January 24, 1944

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Fort Sam Houston

Texas

January 24, 1944

Dear Mother:

Received your letter of the 20^th today and will attempt to get one done this evening.  I would like to have gotten one written to you yesterday but I took too much time on one to Joseph and was too tired after that to do another one.

Gladys called Friday and asked me if I would like to go to the Richard Crooks[1] concert with her Saturday night.  I accepted and we had a very enjoyable evening and we thought the concert to be very good.  After the performance we stopped by a friend’s house and visited for a short while.  The people had practically their entire house furnished with Mexican things and even the house was adobe, quite different.

We have had some very warm weather here the last couple days, which was quite a change from what it was for a while then last evening it clouded up and this morning it began to rain about ten o’clock.  And rather than just start in very light, it poured for about an hour and hers rained off and off and on all day the same way.  You ask about the snow.  No it is very uncommon here and home and from what they tell me it very seldom snows here.

Yes I guess that Mrs. Miner will fell quite bad about Richard going over, but they go over every day and we may soon be on our way if the birds here have their way.  The Col. You ask about is a Doctor and I wonder if he is eve a good one at that.

There is only about three out of all the doctors we have around here, have ever had any sense when it comes to administration. But they never put anything other than a doctor to head Medical Units.  Any doctor from a Lt Col up is strictly administration.  And the two MAC officers we have here are a couple of dopes also.  Heaven help me if I ever go to OCS and come out the way they are.

Hold the Income Tax material up until after the beginning of next month since I may be home if things are carried out according to the chatter that they have here at the present time.

A 1944 aerial view of the POW camp tents set up on Dodd Field.

Saturday morning we got up to find the German prisoners all out, 1,000 strong on strike.  They were all standing out in the center of the compound in a large circle and refused to do anything.  It was all about somebody getting paid or something.  Well anyway the Captain who commands them ordered all food kept out of the area and sent his guards in with clubs and made them all line up in groups under the range of the machine guns in the towers and stood them all at attention and kept them that way all day except only once when they went to the lavatory.  They had no water or food all day and night and up until Sunday noon when they gave up.  If one of them sat down the MPs would go up and kick him to stand him up.  They put 35 of them abroad trucks and sent them off with none of their belongings or otherwise and they did not know where they were going.  These were the ring leaders.  While all this was going on they searched their tent and found American money etc., also canned food.  So they have had some very careful plans laid evidently from the looks of things.  They have always been quite curious about the animal surgery and one day one of them asked about it and Sgt Ryan told them they were going to use humans next.  I guess that Ryan rather scared him.  They have not been too curious since then.  The animals I speak of is about ten dogs one oh which has a litter of pups which have just had their eyes open about a week.  And then once in a while we even have a cat.  An we finally got the gate built and put in place after having to go thru a lot of red tape.

One of the dope Captains just came in and borrowed our typewriter to use at home.  Well we just got it back from the repair shop, and very likely when he gets thru with it we will have it there again.

All I have done all day is to sit here and go over figures and names of subjects for the new four weeks training program.  It seems that every time is left up to me in the end.  Now tomorrow I have a couple more charts to make out that is all pure foolishness and excess paper work.

I talked to both Major Skinner and Major Grubin today and they both get a big laugh out of the outfit and something was mentioned about the men getting along and Major Skinner remarked that that applied to the officers as well, and Major Grubin was telling me about all the non businesslike things that take place and he thought it was a big joke also.  He said that he could stay away forever and never miss the place.

Well it is getting late so I will draw this to a close for now and will write again soon.

All my love,

Stanley

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[1] Richard Alexander Crooks (June 26, 1900  – September 29, 1972) was an American tenor and a leading singer at the New York Metropolitan Opera. - http://en.goldenmap.com/Richard_Crooks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5yxjy-uegc

Symphony Offers Four Novelties: Max Reiter will follow, the intricately - orchestrated 4th Symphony of Tschaikowsky with a group of musical novelties on the second half of the program to be presented by the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra tonight at the Municipal Auditorium.

The four "Musical Miniatures" programmed are by Boccherini, Liadov, Rimsky - Korsakoff and Dinicu. In the Dinicu piece, "Hora Staccato," the string section will be "soloist" for this brief work.

The "Russian Sailors' Dance" of Gliere will close the orchestral part of the program, after which Richard Crooks, guest artist, will sing operatic arias and songs in English, including negro spirituals. (San Antonio Express, 22 Jan 1944, p 5)

December 13, 1943

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

December 13, 1943

My Dear Mother:

As you say it is “about time I was getting another letter to you”.  The past week was a very busy one for me and I am still that way so therefore have not had so very much time for writing anyone.

Received a couple very beautiful Christmas card last week.  One of which was from Aunt Dell and the other from Mr. and Mrs. Chipman in Momence[1]. Just what relation are they to me[2].  They addressed the letter PFC so they must have had it for some time.  I shall have to write them quite soon.  You asked about Marshall’s address once.  As far as I know it is the same.  In care of Mr. L Mangum there in Provo Utah.

Mrs. Tedesco left last Monday and they had a nice write up in the paper about her going etc.  I am going to miss her.  My friends here on the Post are dwindling quite fast.  They come and go and I still remain.

I also received a letter today from Nelson with two dollars enclosed.  I did not want the money and had intended on giving him the blades as a present so I will get some more and send them to him to make up for it.

I do not know the name of the Silver Pattern I asked but they did not know.

How are the small chicks?  I sure wish I were home taking care of them.

Has anything ever turned up on the Fulton Lewis Jr. case[3]?  It sure sounded to me as tho that were all it was “a put up job”.

Well more power to him! And say! The political situation sure looks very good from here. What do you think of it?

And speaking of Christmas shopping, I am certainly very tired of it all by now.  And you should see the mobs of soldiers downtown over the counters etc.  I did get another elephant mailed to Aunt Maibelle and one piece of blue glass and I am going to send another one very soon like the one you have.  And am going to get the piggy banks off to the Chapin children very soon.  And then that will be just about all.

We are also having no Christmas leaves around here because of the general traffic conditions etc.

I want to thank you for the Xmas seals.  I was thinking of buying some the other day and the last few jokes have been exceptionally good.

Yes the plant you speak of will very likely lose its leaves when it gets cold.  I can not think of the name just at the present time but will in the future.

Why don’t get some cut-worm control. I think that there was some there.  A green powder in a round can.  The vegetables I guess will do quite well then.  Did the pea seed which I got ever do any good?

Well I used the money which you sent me to a very good advantage.  I bought a book which I have always wanted the “Rubaiyat”[4] by Omar Khayyam as translated by Fitzgerald and illustrated by Pogany very beautifully and I am quite proud of it.

It rained here for the last few days of last week and everything was quite muddy and Friday I undertook the job of scrubbing out the office here and the floor s really white and clean now.  And the first person that tracks in mud will be told in very short order about it including the officers.  Of course the Major is always in the next tent playing cards so they very seldom come in here for anything.  I just finished there typewritten pages as a kindness for one of the Dental Majors.  I spent Saturday evening and all day Sunday compiling the information for him.  But they never appreciate what a person does for them.

We have also had a nice little cold spell or two here and it became quite chilly, let me tell you.  And we have one of the wonderful brilliant people here that chops wood practically all day, that is when he is on his feet; over by the colonel’s office and then the stove has to be cleaned out every evening by the Charge of Quarters.  They are afraid of the Colonel freezing I guess. And there he sits with a big silly grin across his face.  And in and out they run fanning the door in his face.  I heard the other day that he said that I was rather efficient etc.  But he never has anything much to say to me outside business and that is quite often.  I am in there about five times a day about one thing or another.

I saw a very good show the other day “HappyLand” which I thought very good.  We go to the Main Post Theater and het in for fifteen cents and see one main feature and usually a couple short subject with News.  In all it lasts about two and a half hours.  Makes a good afternoon entertainment and not too long.  Of course all the theaters here have only one feature.

Well outside it is clear and chilly and I had better begin thinking of going to bed and getting some sleep.  Altho I have had quite a bit of sleep here lately which is also good for me.

Received a rather large package from the Matsons today with the regular “Do not open” seal and the word “Book” written on the package.  I have not yet finished the look which Miss Mosher sent me.  You can read it when I am through with it.

Well good night for now and take good care of yourself.

All my love,

Your son,

Stanley

December 20, 1943

My Dear Mother:

I will get this letter off to you before Christmas is here and gone.

I hope you get all the little boxes and packages before them also.   Sure hated to send them that way with now wrapping or at least not all in one box but I do not have the facilities for doing such here.  And I do hope that the stores wrapped theirs nicely and above all that you like the things.  I sent Muriel one of those filigree silver pins, butterfly shaped and she can wear in her hair or on her dress.  They are quite the rage down here, also a box of rather nice PX stationary.  She really should improve her writing and also the type of thing she writes.  Her last letters have all been devoted to the Marine or that sailor with blond hair etc.  I wonder if she thinks I am so very much interested in them.

My Christmas card circulation this year reached to about 40 cards, and my hand like to have given out on me in the middle of all the writing.  The return address is so long and it has to be written.  I sent a card to Herbert Shaffer to be forwarded, perhaps he will come to and answer it.  I sent it to his home address and they will forward it to him.  I received a very beautiful card from Vera and Val H also the other day.

We have had some very cold weather here of late and we keep the fires going all the time. And the wood it takes is surprising, armload after armload.  There has been a lot of ice every morning and the poinsettias are all frozen black.  And they were starting to be so pretty.  All the leaves are gone from the trees now and the Post looks just like it did when I came here a year ago January.

I have decided to stay out of town until after Christmas since the mobs are terrific and getting any place is a slow business.

You ask what I intend doing Christmas Day. Well, perhaps I will sleep rather late and then get up and get dressed for dinner, which should be very good.  Thanksgiving dinner was quite nice, after which I may go to a show and then come home and end the day by writing a few letters including one to you, although all the time I will be thinking of you and hoping you are having a good and joyous time.  Do not let my being gone effect your enjoyment any, for you have well earned all the enjoyment you are able to get.

The German prisoners the other day moved in a(n) enormous big tree and planted it out in their area.  They are also going to put on a German opera for Xmas.  One of the Captains here is the doctor for them and the other day he showed me a water color portrait which one of them had painted for him of himself.  It was excellent work.  And good ones are hard to get or make.  The man was a professor of Art prior to the war.  They have them working all over the Post now and doing everything from driving trucks in the Motor Pool down to raking the leaves off the Generals’ lawn and when they see an American Officer they usually salute him our way.  They all seem to be getting along quite well and they all like it here and the cigarettes.

I am going to work some on the sand table next week. 

You asked about it once.  I am trying to display in miniature the four echelons in the sand table.  All done with sand, paper, paint, greenery, etc, quite a job.  I may take a picture of it when done and let you see what it is like.

And by the way they have changed Plans & Training officers again.  Major Kuhns is back again.  Maj, Skinner got quite a kick of telling me that I seemed to be the only one to see them all thru and weather the storm.  I may also help Maj. Skinner with a dog operation this coming week.  He did not operate this past week when he had planned on it.

How old are the checks by now, they should be pretty good sized by this time, hadn’t they?

I ran into Gladys up town last evening and she is just now getting settled down in a new house.

The other day they put up some new tents next door, supposed to be the fireproof ones.  Last night one of them caught afire and you should hear the rumpus over that.  I am getting one of them also.

My Plans & Training history is coming right along and you will get a copy of it when it is completed you might find it interesting only it will have the Major’s name on it.

Do you remember me mentioning the very spoiled rich little girl who used to come into the nursery?  She used to live there on Arbor Vitae.  Well Mrs. Matson wrote the other day and said that she was giving me fair warning that Dorothy Kingfather and her father were going to be here in San Antonio for the holidays and that he said she was going to be sure and look me up when she got here.  It seems that her boyfriend is at Randolph Field[5].  They are staying at the ritzy Gunter Hotel[6].

What shall I do about my Income Tax and where and when do I get the forms etc.  I suppose that will have to be taken care of soon,

Well, the day draws on and I am running out of news to write about so in closing I wish with all my Love for you, Mother to have a very happy and wonderful Holiday season and do not work so hard and take care of yourself.  Give my love to the family.

As ever with love,

Your son,

Stanley

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[1] Momence, Kankakee, IL

[2] Virgil (Ellis) Chipman and Stanley Wayne Safford are 2^nd cousins.  Their common ancestors are Rufus G. Safford and Matilda Peters.

[3] http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/fulton-lewis/

[4]The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Rubaiyat_cover.JPG

[5] http://www.randolph.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=5532

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter_Hotel

November 22, 1943

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

November 22, 1943

There are some more pictures but I will send the negatives on later (PS at the top of the message)

Dear Mother:

As you said in your last letter “About time to start on another letter to you”.  The weekend went by quite rapidly and I spent all of it firing up fancy things and schedules for the Colonel who inspected us here today.  He was quite pleased and I stood in on the round table which he had with our Col.  And the other officers here.  He asked quite a few questions and they were all very easily answered as far as I was concerned.  Some of the officers here can stumble once some of the smallest and most simple questions which they should know.  And the laugh comes when they make up some of the excuses.  They are really good.

Well I have just finished trying to build a fire in our little stove so that it will not get too cold in here this evening.  We have had to have fires every morning here lately and always in the evening.  Also the fire keeps the tent from becoming damp and that is when the clothes feel and look awful.

We all went up to the main post this evening or rather afternoon to see another of the War Department Training Films.  “The Battle of Russia”[1] and this one was very good for a change.  It started out in the same old propaganda way but there are always some good points to even those types of films.  The other day we had one of Walt Disney[2]’s new ones here, on the “Mesquito”[3] and it was all very good Technicolor, and amusing as well as educational. And we had another one the other day on colored smoke grenades in Technicolor.  They are something new which the army has developed in warfare, for signals etc.

You asked if you should cut the tops of the Gerberas.  Yes, you can cut them off now and then toward Spring you can put a good mulch of rabbit manure over them and they will then come up nice and green for the next season.

Well after putting enough paper in the fire it is finally beginning to burn.  This wood is all right when it once gets started.

I received a Thanksgiving card and a very delicious piece of fruit cake that Aunt Dell made.  They both came yesterday.  She said that she could not write for very long periods of time.  She said that she has not heard of Leland having a baby in his family as yet.  Don’t any of the Saffords ever write east any more?

Thanksgiving has not really impressed me this year since the army has not declared it a holiday and we of course have at least half a day planned although I don’t know what it will amount to.  I should really have something to be thankful for this year.  I am still here on this side with a reasonably comfortable degree of living quarters and at least wood to keep warm with.  And some very good parents at home.  Excuse the yellow spots on the paper but it is ink eradicator which I had to use on some things which I had scratched on there a couple days ago while still in the box.

They are having quite a fuss here in San Antonio over the German prisoners.  Someone is claiming that they are being mistreated etc.  Well, we have exactly the same kind of quarters and food that they have so they had better start feeling sorry for us first.

I sure hope you folks at home have a grand and wonderfully laden table this Thanksgiving and let’s hope for another one next year when I will be home to share it with you.

All my love,

Your son,

Stanley

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Russia

[2] http://www.army.mil/article/19340/walt-disney-goes-to-war/

[3] Correct title of this short is “The Winged Scourge”

November 18, 1943

 Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

November 18, 1943

My dear Mother:

Here it is again Thursday and I have not written you yet this week.

So far this week there has been nothing of great importance happen.  The same old thing everyday.  Monday night I was not feeling any too well.  I had a hamburger at the Service Club which I think was the trouble.  Anyway Tuesday I felt very weak and washed out which of course I can see the reason for after losing everything during the night.  After spending the day at work I felt quite a bit better and got up Wed. morning feeling fine and am still the same thankfully.  A person sure does not have any chance for feeling bad around here.  There is no time for it and no place where a person can really spend a few restful minutes of each day.  I am here in the office all day long and there is never a break only for lunch and back I come for a few more figures.

Yesterday evening they told me that we were going to have a big inspection by Cols from the Service Command today.  So I went to work and worked myself silly over the confusing and voluminous records which we keep in here and not a person shows up.  So you see how much the average inspection of that type turn out round here or anywhere else in the army.

Last evening I went to dinner with Mrs. Tedesco and Gladys Hitchcock to a very nice Mexican place here in San Antonio.  They had some very delicious food.  The best Mexican food that I have ever had, and I have never been very fond of that.

Mrs. Tedesco is going to Ft Worth about the middle of next month.  She is going to take her daughter with her.  She says that she has never approved of wives following their husbands in the service but she is going to break her rule now.

I received a very nice letter from Joseph today and enjoyed as I always do his letters.  Also received a letter from Muriel the other day.

The radio being stolen from the car is really a good one.  Some people and their dumbness just get the best of a person sometime.  We have the same type here.

Yes, there are a few people which answer my letter very soon upon receiving them and then I owe them again.  One of them is Jay.  He always writes a card and I always a letter but I am soon going to start to send cards to a few of them.  And I can just see and hear him telling the Bellmore about the flowers.

Your question about the German prisoners wearing shorts.  They wear them of their own accord I guess.  They all seem to have enough clothes. They even take off their sweaters and shirts in the cold morning when they go to work.  They are getting ready for a few more from the looks of things.  They are building more buildings etc.  The other day they had them up at Mrs. Tedesco’s mowing and cleaning up the yard.  Their clothes have the letters PW painted on each arm, leg; front and back.  They are all from Africa and they say that is warmer here than there.  Well they can have their Africa and this too.  As far as I am concerned.   

They  had another dog surgery today a (thyroidectomy) removal of the thyroid but the dog died.  They have been having rather bad luck recently with them.  They enjoy it so, let them play on it the Col’s idea.  When they aren’t doing that they are playing cards in the next tent.  I take papers in the Major for signature at the card table.  If I were an officer I would be ashamed to see an enlisted man see me at a table gambling.  It does not seem to phase them tho.  And on the bivouacs they roll dice.  Major Skinner was telling me what a joke the whole thing was the other day when I was up to see him.  Major Grubin is the same way about it.  The less they have to do with it the better off they feel.

There should have been some more pictures here for me today but they did not arrive.  They should be here tomorrow I am rather anxious about them.  You will either get the negatives for more or some of the pictures if these don’t turn out so good here.  They sometimes do awful work, here in San Antonio.  Cheap labour is the trouble here.

The evenings here are getting more cool and we have good use for the comforters that they issued us a few days ago.

It keeps me busy keeping kindling for the office and my tent.  I am alone in the tent at night.  The other two fellows go to town where their wives are.  And they come in early in the morning and wake me up building a fire and burning the kindling that they should use to start the fire with only.  Well good night.  Take care of yourself.  Always my love,

Your son