Sgt. Stanley W Safford 39539976
5th Auxiliary Surgical Group
APO 339
c/o Post Master
New York New York
Holland
24 October 1944
Dearest Mother:
It is now early morning and it has
been sometime since last I wrote to you.
A lot has happened and I have seen a lot of new and beautiful country as
you see by the above heading.
After moving here we started right to
work and we have the twelve hour shift from 8 to 8 and we therefore spend most
of our time sleeping during the day when we have the chance. For myself I never seem to be quite able to
get enough and become accustomed to the night work. It always seems that my waking up in the
evening makes things all wrong.
On our way here I had the chance of
seeing the famous Albert Canal and the damage which has been done to it during
the fighting and they really do make a mess of some bridges etc when they take
a notion to destroy one of them.
I have also seen some of the famous
Dutch windmills and they are just as they have always been in the pictures
which I have seen.
While still in Belgium I was able to
buy two pairs of very inexpensive wooden shoes and have already sent one pair
to Ann next door and I am sending
the other pair to you with two pieces of lace and two little hand painted
pitchers. The wooden shoes I would like
to have you wrap up and give to Jon
Matson as a Christmas present from me.
The two pieces of lace are for you
and the little clay pitchers you can put away for me. It will serve as part of an anniversary
present to you from me. Enclosed you
will find also a small card which you may like. About all I could find in the
way of cards.
In a lot of the windows the
Belgi(ans) have pictures of King Leopold
and his deceased wife Astrid. They are quite loyal and patriotic. They or most of them have flags hanging out or
in the windows and here in Holland they
have larger flags than either France, Belgium or Luxembourg had on display.
On a couple occasions I was over in
Luxembourg, but while there never had the chance to see any of the cities etc
enough to really see a difference in it from Belgium.
Our teams here have not received any
mail for two weeks so I have none of our questions to answer.
The countryside around us here is
very beautiful and is certainly peaceful and quiet in appearance and yet in the
distance we can hear the bombardment and see the flashes of light after
dark. The people here practically all
wear wooden shoes and they are quite picturesque, more so than any I have seen
before. The horses all wear bells and
pull larger loads of things on small carts usually with a child or two on
top. I have never seen such clean struts
and harness(?) as they have here. That
was one of the first things that I noticed and it impresses me more so each
time I see it. They have in the past
prior to the war been quite modern as the electrical stores are quite frequent
as well as other appliance stores are.
The towns are still “off limits” to soldiers so have not had the chance
to really see much of them.
Had I mentioned before that Rommel had been kept at the Paris hospital where our headquarters
was for a while? He left there on his
way to Berlin the last the people
there had seen of him.
The war news from here, that is what
we hear of it sounds very good but does not promise “White Christmas” at home
or any time quite as spectacular for us.
A remark was made the other day here by a party which I have heard
several times before “The political situation is the states has something to do
with this”. I wonder, or have you heard
the same? It came as quite a blow to me
here of the death of Wilkie and I undertand Aimee McPherson. All passed on to her reward. The news was in one of the army papers I got
a hold of. Was her funeral as elaborate
as her life? From the item I imagine
that it must have been.
Have you heard from Hazel Easterman?
Well enough for now and it is about
bedtime for myself so I will write again soon.
All my Love,
Stanley
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