quite lengthy. Bye for now —