Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, November 9, 1945

Well darling, I thot I would be on my way by now but it seems some thing went wrong. I was supposed to leave on Nov 8th but for some reason our shipment was postponed. We were to ship on the S/S Barbara Freitche, it is a freighter and only 25 of us were to ride it. According to the bulletin board the ship was scheduled again for today but we rec’d no information so apparently it is still in port. I am the only medic in the group and all mechanics are listed separately so think they will probably have me working sick bay on the ship. Freighters are slower than many other ships but the extra conveniences offset the couple extra [?]for the trip.

The weather here is getting pretty cold and the wind has been blowing pretty hard the past two days. We have a little old stove about 10 inches in diameter and 2 feet high which we keep red hot most of the time. These tents are hard to heat with a high wind blowing, even tho winterized, they do a lot of flapping.

I havn’t had any thing of interest happen recently and havn’t been out of camp so my only entertainment is reading and the show. I just finished reading “Another Claudia” and “The Green Years” and am now started on the novel you sent me. So far it is very interesting. Three of us went to the show tonite and saw “Duffy’s Tavern” and last night we saw “Thats The Spirit.” They were both silly but I enjoyed them as neither were war pictures.

Well honey, thats about all the news but hope to see you in a couple or possibly three weeks. It wouldn’t seem quite so bad waiting here if I could receive letters from you. Gee how I miss them.