Carl Henry's second day on German soil.

This is the last day put online until some support funding is received.

Next year is the 70 years gone by!

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Mountain M-1945 Army Mummy Style

http://www.rubylane.com/item/167844-10779/Military-WWII-Down-Sleeping-Bag

Somewhere in Germany – Thursday, March 8, 1945 – 9:15 P.M.

Little Sweetheart: Back again to try to make your cross a little easier to bear, to say nothing of my own. You did so much to-day to make the day pleasant for me: [itemizes 5 letters received]... Babee, I don’t know what I am going to do about the German letter. I don’t know who to trust around here. Ah yes, I just remembered an enlisted man, age about 46, who I think is old and wise enough to be trusted with the mission of translating same without smiling too much at your endearing young words. I’ll corner him tomorrow....Babee, have you forgotten they I don’t know a word of German???....That was a happy thought of the folks to send me a candle, and I hope that you will be able to include a few in your next package. Also some ink, of which there is a great shortage over here....

Last night I tried out the new sleeping bag issued for officers, and I want to tell you that it is really a ‘honey’...It consists of the equivalent of a thick comforter, made of the best material, in the form of an absolutely triangular sack...Sleeping ‘rare’, one can be completely warm and comfortable...This bag must be a godsend to those in the foxholes, to whom it was issued several months ago. It is only now that the army is getting around to issuing such items to the rear echelon soldiers....You would be surprised to see into what a small sack the bag can be returned when one is not using same....So much for that subject.....Cap told me to-day that he is reading Freedom Road and enjoying it immensely...It is a story of the reconstruction...and Cap has been marveling at the courage of the writer...

[page 2] Darling, your V-mail letters are really magnificent- so distilled and utterly sincere and warm - just as if you were speaking to me. Other wives may write with the passion with which you do. But I wonder if any express themselves so beautifully....I enjoy more than you realize the bulletins which you supply in each letter on your physical condition....Honeybunch, there’s no use thinking of Len and Em together, for the boy has two or more years yet in the Pacific when all this is over. While the news looks more than good over here ( perhaps before this letter reaches you the war will be over ) nevertheless we are all uncertain as to what the future holds for us. Who will go to the Far East to fight, who will remain here to occupy, who will be extremely fortunate and few who will be demobilized; all these questions hang over us...clouding the bright perspective of immediate victory....I’m going to do everything legally possible to get in that bunch that’s either going home after this European chapter is finished or staying here to occupy Germany. And I suppose there are many, many others who feel as I do. ...

Darling, I had to smile with pleasure at your description of how you walked over to the park bench in Miami Beach, patted it, and told it what a good job we had made of our marriage....Another day, another day closer to that life, to the time we will always go to bed together, and each night will truly be a night of rest, and the night will be as sweet as the day, for you and I will be together – and whatever happens won’t hurt us ever as these days apart have...  We will think of all this, then nestle just a little closer, hug a little tighter, kiss a little warmer, love a little longer, sleep a little quieter, wake a little happier, step a little stronger, know a little better what the good things of life may be....”

Carl Henry writings are Copyright © Diana Mara Henry / dmh@dianamarahenry.com

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The originals are in the Carl Henry special collection at the Du Bois Library, U Mass Amherst.