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

---

[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)

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

October 28, 1943

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

October 28, 1943

My dear Mother:

A whole week has gone since last I wrote you and I decided that since it was Saturday and the work is all done, anyway, as far as I am concerned for the week-end.  I spent the entire afternoon running around and working while everyone else got the afternoon off as usual on Saturday.

I received the box of cookies and candy today and I want to thank you for them.  From what I gather Muriel had something to do with it also. Thank her for me. And I shall have to write her very soon.

This morning we got up to a very cloudy and dismal looking atmosphere, but this afternoon it turned out quite nice and warm, and it was quite nice up on the post when I was riding around and everything was all the nice and new and bright colors of autumn, which of course is something new around here for a change.  The country around here is so very beautiful this time of year.  The other day we went out on a short one day excursion into the surrounding countryside where there are some very beautiful oaks and above all some very large and old Wild Pecan trees which are just beginning to shed the largest fruit of the year and we spent the largest part of our time out there hunting and knocking out of the trees, after which time we would sit down and crack and eat them and were they delicious and they certainly have a fresh and good flavor.  Those which have fallen on the ground are never any good for the squirrels or field mice and worms always get them first.

How have the Pea seed which I got for Dad doing or has he as yet planted any of them. They should be very good for this time of year.  Let me know how they are coming along.  Also how are the Cymbidiums coming along.  Did the new leaves ever come up where the one was broken out when I was home.

I suppose Richard Miner is really painting the town red while he is home. He very likely will spend very little time at home and they very likely see very little of him.

I was so glad upon receiving your Air Mail today to hear of how well Aunt Nina is getting along.  It would be awful for Uncle Bill to go real bad now along with the rest of the trouble that they have now.  I would really like to see them settle down and get a home of their own and take things easier.

Tomorrow I am planning on going to the post Chapel to hear some more organ music and a soloist of some kind which should be very good.

Have you as yet seen the pictures which were taken while out at Miss Mosher’s.  She said that she was going to send you some copies and I was just wondering.  They really turned out very good.

The other evening I did take time out to go to Mrs. Tedesco’s house and help them make some masks and mine turned out quite well.  Gladys is staying there with her now until she moves into her own home again.  You asked regarding Lt Tedesco’s grade.  He is a 1^st Lt and awaiting to become a Captain.  He is in the Chemical Warfare Service and is Chemical Officer for Tarran(?)t Field, at Fort Worth, Texas.

Yes, I received a very nice letter from Nelson and he writes quite nice letters.

Also while there she showed me the new additions to her set of silver (Sterling) which she recently got.  She now has a complete set for twelve and it is the “Chantilly” pattern which I think is very pretty.  Have you ever seen any of it?

Were the guavas (feijoa sellowiana) the same kind which I brought home from school a couple of times?  They always make very good jelly.

Well the news which I have has just about run out so will close for now and will write again very soon.

So good night for now.

As always,

Your son

Separate sheet inserted in the envelope:

Here is one of those separate sheets.  Your mentioning the letters of Florence.  As always she knows more than anyone else about someone else’s affairs and why she is told by her father is more than I can see.  He certainly puts up with a lot from his other two children.  And of course as you stated Marie and Leland buying an $8000 home.  Of course as you say they still have to keep up a front.  And I am beginning to think that he is just as bad as she is.

Maybe they can take care of Grandpa for awhile now and take him off your hands for awhile as well as some of their junk which you have had for years.  And when the git moved in you be sure and stop in for Sunday sinner a couple times and make sure you are very tired when dish washing time comes.

Of course she will very likely have to have a maid along with the rest of the things.  When they get through they will have quite an expensive affair out of it.  Well I could go on all night on this topic so will close.

What do you think of the Blue lining? 

October 10, 1943

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

October 10, 1943

My dear Mother:

It is raining outside today and it is beginning to dampen down the dust and wash the dust from the beginning to smell and look a little better.

Went into town yesterday and had dinner at a very nice cafeteria and after that went  to a show which I thought very good and you very likely will think the same when you see it.  “Johnnie Come Lately”[1] with James Cagney.

I have seen two shows in the past week, which is more than I had seen in the previous two months.  The other one I speak of is “The Constant Nymph”[2] (the one you had seen) which was very good.  Mrs. Tedesco and myself went to dinner at an Italia place here and after that we went t the show.  In all we had a very enjoyable evening and the dinner was very good even tho I did get some of it on my shirt, which I had just put on clean that evening.  Gladys was planning on going to dinner with us but we received the news that her house had burned down the night before so she called and said that she would be unable to come along.  Fortunately I had not as yet given her the little Redwood vase or it would have been gone and she said it would be something for her to start again with.

Enclosed you will find a money order for twenty dollars which will be part payment on what I owe you.  The balance will come later and my next check will be a little larger anyway.  I am sorry that I am so tardy in paying you.

I received a letter from Ray Coates a couple days ago.  He was home on furlough from the 1^st to 15^th September and is now stationed at Camp Mystic[3] which is about 15 miles from here and he has been asked to help organize the Special Service office there by the lead of Special Services in this area.

It may turn into something good for him.  It is a camp for convalescing patients.  We now have about 400 of them here at  FSH.  They are keeping them in some of the large barracks.

Also received a letter from Alvin Whitney now T/5 and he had also been home on a furlough.  He as always had a lot of interesting news and he is planning on coming down one of these week-ends.

Today I received a letter from Marshall and he is starting back to school now and he speaks as tho he were not too happy there because of the attitude of the people etc.

I certainly feel sorry for him in his present position.  He certainly wrote a nice long letter and as always in his style quite nice.  I am about the same as yourself when it comes to looking ahead I never plan on anything because if I do I am very apt to be quite disappointed.  And as every day goes by my patience become quite stronger and I live with the thought in mind of keeping busy and waiting.  I suppose that is why I work so hard here and why I am always on the run.  Yes, I can well understand what you mean that perhaps is another reason why I do not have to go to town and get drunk.  I keep myself busy all the time and don’t allow myself to become idle.  That is also a reason why my money goes so rapidly.

I wanted to more or less surprise you about the Sgt’cy and I did nothing other than put the return on Jay’s letter the same as yours.  It did not coma as a surprise to me tho, and I have earned it where a lot of them did not.  And I have been told that it is a shame that I can go no farther.

As for the OCS, I have just about given up hopes and the reason is that they are really having a shake-up in the schools and are changing things quite a bit.

So maybe it won’t ever come my way.  But when I give up hopes it will come.

Major Grubin here in P&T Office says now that Major Skinner can have the job when he gets back, and he will go on DS to the hospital to study, so maybe it won’t be so bad after all.  He is a pretty good person even tho he is a Jew.

The dog operations were just experimental and I did not exactly approve of the last two since it is giving the dogs a lot of pain and they are very slow to recover.

We are expecting to start wearing the wool about the fifteenth of October although nothing definite as yet.  The nights here have been quite cold and we have to wear a field jacket in the morning to keep warm.

This last week they took twelve men from us to use on a train of trucks going to San Francisco POC.  They will be used as guards and will have a layover of three or four days in California.  Of course I never get in on anything of that type.  Only Mexicans and the rest of the louts get that type of thing.

Well the afternoon draws on and I still have some work to do on some more lists and be glad to get them done for we have been working on them for three days.

John Langstadt is in Denver and he expects to be leaving soon.  I well have to write him also very soon or he will get away.

I am wondering if Dad had any luck deer hunting or if he came back empty handed.

How is Aunt Nina getting along.  Has she had her operation yet?

Well I close giving you all my love as ever,

Your son,

Stanley

---

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

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constant_Nymph_%281943_film%29

[3] Camp Mystic is a summer camp for girls on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River three miles southwest of Hunt in central Kerr County. It was established in 1926 by E. J. (Doc) Stewart, former head football coach at the University of Texas, who had founded Camp Stewart for boys in the same area two years earlier. Camp Mystic, known originally as Stewart's Camp for Girls, provided facilities for outdoor activities and instruction in roping, marksmanship, music, painting, and drama. In 1937 the camp was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Gilespie Stacy and in 1968 was owned by a group of investors that included Stacy family members. The camp has remained in continuous operation since its founding, except for the years 1943–45, when it was leased by the federal government as a convalescent camp for army air corps veterans of World War II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frank R. Gilliland, Kerrville, Texas: A Social and Economic History (M.A. thesis, Stephen F. Austin State College, 1951). Kerrville Daily Times, February 25, 1968.

Rebecca J. Herring, "CAMP MYSTIC," Handbook of Texas Online - http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/xvc01 -  accessed January 31, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

July 11, 1943

Cpl Stanley W Safford

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

July 11, 1943

My dear Mother

I am writing you today from the office when it is quiet and perhaps a little cooler than my tent.

Last evening I went into town to take some cleaning and laundry in also to eat in town for a change and just as I was going into (the) cleaners it started to sprinkle very large drops of rain and it was still doing such as I came out of the café but soon stopped and did not rain again until after I got home.  I came down to the office here and read a very little then went to bed but awoke this morning about seven o’clock to find it raining and blowing in quite hard so I got up and let the curtains of the tent down and returned to bed and slept until about eleven o’clock when I woke up, got dressed and ready for dinner.  After that I came down here and have written one letter to Esther.

Yes, I can well understand her story.  It is the same old in-law story.  Too bad that she can’t move out and live by themselves, but then who would stay with her mother?

What does the dark of the Moon have to do with the frogs being caught or not?

How has the weather been in LA recently? Thanks a lot for the suggestion of the OD.  I was going to bring a pair of them with me and I will, when I come, because August will be much cooler.  The temperature reached 110° here one day last week and 103° a couple other days and that starts out about eight o’clock and cools off about eight in the evening, if it were not for that we would not be able to sleep.

The cookies arrived here in very good condition and they were certainly very good, Just finished them a day or so ago.  Everything else of that type has always lasted and been in good condition upon its arrival here.

I would sure have liked to have been there to go out to Susanna to help pick apricots, for I always liked to do that.

You once asked about if we in the Medical corps ever carried guns.  We do only on some occasions in the actual battle area.  But we have never been trained with them here.  In fact I have never seen one even except at the pay table and he is always an MP which they borrow from the MP Battalion here on the post.

Well, I guess my OCS application is finally on its way.  It seemed to take it long enough to get away from this outfit and I am trying to study all kinds of things that they may ask me before the board which I hope will not call me for awhile because I want to study some more before going before them and as you know I want to go so badly.

Have you heard from the Prentice outfit as yet? Or do they think that you are going to forget it?

The news from the Sicilean battle front has certainly been very good and I certainly hope that it continues that way.  I think that Hitler is going to leave Italy to themselves more or less and withdraw into the Austrian Alps where he has a good stronghold.  I cut a nice large map of Sicily out of one the USG? Posters that they send out and it is really a good one to follow for it has all the names in large type on it.  They really turn out some good maps.

I was to Mrs Tedesco’s house the other evening with John Langstadt and Gladys Hitchcock and her sister were there.  She is the other lady in the picture that I sent home with the four of us in it if you remember. 

Mrs. Tedesco served sandwiches and a very nice buffet luncheon, it all made, also included were or was a very delicious salad and a punch made up of pineapple orange and grapefruit juice which was very good.  Her father you know, is a retired Colonel who used to be Flight Surgeon for the  United States  Air Forces with an office in Washington DC.  If he were still in now he would be a Major General which the man who he picked to succeed him is now.  He is quite a person, active and gets around quite a bit.  The reason for his breakdown (cause of retirement), the doctors told him, was overactiveness and overwork.  He spent several years in the Philippines’ and Hawaii.

Enclosed you will find he picture which you sent me some time ago of the family.  If you want me to have it you may put it away for me.  I am going to send some more home also at a later date.  Also I will send home some more old letters which you may put away for me.

It is about time that I sent you were wanting some more Mexican candy.  When I am up ton again I will, when I see some, send you a box of it since you like it.  I am quite fond of it myself.

They have gotten the new school building here at Dodd Field completed finally and the Sgt Ryan that I have spoken of is down there, while I remain up here in the office up to my neck in work. Capt Skinner told me that that down there would be my job, when the building was completed. But he won’t be back for five or six weeks yet and I understand that he may leave here yet with the other two that are thinking of going to Brentwood, Long Island with Col. Hill.  I would like to go if they go because it would give me a chance to see some more country as well as a change in jobs, but there is always OCS that I may work for and stand a chance of getting it. As you well know the demand for officers is much smaller now than it was previously so they are cutting down the quotas everywhere.

I took time out to go down to the new school building where Sgt Ryan is reading and he was telling me the great big news that everything is and how he can not get supplies and how the officers expect so much whenever they have a class and how impractical and unbearable they are, but he need not tell me about it because I deal with them all day.  And I get as tired of tem as I ever got of anything.  There is only about one or two of them that are real gentlemen here since Captain Skinner left.  The rest of them are a lot of people who never amounted to anything or were never anybody in civilian life and now they are made a captain or major and are really supposed to be somebody and they lose no time in telling you so either.

One of them asked me if I had any matches that he could use.  I told him no, that I did not and he came back with the remark that:”Your training has been sadly neglected.  You should always have matches for the officers.”  I told him since I didn’t smoke it was not necessary to carry them.

And you mentioned once that perhaps those got ratings who deserved them.  Well that works only about 1/3 of the time.  It works the same in the enlisted men as the officers.  Somebody who never was any good or never amounted to anything usually gets them and they are just the ones who should not be non-commissioned officers (according to the looks) I as well as a lot of others get disgusted with the whole affair.  There are others here who are corporals who have had nowhere near the training that I have had and then come out and tell you that they got theirs by working nowhere near as hard.  Or they ask you why you are not any higher in rank and some of the dopes that they expect you to work with.

There was a couple others here that were very much disappointed about the furloughs.  One was a driver who, they tell him they were going to let two drivers go on furlough at one time but they changed their minds the last minute and are only letting one go.  He is also moved up to August then the Jew Major that I have here tells me in one breath that it is alright with him that I go and in the next breath tells the lieutenant not to let me go.  The lieutenant told me that he would like to let me go only the major told him different. So here I remain until approx. the 15^th of August.  My furlough will be fifteen days when I do get it and then again in October I will be due another fifteen days, maybe. Well that is the way it goes in the army.

Well, my Dear Mother, I shall close now and will write again soon.  Don’t worry and take care of yourself.

Lots of love from your son,

Stanley