Edited and published at AFS Headquarters, 60 Beaver Street, New York 4, N.Y. under the sponsorship of the ambulanciers' relatives and friends, who contribute the excerpts from the letters.

This issue of AFS LETTERS features the excerpts of letters written by the ambulance drivers from Germany, particularly those parts which deal with the enemy prison camps. Those letters are being featured, not only for the grim horror of what they actually say, but more for their significance as a part of winning and keeping the peace.

The men who wrote these letters volunteered to go to war fronts to evacuate and care for the wounded. Seeing suffering has been their business for many months, and yet they are obviously moved by the sights in the concentration camps.

A great deal has been written about Nazi atrocities by journalists, politicians, authors and others. These accounts are superior in literary structure and more concise as actual reports, but the AFS men in their letters home put their own feelings and reactions on paper spontaneously in their own way. The effect upon them as it registered, is in these letters. They are featured for this reason, as well as for the interest to and understanding of those readers whose AFS men did not write home of these sights and sounds.

They are also being given a prominent place because, from the letters received, it is evident that the importance of having these hideous facts known by those at home was uppermost in the minds of the writers. They do not want the cruel waste found in the aftermath of war forgotten.

J.B.

ALAN ROLAND MARTIN, JR. of Rye, New York, received a slight head wound. A member of AFS "B" Platoon in Burma, he was attached to the famous 11th Cavalry Regiment and was returning to his post, when a Jap shot him as he was passing over a bridge.

April 25, 1945.

"We are in Germany. Unless the French Unit beat us to it we are the first AFS unit to work inside Germany; and we are not just over the border, either.

"Our opinions of the Germans have changed rapidly and greatly in the time we have been here. We entered Germany feeling for the most part as troops in our old theater felt---that the Germans had. some decency, that most atrocity stories were exaggerated or wholly false, that the army at least had a code of honor, even though it applied only to soldiers, that 'saturation bombing' of German cities was as wrong as indiscriminate bombing of English cities. We have learned that we were wrong, and it has been a shock to us. For myself, a ruined German city, and they really are ruined here, inspires only regret that one brick was left standing upon another.

"There were a number of large German concentration camps near here. We have seen many of the persons liberated by the British from these camps. You remember I used to put quotes around the word liberated. It was something of a joke before, we used to speak of 'liberating' a fat chicken or a dozen eggs. It is not a joke any more.

"We have seen truckload after truckload of freed Belgian, Dutch and French prisoners go by on the road. The strongest of them wave weakly or smile at us. I am sure that some of them will die from the exertions they made to show their joy. We threw what cigarettes could get to them, without regret, though we have no prospect of getting American cigarettes for a good while.

"One truck stopped by our laager; it was the sick truck, carrying men who had not even the reserve of nervous energy to stand or sit in a truck. The first food they had been given had caused diarrhea, and the men had to be carried to the roadside. They smelled, not from filth or diarrhea, but from the smell of death. Prisoners had died at such a rate that they could not he buried, and those who lived had to lie among the rotting bodies. The orderly, whose position had led the Germans to feed him enough to keep him on his feet and somewhat alert mentally, said that two thousand prisoners died in his camp every day during the last few months. The normal food ration was one meal every ten days.

"That evening we talked to an officer from a nearby hospital. He said that the survivors from one camp had little chance for recovery. They were using all their spare transfusion equipment to feed them intravenously, since they could not be fed by mouth. Some of them had their back-bones showing through the skin of their bellies. No one had realized how badly off so many would be, and equipment was short in any case.

"These were all political prisoners, yesterday we saw military prisoners in as bad shape. There were several Americans among them, one of whom after four months had shriveled to little but a skeleton and was incapable of moving or speaking. He had shriveled till he looked like a man of ninety, or an exhumed corpse. Those who were capable of talking spoke of forced marches, nude, in the dead of winter, of being bayonetted by guards, of having vicious dogs loosed upon them, of stragglers being beaten or shot.

"The French prisoners said that convicts were set as guards over them. Brutality paid off in lightened sentences. The scum of Germany's underworld competed in cruelty. What unrecorded atrocities were committed we shall never know.

"It probably is not wise to believe everything these people say. They were prisoners and had no access to whatever records were kept. They were hardly dispassionate observers, and, just by talking with them, you could tell their minds had been dulled by starvation and hardships. They had time to turn over in their minds what they saw and went through. They had an incentive to make plays for sympathy in talking with us. Their words alone are of little value as evidence, but words are unnecessary, their scars, their prematurely whitened hair, their anemic faces, their pitiful attempts to think and speak, their bones almost bursting from the taut, semi-transparent skin tell more vividly than words, what they went through.

"It is important, in the making of the peace, to realize that it was civilians, not soldiers, who were responsible for most of these atrocities. It was civilians, not soldiers, who attacked the columns of prisoners with pitchforks and stones. The record of the German Army, where we used to be, was about as good as could be expected under the military situation existing. It is civilians, too, who must be held responsible for many of the things the Germans have done.

"As for the civilians in occupied Germany, it's hard to know how to treat them without falling a prey to ideas akin to those we aim to destroy; I cannot pity them. They are healthier and better dressed than any other civilians I have seen. I cannot hate them all, though that would be the easiest course, for they know little of what their government did. I can not despise them, they do not whine and beg, but keep aloof and to themselves. It is best, I think, to forgo all human emotions in dealing with them, to consider them all potential but unproven enemies, some are friendly to you, some are harmless, certainly some are dangerous, how can the individual soldier tell which is which.

"One of our spare drivers was fired at twice yesterday. He was wearing no Red Cross arm band, and was wandering on the outskirts of town on no particular business. He was sticking his neck out and should not have been surprised. No harm done, and we have all learned a useful lesson.

"The telephone wire from platoon HQ to the CCS to which we are attached was cut yesterday at noon with some hatchet-like instrument.

"We have heard that a water-truck attached to a hospital here was poisoned. This has not been officially confirmed, but it has put us on guard with respect to our water-supply.

"Most of the really dangerous civilians have been removed, or have left with the German Army; some are bound to have been left behind. We cannot put the entire nation in concentration camps; most of those left are docile and glad to be out of the war. If reasonable precautions are taken, there should be no great danger involved, certainly no more than is to be expected in forward work. We have been warned, and are on our guard.

"P.S. The water-truck rumor has been exploded."

April 18, 1945.

"Whether in rear or combat zones, the AFS does one swell, efficient job.

"I do wish I could tell you what is going on, I can't. It is remarkable, a strange side of the war. I keep wondering what, if anything, it will teach these Germans. In the German places I have seen there are very few people, mostly women, young boys and very old men. Where did they all go? Believe me, they will find a mess when they get back. I have spoken to several ---the French army has its own policy about 'fraternizing'. The French treat the people all right as far as I can see. Naturally, anything from animals on up (chickens, rabbits, pigs, sheep) can be taken for use of our people without asking ---machines, wine, liquor---do anything you feel like seems to be the rule of war. These Germans still left here don't need anyone to even show them a gun or a revolver. When the French begin asking in broken German for anything, the natives hurry to give it or to go get it, if they don't have it. We got a lot of paper marks --- nobody knows if they are worth anything. I thought it would be nice to buy some chickens for us to eat instead of just going into any peasant's house and catching the chicken or duck, or saying 'bringen sie mir em'. Believe it or not, the Germans didn't want to take marks --they were afraid they might get punished. 12 years of Hitler plus losing the war, plus their natural temperament have certainly got them cowed and beaten down.

"It is something to drive through a place then come back there a half hour later and see the whole village burning. Nobody knows how. I know a couple of fires that started accidentally because I was right in the building when it happened. However, there are others you can't explain. We argue among ourselves: Could it be on purpose by our friends, for revenge; perhaps, but I doubt it, because I saw one particular village get on fire just one mile from here at 2 P.M. I walked over because you know what a kick I get out of fires ---there was not one Allied soldier in that village because I drove through there in the car twice today, once only about 15 minutes before the fire began and I saw, when I got there, two German civilians, men about 55 or 60, standing in the road and pointing at the burning houses. These men were only about 150 yards from me, but when they saw me coming they walked off quickly through some fields --- they didn't run but they could see that I was alone and that I had no rifle or helmet on, so why did they go? I think they, or some other German civilians set the village on fire (there was not one soul in it) on purpose so that afterwards for propaganda reasons they can accuse the French of burning places. It is a hell of a thing. You see, there has been no fighting here for over 10 days ---so it would be good propaganda for the Germans --you know, wanton and unnecessary destruction. On the other hand, you have heard how the Germans feared most of all that the Russians would come into their country and that therefore they would prefer to surrender to the Western Allies. Well, the Germans were damn fools in that matter, because no country could be worse messed up by anyone (Russians or Japs) than I have seen around here. Trouble is, the ones who ought to have seen it with their own eyes, all went away --- the real Nazis I mean;--- when they get back, if they ever do, they will see the wreckage, but they won't have seen it happen so I fear they won't learn any lesson.

"Boy, it is something to see the French prisoners of war coming back. They come in trucks and buses, many on bicycles by 3s and 5s, lots and lots of them on foot pulling little hand-carts or baby carriages or invalid chairs loaded with their suitcases, knapsacks and various stuff they have gathered en route --- walking, walking, dusty and in odds and ends of uniforms, but singing and drunk and stopping in each place to make a big fuss about the French soldiers going out to the front; shaking hands and laughing, extra big fuss about us Americans because, except for AFS, there are practically no Americans at all in this part of Germany, it being exclusively invaded by the French. So 'Vive l'Amérique' ---and all that. I talked to many of the released prisoners in the cafes and saloons in Belfort, where I was previously and it was interesting. But they were home already, whereas these men are on their way, haven't gotten there yet, but can, so to speak, smell France up ahead, visualize it just over the hill, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. God knows how far they have come, not really far in miles, but to be walking or riding broken-down bicycles with flat tires or sometimes no tires! They say a lot of them ran out into the hills and woods just before the Germans left or they would have been compelled to go with them, so probably they haven't had much food lately. But they don't seem to mind at all, so happy at being free and able to return to France, their wives, girls, and families after all these years.

May 1, 1945.

"Tonight I write from Germany. Things are rather confused and I've been trying to straighten them a bit --- with not too much success, as yet.

"I'm utterly depressed. I don't think I've ever been so low and confused --- and a bit terrified. Today I went through a concentration camp that has just recently fallen into Allied hands. They tell me it is considerably improved --- that things have been tidied up by our medical people who are struggling to save a few of the thousands still living.

"Already well over 16,000 have been buried; mostly Polish Jews, I think. The German (SS troops) evidently burned the dead when they were in control. Our people have dug huge mass graves ----and in the center of the mounds covering them are small signs: 'Graves --- Approx.. 5,000' --- or 'Approx. 2,000'. From one spot I could see graves holding over 16,000 people.

"It's too incredible and horrible to believe really ---unless one sees it Pictures don't really convey the terror of it, for you don't get the smell or the color. One grave, into which they put 360 bodies yesterday, was still uncovered. It had, I imagine, something like 500. They're not really bodies, but rather skeletons, for these people all seem to have been starved to death.

"The living are little better than skeletons. Very few of them relatively shall live. We went through the huts in which these victims of proud German Nationalism were forced to live. Most of the dead had been taken away ---- but the living! They were soon to die, and they knew it. They were jammed into stinking huts ---shrivelled up, spindly skeletons. The English padre who showed us about said that Wehrmacht troops were shown one or two of those huts into which from 600 to 800 people were crammed ---and that after seeing and smelling the indescribable horror, the troops and officers tore off their rank and decorations and were practically in tears.

"The camp was 'administered' by SS troops ---the 'Elite" and evidently there is considerable difference between the Nazi chosen and the regular army troops. I feel sick and shaky now trying to tell you of it. There might have been 50 huts ---narrow wooden structures with a hall going down the middle of some of them -- others just bare of any rooms. I can't see how, under ordinary conditions, more than 100 people could be accommodated But we saw one woman's hut that had had 500 taken out and was still jammed so that it was difficult to walk through it without stepping on somebody. Of courses when people lose most of their flesh they take up less space.

"The danger of typhus is extreme. We had to be dusted with powder before we were allowed to enter. There has been much cleaning up in this respect, but I can't see how under the conditions, any of those people could have escaped infection. They all have very bad dysentery of course; and horrible malnutrition. Those that have been transferred to hospital buildings are fed principally milk and water --- very little solids---soup. About 600 a day are taken from this camp (it is called #1 camp) and are brought to a building where each one is stripped and thoroughly scrubbed---and, if they are very bad, shaved. They are put into a barracks which formerly the SS used. But there is so little that can be done. Many medical personnel have been moved in but, considering the thousands of people all needing attention, they are still terribly shorthanded.

"It's terribly grim. Last night we looked around the headquarters of the SS troops --- a beautifully equipped and built place. Huge ballroom and sumptuous mess rooms, large wine cellars. The elaborately tiled lavatories even had vomitoriums, something I've never seen before, polished bowls with handles on each side which one could grip to steady oneself.

"To come from this sumptuous establishment into the barbed-wire enclosure! What a contrast! There were no apparent sanitary arrangements at all. The British have put up regular military latrines, but the people squat anywhere. The women's barracks were by far the worst. The men had triple wooden bunks --- the women slept on rotting, slimy floors. I was terribly frightened by it. These people are so weak --- many of them can hardly walk and yet I wouldn't have gone into one of those huts alone for anything. Both the padre and one of the medical colonels told me that cannibalism was quite common. There was not flesh to eat, of course, but hearts, and liver, and kidneys.

"This is all so confusing, isn't it? I'm not painting a very clear picture, it isn't really clear in my mind yet, and also, it is in the literal sense of the word, 'indescribable.' I have never seen such filth, such degradation --- people living on with only a thin layer of skin covering their bones. They seem dazed, they hardly speak. Nobody asked for cigarettes or chocolate! Just a breathing, sometimes moaning silence --- all clogged up with the most disgusting smell! Hollow, dazed faces, eyes that stared but didn't really see. Oh yes, there were those who appeared relatively healthy, but they had come to the camp recently. I talked briefly with one old lady. I say 'old', her hair was white, it wasn't 6 weeks ago. She had so much courage. She had been in other concentration camps, but they 'were better.'

"When the British troops first came in, there were thousands of dead just lying about. SS troops, I am told, were made to bury them. Now the SS troops have been taken away to POW camps --- and German civilians and Wehrmacht troops are working. There aren't many dead not in the burial pits, those that lie outside the huts on the muddy ground have just died.

"O hell, it's impossible to continue. 'Life' and 'Time' etc. have photographed the place; you'll probably get a better description from those sources. You won't get the smell. If you would I'd appreciate your sending this on to Mother. I shan't even try to write another letter attempting to describe this place."

They have lilacs and every kind of flower in their hats and in the muzzles of their rifles, yes, all over their trucks and machine-guns and tanks and all the mess of mechanized equipment ---wreaths of flowers around the necks of their army mules and bright ribbons tied to their tails; and I watched mules crossing a pontoon bridge and balking and refusing to go on --- and such a cursing and giving of orders and suggestions (and jokes and wisecracks) by sergeants --- and then a mule would get panicky and jump off the bridge into one of the pontoon moats and 'hoop-la' six or seven mules imitated him in a panic and there they were, all in a mess, some in the boats, and French soldiers in the damndest comical mess you can imagine unloading the stuff off the mules' backs and trying to heave and pull them back onto the bridge. Mules in every angle, braying and hee-hawing, and often the soldiers would wade in up to their armpits and sort of swim the mules to shore, with meanwhile traffic piling up blocked in both directions in long rows; and the bridge engineers furious because it was preventing them from finishing their bridge. They should have known better than to try to use it before it was ready, but you know the French ---dear me, what a scene."

May 13, 1945.

"Nine of us have been doing more than driving. Two or three cars a day are being used to take the patients in Belsen from their barracks to a mobile laundry where they are cleaned up. Then the 'clean' ambulance takes them to new barracks. The fellows who drive don't exactly have a decent or an easy job. Yesterday D. carried 107 stretcher cases. But the worst job of all is done by the fellows on the days when they aren't driving. They go in the huts and lift the very sick and dirty women and children from their bunks, strip them, powder them with A.L. 63 and put them on stretchers preparatory to being taken away in ambulances to the baths. They literally are working in s--- part of the time; there are no latrines in the camp and many of the patients had bad diarrhoea or dysentery. The strongest of stomachs have a tough time on this job.

"None of the fellows are required to do this extra duty in the barracks, but they have all pitched in, and have been doing it steadily for almost two weeks. Today when I visited Belsen the colonel of the LFA spoke of them in the highest terms, and repeated his praises several times. The section has done a wonderful job for Anglo-American relations, too."

May 2, 1945.

".............Germany is, without doubt, the most unpleasant country I have over been in, bar none! I must say that I never expected to be able to say that again after where I was last fall. Here it is the 2nd of May and the thermometer is hovering around 40-43 degrees and two nights ago it snowed hard. Bleak, dismal country. I certainly never thought I'd get here, and now that I'm here I want to get out of it just as fast as I possibly can. Anyway, the way the war news is going now, we might not be here so very long after all. It can't be over too soon for me. Of course you can't really picture living in the heart of the enemy country until you have to do so; but I can assure you that it is unpleasant in the extreme. In all the other countries I've been, the people seemed glad to see us; they would smile and wave and were more than friendly. Those were our Allies. These people are our enemies, every one of them, and you cannot forget it for a minute. Never do you get a warm smile or even a greeting; you are met with blank faces or downright surliness, with scowls wherever you may go. So far we have not been armed, although all troops crossing the Rhine are supposed to be equipped with firearms. In our case I guess there would be more casualties if we were issued guns and arms than it we were allowed to continue to take our chances with the Jerries, for both of you know what an utterly undisciplined outfit we are, completely untrained in the use of firearms. Nevertheless, it is distinctly an unpleasant feeling to go walking down the street and know that almost every person you meet would be only too happy to run a knife in your back if he thought he could get away with it.

"The order against fraternization is strictly enforced, but there are precious few on either side that want to fraternize in the slightest way. I do not believe I have said a half a dozen words to any civilian since I have been in this God forsaken country and I hope I don't have to say a half a dozen more. But the complete silence does rather get on one's nerves. All the troops must be kept indoors after dark, and there is good reason for the order as you can well imagine! In fact no one has the slightest desire to go out into the night unless absolutely necessary, which is not strange. To go anywhere alone is far from safe; as a matter of fact we have already had one guy shot at although he was missed, fortunately. He was walking unarmed with two RAF personnel out in the outskirts of town when two shots were fired at him. He claims they could all three hear the whistle of the bullets. They whirled around but could see no one. It was damn foolish for them to be where there were no other troops about and in a way they were asking for trouble. It was quite amazing, though, when he came back and told his story to see the way Red Cross bands suddenly began to blossom all over the platoon! I am wearing mine for the first time in 18 months and am damn glad to have it on. In many ways I feel safer with an arm-band than I do with a gun, though I confess I don't behave that the German guerillas will make much distinction between the Red Cross and any other unarmed soldier. Enough of that, however.

"I suppose you have all been reading accounts of the conditions found in the captured concentration and prison camps here in Germany. I presume there have been pictures as well, and I suppose that there still are many people who are trying to 'debunk' such stories, to label them as false or as gross exaggerations. I should like to say right now that people such as they are either stupid, crazy, or most likely just plain ignorant.

"The conditions in those camps are too horrible for exaggeration to be possible. I have not as yet seen the inside of one of them. At present, I have not the slightest desire to, for, what is more important than actually seeing the camps, I have seen and talked to and carried in my ambulance many of the poor devils who are the living, barely living, example of what horrors those camps were. Never will I forget, never can I forget some of the sights I have seen, and never can I forgive the Germans, all of them, for allowing such things to happen and for the perpetration of the crimes they have committed against all the people of Europe but especially against my own countrymen.

"We first saw some of the poor devils about a week or so ago when we were parked in a field beside the highway. A long convoy of about 50 trucks began to pass on the road and we wandered over to watch them pass. We soon saw that there was something unusual about the convoy, for every truck was flying a huge French, Belgian, or Dutch flag, some of them obviously made from scraps of cloth by hand. The trucks were crammed with men and a few women, all dressed in utter rags or in filthy, dirty suits that looked like striped pajamas. The convoy stopped and many of the people crawled out to talk to us. They were of almost every nationality in Europe and in the most shocking condition imaginable.

"Now I know how to define emaciated, for they were as thin as rails with great big heads and hands and feet and with every bone in their body showing through their skin. Their heads were either shaved or had long, tangled locks of hair falling down the backs of their necks, completely unkempt. They were almost as white as this paper, and had hoarse, croaking, voices that were pitiful to hear. They were from the notorious concentration camp at Belsen, the one that was written up so extensively in the English papers, and I presume the American ones, too.

"It was at this camp that the huge piles of unburied dead were first found, and it was here that the town's people were forced to inspect the horror that their own countrymen had wrought, and then made to don their Sunday clothes and dig graves and clean out the camp. The drivers of the trucks were British and so incensed at the condition of the camps that they could hardly talk. They too had all seen the piles of dead bodies hanging from hooks and endless examples of senseless, wanton brutality, the like of which is hard to imagine. The prisoners were all political and had been placed there for daring to speak out against National Socialism. Some had been there since 1939 and '40 and still others for only a few months, and yet they all told of being forced to do hard labor for twelve hours a day and having to exist year in and year out on clear soup and black bread with occasional rotten potatoes and turnips. Only a fraction of the original number had lived to see the light of liberation. They were being transported by truck to a big camp on the outskirts of town where they would be outfitted with new clothes, deloused (they were fairly crawling with bugs) given proper food and medical care if possible. Every one of them was suffering from terrible malnutrition and dysentery, with the result that they could keep no food inside them. It would just run right through.

"As we were talking there were German civilians constantly walking by right beside the convoy. Upon them the ex-internees heaped all the insults and abuse that they could think of and that had been building up inside them for years on end. Don't tell me those Jerries didn't know what the score was; of course they knew damn well who those people in the trucks were and where they were from, but did they show the slightest compassion or pity? Hell, no! They merely tried to look indifferent and proceeded on their way. These were just animals from the concentration camp at Belsen and didn't matter! Then the convoy moved off. That night many of the stronger persons left the camp, which was naturally unguarded, and proceeded to terrorize the town of S---- most thoroughly and completely and in my opinion justifiably. They walked into the people's houses and after reducing the owners to abject, quivering terror would loot to their heart's content and proceed on to the next. The M.P.s, who theoretically should have stopped it made no attempt to do much of anything about it and in many cases stood around and idly watched. About 4 a.m. we were all awakened by the hysterical screaming of a terrified German lady who wandered into our camp looking for help and to escape from the mad mobs of freedom happy people. She kept crying out, 'Alles kaput, alles kaput!' (All is finished, gone, ended or what have you). Apparently, her husband had been killed, her daughter had been 'had', her house burned, and everything stolen all in this one night! Maybe she thought that being ambulance drivers we were all Red Cross people and would do something for her. (Where have I heard that line before?) but although she went from car to car and woke up almost everyone in camp, she accomplished 'nichts' and no one so much as got out of bed. No, there is very little sympathy for the Germans left among us. All terrible, yes, but there is more to come.

"Next day we moved and started to carry patients from a hospital to a nearby airstrip from where they were flown back to big base hospitals quite a way away. Almost all the patients at this hospital were men from other concentration and prison camps. Many or most of them had ridden there in trucks, because there just were nowhere near enough ambulances to cope with the thousands of cases that had to be shipped out of these camps every day. Every man among them should have ridden in an ambulance if it had been possible but it just wasn't. It was at this hospital that we began to see our first ex-POWs, both British and American, and if you can believe it their condition in many cases was far worse than that of the fellows from the concentration camps. The worst cases and the one which shocked the British personnel the most and which made most or rather all of us see red, was that of an American flyer from St. Louis who had been a prisoner for only five months. He was in the 'malnutrition ward', rather a joke, for every man in the hospital was suffering from malnutrition in the extreme, but in this particular ward were placed the very worst of the worst cases and this poor guy was the worst among them. Before we were allowed in, the British sister warned us not to be too upset by what we were about to see and try not to show our emotions if we could help it. We went in and walked past several British and a few other Americans until we came to the end bed. There, lying propped up on the pillows with a figure so slight that you could barely see it under the sheets, lay what was left of a man. A living skeleton, no more.

The skin was drawn so tightly over his skull that his teeth showed through his cheeks, his eyes were great sunken saucers, his lips, drawn apart in a perpetual, ghastly grin, were so tight that he could hardly utter a sound. His arms, legs, torso --- just skin and bones. His hair snow white, had almost all fallen out. He was 26; he looked no less than 100. How he could be living at all was a mystery to all concerned and a testimonial to the wonderful fight that nature can put up when called upon for the very last ounce of strength and resistance. His eyes were rolled up, oh God, it's too awful to say any more. We spoke to him over and over again, calling his name and just saying, 'X----, X-----, we are Americans, we're Yanks.' Finally there was just a flicker of his eyes and very, very slowly he turned his head toward us with those awful awful eyes looking right through us. He couldn't smile, he couldn't speak, he just whispered something and it rattled in his throat. Finally by straining our ears we caught it, like a whisper from the other end of a telephone wire, 'Anybody from St. Louis?' We looked around desperately; no, no one among us was from west of Buffalo. 'I'm from Boston', I said hopefully. Again a whispering rattle, 'That's just as good,' and he said no more, but just lay there looking at us; what more could we say, what could we do to help him. We fished nervously in our pockets and found a pack of Chesterfields, 'Do you want a smoke? an American one, a Chesterfield,' I asked him two or three times. Finally a hoarse croak, 'Sure, can you spare it?' Spare it! hell, we gave him all the packs we had ---put them under his pillow. Slowly, oh so very slowly, a hand came out from under the sheets, a wizened, bony, old woman's hand, and grasped the cigarette that I'd lit for him. He drew on it clumsily through his parched and parted lips. After about five minutes, he managed to say, 'Thanks, that was the first one I've had since the day I was taken.' Then he stopped talking entirely and sank back into his semi-coma. A terrible sight to see.

"Then a nurse bustled up, all efficiency, and expertly stuck a needle in his arm and attached to it a rubber hose leading to a bottle of clear white liquid hanging from a rack over the bed, 'That's his lunch,' she said, in reply to our questioning glances 'Sugar, water, and vitamins and things; he can only be fed intravenously for a couple of weeks or so. But he is sure to be all right, we give him plasma several times a day and whole blood when we can. He's much better, already, but you should have seen him when he came in two days ago.' My God, what must he have been like, then. There was no more we could do for him then, but when we looked around the ward we discovered several other Yanks or what was left of them, so we went and talked to them. They could all talk and seemed to want to, although they all had terrible difficulty in keeping their minds focussed on any one thing. They would start off, hot on the trail of one subject, only to falter, stop, and gaze off into the distance seeing nothing, and saying nothing. Then they would suddenly come too with a hurried and anxious, 'What was I saying?'

"We went back to Platoon HQ a very sober and wide-eyed group of men. We called a meeting of all the Platoon, told them the story, and asked for a collection of all the food and foodstuffs we could get, along with reading matter, etc. and inside of five minutes there was a mountain of delicacies on the table in the middle of the room. Someone, an Englishman, once said 'When America gives, she gives with both hands!' That was certainly true in this case, for there were things that guys had been treasuring for months it not years. Fruit cakes, tomato juice, fruit juices, cigarettes by the score ---all American brands, too, and to crown it all, two bottles of Coca Cola and one bottle of beer. Where those last three came from, no one will ever know except the owner, but you may well imagine how much it meant to give them up and how much it meant to the poor guys who received them. We scrounged three huge #10 tins of peaches, pears, and pineapple from the cookhouse, along with five pounds of real coffee and some white granulated sugar. There was candy, chewing gum, razor blades, soap, along with copies of the Saturday Evening Post, Time, Life, The New Yorker, and old newspapers from towns and cities all over the country. We went back burdened down with things in everyone's arms and a huge boxfull to boot. The hospital staff, from the Colonel on down, was completely bowled over when we marched in, this time fifteen strong and the sisters' and orderlies eyes fairly popped when we dumped the load in the corner of the ward. It was like Christmas to the poor guys in the beds when we started handing the stuff out even if I do say so myself; and I think the doctors, sisters were quite surprised and pleased when we told them that it was to be divided up equally between the British and the Americans in the ward. We naturally gave out none of the food, but instead turned it over to the people in charge to be given out just as soon as the men were able to take it. The Doctors went wild when they saw the tinned fruit, fruit juices and so on. As one of the M.O.s said, 'There's nothing could be better for them. We've been praying for something like this!' ' Some of them were able to be given some right away. In other cases, including the man X-----, it would be many days before they could get solid food. Of course fruit is the last thing for anyone suffering from acute dysentery.

"I could go on with that all night. Case after case came in, and case after ease we carried out again. X-----. slowly at first, then rapidly improved until he too was able to be flown back on the first leg of his trip home. And still they come, we see them every day, the pitiful, wizened bodies and skull-like heads, the hoarse voices and the joy of being freed at last. Truck load after truck load, ambulance after ambulance, plane after plane, train after train.

"A concentration camp is a very terrible thing indeed---a blot on the surface of mankind. We have just tonight heard a description of the Belsen camp from several of the guys, our guys, who have just come back from seeing it and all I can say is, now I am willing to believe anything and everything told about the Germans, and about German cruelty. My God Almighty, how can men be so base and beastly? How can one man beat and injure and cripple a helpless human and then leave him to starve to death? And how can hundreds of men do that to thousands upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of souls all in one camp alone? How can an entire nation sit back home and condone such horrors? But most important, how can people back home still sit smugly back and tell us that we must give Germany fair and just terms and be more liberal with her than we were in 1918!"

April 28, 1945.

"Things, as you undoubtedly know, have been going a mile a minute, literally, and keeping track of twenty odd bouncing volunteers is no mean little job ....when you realize that they move ahead every few hours. I see them one day in a certain town, and the next day they are twenty miles away.

"My latest yearning is to work in Germany after the European war... to help straighten out the gigantic misunderstanding that exists between our culture and theirs. Can you imagine, an intelligent architect build---a skyscraper, say the largest and most expensive skyscraper in the world, on a swamp...because the swamp land is less expensive to come by than other more solid land (pardon while I steal from the Bible). Well, a certain wall paper artist with a knack for public speaking did just that with a whole race of people ---it's unbelievable (and unpardonable) that they could have been so gullible and hard-headed as to believe all they were told. And if they didn't believe it, and went blindly ahead, convinced that what they were doing was wrong, it is more unpardonable still. For instance, they were told that when the Americans came, the civilian population would be systematically starved so as to render them incapable of any activity during the occupation. They were also told that the Americans had organized a thing called UNRRA, a rehabilitation program, which would be 100% Jewish! Let me tell you, these people are at rock bottom --granted they deserve to be---but they are at rock bottom the way a cornered rat is: they are fighting mad (passively, of course) and unless we can show them what 'we are as conquerors and not oppressors' we will have another war, a revenge war, on our hands inside of not 20 years, but 8 or 10 or 12 years. I am very happy that I maintain this status of civilian in the International Red Cross. You may recall that I was not brought up to hate people. I certainly do not and it makes my role as conqueror involved. Lots of the boys in my section are carrying a terrific chip on their shoulders; 'Their people are responsible for my leaving college, family, business, etc.' As a result they feel pretty blown up as part of this immense invading force. Sorry, I may be speaking treason but I can't feel that way. I can be firm with the Jerries; if a Jerry asks anything of me, tries to blame me for the trouble in Europe, I'm the first one to slap him down, but I can't be downright mean with someone that has done nothing to me and has no intention of doing so, or appears that way. I also have no time for thousands of Germans that swear that they were anti-Hitler all along and have some eighteen sons and daughters in New York just waiting for them to come to America where they should have been all along, etc. I have lots of time for the German that is proud of his nationality, admits that Hitler did a job for the Germans before the war, and is willing to listen to reason. These are the Germans that are Germany's only hope, and these are probably the only Germans that realized they were lost when Hitler declared war on Russia and the United States.

"It's a very complicated question, one that you at home must consider. For God's sake I hope this peace is made intelligent and that the French and other formerly suppressed peoples won't stoop to the same level that the Germans did when they made the Armistice in 1940."

May 8, 1945.

"We were in a beautiful house in Stuttgart which we helped take. It was the house of an Interior Decorating Magazine editor, We were having tea on the terrace with the family...people that B. (you remember you sent him the package) had known before the war. They were terribly nice to us; never asked for a thing; never asked to be pitied although they had lost four houses from the bombing of Stuttgart. There were a lot of planes flying around, nobody noticed much until one came very low. It didn't look familiar. It was too clumsy and the landing gear was down instead of being retracted like on most of our planes. As it disappeared behind a hill we heard the very precise and terrifying noise of machine guns straffing, and then one explosion as a bomb was released. The plane was a Stukka, a JU something or other. It circled, still very low, came back over us, wobbled a few times, and crashed behind another hill riddled by anti-aircraft fragments. Ten minutes later, the war was over.

"And that's just how it happened here. Some Jerry pilot must have known and decided to have a last go at the French before the end. Actually the war was over when he came over ....the peace had been signed at 0241 hours that morning.

"Naturally none of us can believe it. We are still working just as we were two weeks ago. The work is light...one run a day...but it exists. There is no shooting. The lights are on. Nobody is impressed...we know we won't do front line work against the Germans anymore. It's very hard to realize that now, after two years of ambulances, wounded men and women, blackout, and noise, we are marking time until the day we can pack up our kit and board a ship for America. I'm not so sure I am relieved that the war is over. The job to be done here is so tremendous that I seeing the frenzy that exists in Europe, be content with saying 'I have done my part,...I will go home and forget it and let Europe fend for herself'. In fact, I have no intention of saying that. I am coming home as soon as possible....it may be for several months as we have a very low priority, but it should be comparatively soon. I am coming home. I will stay for perhaps a few months if I am allowed to by my Draft Board. Then I am going to do everything in my power to come back here and help build up what they, the Germans, and we have destroyed. There is far more to be done in Germany than there is in France. The first job in Germany will be the job of getting the confidence and then the cooperation of the people. Right now they are a nation baffled, heartbroken, broken people. They are capable of a great deal and must be shown, by stern, sincere, and fair treatment what channels can best receive those capabilities. I think I can be of use here. I hope the U.S. will let me come back.

"For the past few days there has been considerable confusion in this town. Our mess has been visited, at least once a day, but a Hohenzollern who wants to know more about America, and whom we call 'Junior' much to his delight and the horror of his guardian (he smokes quantities of cigarettes) and this morning, I was begged .....begged to receive His Highness, Konstatin, Prince of Bavaria who wanted a Movement Order to go home. What a screwball war!. . .

May 7, 1945.

"Am thumping this out in the twilight, seated in my beach chair, in our tent, in a sort of forest-like woods, on the first decent day in weeks, i.e. as far as the weather goes. Have just had myself a wunderbar bath and am sipping a bit of hooch; thus your youngest finds himself at peace and happy.

"And now I'm going to tell you about a Nazi concentration camp I've had a thorough look at. Everybody keeps saying that everyone at home must or at least should know what's going on over here. I used to think (and so did our late, great president) that the Germans are not innately inhuman but only sort of temporarily so. But we the living here have begun to wonder. Most of the fictional and non-fictional accounts of what concentration camps are like are fairly accurate except they give no idea of the vastness of the horror. When you hear that thousands of people have died in such and such a place you don't really know they have died unless you have seen them dying, or at least seen the mass graves. To be sure this is one of the worst and the worst part of the worst camp is apt to stick in your mind. But I'll try to be as truthful and objective as possible.

"Disease is the most widespread horror now but before the Allies arrived it was disease and slaughter. I have seen a lot of people die of typhus (all women, incidentally, because I worked only in the women's section) but I've seen only the tiniest fraction of the thousands that have died of it here. Starvation is next and almost impossible to describe; the most of those I carried on stretchers seemed to weigh less than the stretcher. You have seen pictures of people bloated by starvation but most here are beyond that stage: they are skeletons with a bit of skin on them. But the typhus and are only a segment of the horror, although the most and immediate segment just now. Nobody thinks much about the high (probably 90%) T.B. rate because that is a slow disease on the whole. Nobody worries because those things can wait to be worried about. The only thing we can possibly have the time or energy to worry about now are (1) stop the typhus, (2) feed these people.

"Fighting typhus means washing, scrubbing, disinfection, spraying, and burning. That sounds simple until you realized the extent of this mess. When the British arrived they found acres of the dead and near-dead, lying outside and inside the huts, in the streets, everywhere. Someone told me today that fourteen thousand people have died here since we arrived (not long ago), but I don't know. I also don' t know but imagine that the number of people who should be in beds would fill every hospital in New York, and perhaps twice over for all I know. At first everything seemed terribly inefficient and confused here. It still seems confused. But when I at last realized what a huge place this is, the terrific supply troubles, and the filth, and everything else I decided that the British have done a remarkable job.

"Cases of people too weak to push the dead out of their beds or off of them were frequent. So was cannibalism, if you can believe the testimonies of plenty of people. Horror is apt to be exaggerated but we have seen this place and we know that, in your wildest imagination, you can't exaggerate it. You might think that at least the Nazis wouldn't have put children in such a place but they did; I think I've handled more 15-16-17 year old girls than anything else though you can't very well tell the age of the skeleton. Might think they would have had some doctor trying to stop the typhus but the only one you hear of is a lovely lad who used to inject petrol into people's veins to see if they'd burn better. (Actually, near the end, the furnaces couldn't take care of the dead and les Boches resorted to the mass graves.) You might think they'd have been decent about a lot of things, but they weren't, not about anything.

"There are some things that puzzle me. As I've picked up these girls, I've wondered what crime they had committed in Nazi eyes. The obvious answer is that they were Jewish...about the only thing you can imagine. But my impression is that there isn't so high a percentage of Jews here as you would naturally imagine. So then they were members of the underground. But that doesn't explain the children or a lot of other things. The Nazis seem not only fantastically brutal but also strange and erratic in their ways. Another puzzle to me at least, is the fact that the Germans didn't use these people, unlike the slave labor that they worked to death. One answer is that this was the most efficient way to kill them but that doesn't sound like the famed Nazi efficiency. We don't understand a lot of things here.

"The mixture of nationalities is of great interest. Poles, Russians, Hungarians, and Germans seem predominant but it's hard to know for certain. Almost and perhaps every country in Europe is represented and the language difficulties are unending though German is a reliable standard. Yesterday I gave a pack of cigarettes to a man from Salikona (or however the hell you spell it), some candy to a girl from Nice, and had an incoherent chat with a girl from Ruthenia, just to give you a few examples."

May 9, 1945.

"I'm well aware that all this may upset you....your innocent youngest thrown among the diseased and dead. But rest assured that we take elaborate precautions against the contagious diseases. Beyond that everyone builds up a sort of mental wall against the gruesome sights. There are things here which would sound cruel and inhuman under other circumstances. For instance, when you can't take everyone to the hospital that ought to go you have to take the ones that have a chance of living and leave the ones that are going to die anyway. And you can't be kind and sweet and gentle to every patient you handle ---because you wouldn't get much done. All standards of privacy and informality are, of course, gone, in the interest of saving lives. The one thing that prevents life here from being too grim for us is the feeling that we are useful, a feeling we have never felt so strong before and probably never will again.

"Sometimes these people, who have not had an ounce of kindness in years, do not understand it now. They get confused and often think that anyone in authority is out to beat them down. Others break out in sobs and weeping at the slightest kindness. Still others are too torn to react at all.

"Every day promises something different. Some days I've only loaded and driven my ambulance, but almost always something else arises. An important thing is the decontamination center ('human laundry') where the patients are thoroughly washed and powdered with anti-lice powder and whence they go to the hospital. Most of the time we've been concerned with transporting them from their hovels to the human laundry. But yesterday (under a medical student's direction) I helped anaesthetize a patient and today I had to see an epileptic girl through the whole hovel-to-hospital process.

"The S.S. troops of Himmler fame seem to have been the driving force behind this horror. Some say that it wasn't too bad here until about six months ago when Himmler sent a distinguished brute as camp commandant in order to really tighten the noose. But others say that at the beginning of the war 70,000 Poles were sent here; some died, some were transferred, but the rest just sort of disappeared.

"There are thousands of German soldiers and civilians working around the camp. All agree that the place is incredible and say that they knew nothing about it and that it wouldn't have made any difference if they did. Many are lying, of course. But some, I suppose, are not, and for them it is hard because the allied soldiers are not in any mood to believe or be sympathetic with the Germans. You wonder just what kind of a people could have produced and sustained a regime which has committed such crimes as those. It is true that the S.S. were an elite, fanatic group and that they were in charge of this place, but doesn't explain everything.

"The strangest things turn out to be the tear-jerkers. Today I talked with a 12 year old French girl. She had been away from France for four years, she said. From the way her face twitched I suppose she had been either beaten, tortured, or violated. As we talked she found she had forgotten a good bit of her native tongue (having spoken German and Polish for so long) and the discovery wrenched forth a burst of tears. I also wept a little. It was as if the Germans, not content with everything else, had taken her most prized possession, her Frenchness.

"Some of the victims who survived this ordeal to some extent are doing what they can to help the others. My admiration for the French augments as I see more and more of them doing their jobs unselfishly.

"Yesterday was V-E Day and there were mild celebrations. You might think an atmosphere of death would hang over this place but actually it's not bad, i.e. outside of the horror camps, partly because everyone wants to forget about it as soon as they're finished with their work, partly because, the rest of the camp, (S.S. barracks etc.) is quite handsome. I don't really feel as if it's over .....so much to do and the other war, of course. Incidentally, there's no use speculating on what's going to happen because we know nothing as yet.

"Have been reading TIME's account of the President's death. Must say I was extremely touched and even worked up over it, as were many others here, even the Roosevelt-haters. It is an extraordinary thing that one man's death could have caused so much emptiness in so many hearts all over the world. I noticed it particularly in the land whence emigrated his ancestors three centuries ago."

The members of 567 Co. AFS moved from Italy to Holland and in the closing weeks of the European war served there and in Germany with Montgomery's Liberation Army. The men of 567 are still in Germany with this army. On their arrival Field Marshall Montgomery greeted them with this message to Fred Hoeing, Lt. Col. AFS.:

"I have just heard that the American Field Service (567 ambulance Car Coy), whom I remember well from Alamein to Italy, has arrived in this country to join 21 Army Group. I am delighted to have you back with me. I know well what good service you have rendered to us in the past and how useful you will be in our present party".

Yours sincerely

B.L. Montgomery
Field Marshall

On May 19th a few members of AFS who had served with the First French army and a few of those who had served with the 5th and 8th British Armies in Italy...met at the Brenner Pass in the Alps. Mason Bowen and Quentin Hope were the representatives from the French side and the delegates of the units from Italy were John Mount, Paul Clark, Walter Cope, William Washburn, Drayton Smith, Joe Desloges, David Jones and Richard Allemang. Thus members of the two units met for the first time in many months and for the FIRST time the Griffin-painted ambulances of 485 Co. were with the Indian Head-painted AFS French vehicles.

Of great interest to those World War I. members of AFS who served with the Reserve Mallet Camion Sections will be the following message, received by Mr. Roy Wilcox from Colonel Mallet after V-E day. "Victory greetings and love to families and friends of "Reserve, .... (signed) Richard Mallet" Mr. Wilcox received the greetings by cable from France.

Douglas Allen ex-AFS is engaged to marry Miss Nancy Gray Stevens and is this month's only member of the Romance Dept. His brother Howard, also ex-AFS, is a Seaman 2/c in training at Great Lakes, Illinois. Congratulations Allens! and the best of luck to both of you.

Another V-E Day incident includes another FIRST for AFS men. This one concerns Dewey Everett, Henry Jones, Leo Hillary, and James Brewster who, on the big day, found themselves in Hamburg. They debated for a while on what they should do and where they should go to celebrate, finally abandoning Berlin in favor of Denmark. After a slight delay they did get into Denmark (specific town unknown) and were thus the first Americans to enter the country.

New Horizons Dept: Several of the volunteers overseas, having served their term of enlistment have obtained releases from AFS and gone on to new fields to conquer. Hugh Chisholm from Italy and Joe Ainsworth from Burma have joined OWI bureaus in those areas. Donald Whyte went into the American Red Cross in India, and is to be assigned to work in the Philippines. David Whipple enlisted in the U.S. Army while in Italy. Dave Sanders joined the Merchant Marine from India-Burma. Larry Bigelow joined the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) of the U.S. Army. Francis Forat ended his AFS service in Burma by joining the China National Airways corporation, a branch in that area of Pan American Airways. Good luck to all of them.

J.B.

May 12, 1945.

"That evening we heard peace was declared. There was not a cheer or a smile amongst the soldiers over the news and no one got drunk, though there was little chance to. The men have been at war so long and have been thru so much and seen so much tragedy that, though they are naturally terribly relieved, it just doesn't seem as if celebrating was in order. Their lives go on exactly the same as before only now they have the extra work of endless cleaning, polishing and being confined to their billets as we must look just so, for we are moving thru a conquered country and are not allowed to fraternize with the people in any way, except to say 'Good Morning', etc.

"Our orders came at two o'clock in the morning to move into Austria. It was a beautiful, beautiful drive coming up thru the snow covered mountains at sunrise, even if one had had only three hours sleep and no breakfast. We were told to shave and be dressed just so even in the dark at that hour. On crossing the border everything changed at once. Immediately there were armed Germans everywhere, wandering all over the place. We would see great convoys of them like our own, made up with complete hospital units, for example with their ambulances painted white. The roads were lined with Allied prisoners of war, New Zealanders captured in Greece four years ago, and Americans also. The ones I have seen aren't in too bad condition as they were doing forced labor on farms and railroads but they all have some story to tell.

"Our first billet was about ten miles into Austria in a town that was terribly damaged. It was very depressing, with masses of people being rounded up, sorted out as to nationality, disarmed and sent off. All day they filed by us, some soldiers not more than 15 years old, others middle aged, and women. Many could hardly walk. We took our patients back to Italy and it was a long run. The road was full of people walking back to their homes, some bare-footed, some carrying a few possessions and many to find no homes left when they got there. One simply can't feel triumphant or rejoice with this constant tragedy around, in spite of the obvious fact that these people have brought it on themselves and willfully committed the most terrible crimes imaginable. We had to wait at one place where they were fixing a blown up bridge --- this on the day New York was going wild with ticker tape,-- and here 15 men were buried alive as the ruins collapsed on them. It was awful for their comrades to have to dig them out when they had so nearly come through it all to peace.

"We have moved to a dream spot with running water in the rooms and swimming and rowing on the lake. Lovely furniture everywhere and four of us have a room with a porch overlooking the lake; there is oven a chandelier over the wash basin. I have never seen so much crystal lighting in all my life. I can turn around and look out over a park with pines behind me, or out another window at the snow-topped mountains and in front is the open door to the lake, chalets and boating. We could stay here all summer and enjoy every minute of it."

January 16, 1945.

"We have been well treated by the Americans and the British especially the latter who are very appreciative of us, and now we have finally joined up with the AFS over here after over two months of travel. No longer are we one little isolated unit shifting for ourselves and scrounging around, but at last part of a definite service. It is quite a relief, I have everything to look forward to and don't regret for an instant joining up. The only trouble with the AFS is that it doesn't get itself any publicity in the States. Going across the continent only a very few had ever heard of us. Over here, at least most everybody has heard of us."

January 17, 1945.

"I have been assigned to the jeep section and am very fortunate because this is what everybody tries to got into, as the roads are so bad here that the jeeps can go many places where the regular Chev. ambulances can't go. However, this doesn't mean I'll be driving a jeep right away. For two months at least I'll be driving vehicles attached to the section HQ."

February 14, 1945.

"The warfare waged out here is different from conventional fighting. Burma is a very rugged country with the northern part wrinkled with jungle covered mountains,. There is no point in trying to capture square miles of territory because first it is hard to obtain due to the thick jungle, and secondly mere territory would have no strategic value. Instead roads are the things you want to capture, because if you control them the Japs can't get supplies. Troops usually infiltrate the Jap lines and set up a road block behind the Jap lines. This prevents the Japs from getting supplies up and they are thus forced to retire. Pockets of Japs are isolated and left to die of starvation. As a matter of fact most Jap casualties are due to disease and malnutrition rather than from actual fighting. Out here the surrounding terrain as well as the Japs have to be fought. When we get below Mandalay, however, the mountains give way to plains and this will make the job much easier.

"The more 1 think of the India situation the more confused I become. Right now I have reached the conclusion that Britain might have bungled the job in India but no other nation could have done better. What most people don't realize is the terrific obstacles which the Hindu and Mohammedan religions place in the path of any attempt to raise the standard of living of the people. Try and convince one ardent Catholic that Darwin's theory of evolution and evolution itself is very plausible and proven to be true. It is very hard to do. But if that is hard to do, try convincing a sixth of the world's population that there is no need to passively accept your social position, that you should try to raise your standard of living, win respect, and earn a living, that there is no harm in killing animals even rodents because it won't affect any individual from fulfilling his life in the form of another creature, that because a woman is married doesn't mean that she must stay within her home henceforth. It is an almost impossible task trying to improve a people's lot when they believe that they should passively accept it. If you show kindness towards an Indian many of them will regard it as a sign of weakness and thereafter try to take advantage of you. The army teaches the Indians to use a latrine and tells them the reason for it, but when the Indian goes home on leave he lets go right on the floor of his home. India as yet is incompatible with our Western frame of mind. The only solution I can offer is for everyone to pull out and let India stew in her own juice and hope and pray she wakes up. India is potentially one of the greatest nations in the world but only the Indians themselves can make her such. Yet you can't blame Britain for not pulling out because she has a lot of money tied up there in railways, communications, and industry. She depends upon India for cane, jute, rice, and some oil. The U.S. would do the same thing as Great Britain if she were not self-sufficient, So the whole thing is a hell of a mess. You have the idea of democracy and freedom for the individual clashing with the cold reality that a country depends upon democracy being curbed in order to help sustain herself. If freedom and democracy came to India, Great Britain would be kicked out in a hell of a hurry. It is something of a problem of life end death for England so you can't blame her for pursuing her present policy, and yet you want people all over the world to possess individual freedom. In short it is one hell of a dilemma."

February 18, 1945.

"We have moved Field HQ and we are now camped at a very nice spot. I have my own jeep and expect to move up at any moment. By the time you get this letter I will be in the thick of it, and I mean what I say. My only wish now is that I acquit myself well and do a good job. It is hard to believe that just a little over three months ago I was home and now am about to go into action for the first time. It might seem a very short time but I have learned an awful lot in those three months. A beautiful Enfield rifle with a peep sight and checkered fore-stock has come into my possession so now I am all set.

"We really lead a wonderful life out here and always full of fun. I feel so much freer. We camp out and yet live comfortably. The food is excellent and there is always plenty of it. I bet I must weigh pretty close to two hundred pounds now. The climate is perfect. Since I have been in Burma I have only seen it rain once and usually the sky is a clear blue.

"It was my first concrete example of something constructive which the Catholic church is doing. I stopped at a Catholic village which was founded by the Portuguese three hundred years ago. The priest had been taken away by the Japs but one man there who showed me around spoke perfect English. He was born Catholic and was in Rangoon studying engineering when the Japs came and forced him to flee north. Most of the Burmese are Buddhist and were pro-Jap, the Catholics were pro-British. A national Burma pro-Jap army was doing a lot of sabotage behind the retreating British lines. They also picked on the few Catholic villages. The only haven this man could find, since the whole .....................I'll finish this later! This is it!"

February 28, 1945.

"Yesterday I came back from a two day operation, a little trek with a battalion to clean out a pocket of Japs. I drove right behind the column of infantry, which marched on all morning of the first day. The sun was hot, and the air full of dust. The jungle, consisting of scrub trees (it was flat) closed in on all sides of the trail (a Burmese cart path) so that you couldn't see more than fifteen yards at the very most to either side. Every once in a while we had to stop while the trail was cleared. This is a hell of a place to fight a war, where you can't see what to shoot at. Finally, we got to a village, our destination. It was deserted except for one Burmese. The Bren guns were set up and we started to dig in when we were told to push on again. So, all afternoon the infantry slogged on, ten minutes break every hour, and toting fifty pounds of equipment. The next village was reached but no Japs. One hundred were there the day before but had pulled up. Again we set up camp. Patrols were sent out but only saw two Japs without equipment fleeing a mile away. The job was finished. It was supposed to take three days but thanks to the Japs the area was cleared in one day. The only casualty was one Tommy, gored by a water buffalo. This was just a job that had to be done, not very difficult, but necessary, in a way, like peeling potatoes.

"I am in on something much bigger now but I won't be able to say for a while what it is. This jeep ambulance is a very rugged life, and has now resolved into the toughest and most important job of my life. I'll keep going as long as I can but when I am through I'll feel that I have done my bit towards victory. This life can't last forever, and the knowledge of that fact is what makes it bearable.

"Maybe I never explained to you but the AFS out here is divided into three sections (two made up of 3 ton Chev. ambulances, and one made up of jeeps.) There are only, I think about ............jeeps. The jeeps, of course, are the goal of most everybody out here, and they have the best reputation. A boy I palled up with way back in New York and I were two of the three out of some 40 odd men who got jeeps right away, so you see the breaks have really been with us.

"So very much has happened since I last wrote. I have seen and heard things which will be clear in my memory for years to come. When I was back in the States I read a lot of blab about how the American fighting man doesn't know what he is fighting for. This is a lot of wasted air. Nobody, going through what a front line man does and seeing the enemy first hand, can help but have a very clear idea of what is at stake The Japs and Germans want to live their way of life, a life which favors cruelty, aggression and force. We want to live our way of life, a life which respects individuals, beauty, knowledge, and all peaceful pursuits. There isn't room on this small world of ours for those two ways of living, so we are fighting to smash the people who want to lead a life which is incompatible with ours. This is a very concrete and proper thing to fight for. Let's hope though that every generation doesn't have to go to war so as to insure their way of life."

March 9, 1945.

"The fall of -------will really be an achievement. This army has been struggling with the Japs in the mountainous jungles ever since the beginning of '42, supplied by very difficult means. For over two years it was not able to break through the Japs, and had the greatest difficulty in keeping the Japs from spilling into India. Now the Jap has been pushed out of the jungle and we have him on the plains which stretch clear down to ----------. The Japs are definitely on the run here but it is still tough going. In the day time it certainly gets hot.

"The longer Ï am out here the more I realize what a horrible thing modern war is. There is nothing more terrifying than being shelled. When that happens you lose all love for the Japs and start to hate their very guts, and this is a bad attitude for anybody to have for his fellowman.

"The good old Yanks. Anything American now, even K rations, means so much. That is my only regret, that I am not with more Yanks. However, you can't have everything and I have now many fine British friends. Out here at the front I can't help making friends with them. They all are a fine lot and I am proud to be with them."

No date.

"We have seen plenty of action and been in the thick and thin of it. I've been scared as hell at times but we manage to keep each other's spirits up. We dig a hole for ourselves about six feet long and three feet wide where we sleep at night. When a flap is on all you can do is hold on to the other guy and ask God and all his Saints to look after us.

"I seem to he holding up pretty good. I wonder what the U.S. Navy Medical Department would have to say to this?"

April 13, 1945.

"Recently the jeep ambulances have been working with the front line troops. One afternoon, about 5 P.M. we heard a number of planes overhead. As usual, I casually glanced up to watch the planes maneuvering. What's this? Great red balls on each wing! It took a moment to wake up. Then I dove into the slit trench I had dug (the second trench I had dug while out here). With seven Zeros circling around and strafing, my trench seemed very shallow, They only stayed for a few minutes and no bullets came very close to me. It was quite a show. They were beautiful-looking planes, all silver with bright balls of red under the wings.

"About the same period we were called to go forward to get some casualties just before dark. Our instructions were to hurry and get back before dark, as the Japs had a habit of infiltrating behind our lines at night into a couple of villages which lay in our route. There was quite a delay at the R.A.P. in getting the wounded so we returned quite a while after dark with our wounded. For a half hour we had our eyes and ears on the alert but nothing ever happened.

"Just a short time ago we were moving a large number of ambulances from one area to another. There was some delay in getting started so that before we were half way to our destination it had turned dark. There was a lot of dust and we weren't supposed to use headlights. The result was that at a poorly marked crossroad several of the ambulances took the wrong road. I knew this territory and the road taken by the ambulances ahead of me led into Jap country. I headed four of them off but two more had gone ahead and were out of sight. As luck had it these two took still another detour which led into one of the British armed columns operating in this area. We then all got together and talked to the Colonel in charge. He confided that if they had continued on this wrong road they had two miles to go before they reached the site of a battle that very day. Also, three or four miles in another direction some vehicles were ambushed by Japs a couple of days before. We all decided to spend the night in the 'box' and continue on next morning."

April 23, 1945.

"The other evening as we were traveling merrily along looking for Japs he sent some shells over our way. We were passing through between two hills and he could see us very plainly. For a couple of days he had some fun. While we were parking for the night he lobbed some our way and one crashed into an AFS Chevrolet ambulance. Luckily only part of the body was damaged, nobody hurt, and the ambulance still carries on.

"A jeep is a poor thing with which to face a monsoon. My ingenuity is hard at work for the solution. I have a partial one in part of a tent which I have draped over the whole jeep yesterday, leaving the driver's seat the only exposed part. It rained like Hell but not too much rain got through.

"You might be interested in the fact that I was carrying a 100 lb. sack of Japanese sugar in the back of 'Frisco'. It was right on the floor and enough water came in to melt considerable of the sugar. This morning the whole bottom of 'Frisco' was sticky with simple syrup."

No date.

"Mail has been very bad for the past month, but in future it will be 100% better. Our entire AFS system has been changed and the result is that all rations mail and urgent news will reach even the farthest removed man in not more than 4 days. This is a tremendous improvement over the present system.

"Since I last wrote of course a lot has happened. You know that Mandalay fell and I did write you I was the first Yank in it. The best was yet to come, for upon the fall of the city, M. and I were granted two day leave. We had an invitation given us by a bunch of Yank pilots, so off we went by air and I flew the plane and landed in time for supper of steak and other good things. We left reluctantly the next day to report back to our units for active duty again.

"We returned in time to hear of a new rotation plan of leaves. It seems that all of us will get a crack at the most 'wonderful place in Burma'. This rest spot is 4000 feet in the air and very cool. Lakes and pools are all over and you can swim in the clear water to your heart's content. Best of all, everybody gets strawberries and cream. There are Anglo-Burmese women in great numbers reported and they are supposed to be very beautiful. I look forward to seeing the place.

"Saw all of Mandalay two days ago and the destruction was terrific. I don't think it will ever be the same. I hardly think they will try to rebuild it, although there were some signs of Burmese trying to get back on their feet. Many Burmese can be seen clearing wreckage from their battered stalls. Many buildings are just a pile of bricks. A Roman Catholic church is about the only building left unscarred by three years of war. But trouble and heart-torn struggle for life has just begun to start for the Burmese.

"After five months of life here, we are beginning to become used to our surroundings. My weight has been consistent and I am a dark brown color as a result of continuous exposure to the sun. Feel now that the Burma campaign will come to an end about the same time that Germany folds ---in the first week in July. I am very happy in my work and feel confident that my good spirits will stay with me always!"

April 30, 1945.

"If you get ahold of any large paper you will find (or should find) an account of the 14th Army's advance on Rangoon. It has been no pleasure trip, especially for the Infantry, and should be recognized in time as a fine example of mobile warfare and strategy, without discounting the fine work the combat forces have done. The old saying that the Infantry is the 'Queen of Battles' is certainly true; they have the job of going in and rooting the Japs out of their holes and every time they go into action they are flirting with death. There is no other way, however, to get them out. The tanks, planes, and artillery account for a lot of them, but it takes the foot soldiers to finish the job. What Secretary of the Navy Forrestal said about 'there being no easy way' is right. We are all proud of what the Marines have done out in the Pacific; on Iwo Island they broke the best the Japs had in amazingly short time, and it was a hot job to say the least. The Japs have got to be beaten if we are ever to have a secure peace, and his ideas on the purposes of life and the relationship of the individual to the State have got to be changed. We made the mistake of not beating Germany thoroughly in the last war --- we shouldn't make the same mistake of letting the Japs off easily.

"I have had a lot of experiences, some tragic, some exciting, and some interesting during the past couple of weeks. Some of the sights we see are heartbreaking and you never really get hardened to it, although you soon learn to dismiss them from your mind and think about happier things. Home, of course, is one of them. We have heard the war in Europe is definitely over and that is great news. Anyway, one break that I have got on D. is that the civilians instead of hating us are actually glad to see us or at least they seem to be. In Germany it must be tough to have everybody give you the cold shoulder and the children glare at you with hate. We actually have a slight glow of satisfaction in thinking we were a part in liberating them. It is a small consolation, but it is a help when the only thing out here to keep your morale up is dirt, rain, and lousy food. Some of them shout and move us on towards the Japs, others dance about and throw their hats in the air, and in one village they even passed around watermelons. However, I have to admit that a large percentage of them just stand around and look dumb. They have probably been doing that for centuries so you can't blame that on us.

"I have another flag or at least 1/4 of a flag. However, it is a worthy one as it is one that belongs to a Jap platoon, company, or something on that order. There were four sikhs who got it and as they equally deserved it they cut it into four pieces, and each took one. One of them gave me his piece and it is still a handsome looking job as the flag itself was tremendous. It you would like it as a scarf or bandana, it would make a beautiful thing. It is pure silk and would be unusual in the States for that reason. I was extremely lucky the other day and got a Jap sword which is like your chambered nautilus or even better. A Gurkha had it and I was admiring it and was about to ask how much he would take to part with it when he just handed it to me. He could have sold it for 200 rupees or more in Calcutta. They are extremely generous and will do anything for you if they like you."

AFS Letters, August 1945

Index