This is the second page of a collection which consists of 115 letters written by Ellsberg to his wife, Lucy, from May 3, 1944-September 24, 1944. For index GO HERE.

Letter #55

July 29, 1944

Lucy darling:

Your letter #75 arrived today. I was very concerned to learn that you had had two accidents within a week, both serious. I hope it’s true there were no after effects and you are over them, but I was infuriated by your lack of sense in the second one – to be so damned concerned about bothering a doctor at 10 o’clock at night after having shears jabbed several inches into you, that you let it go till next day – that’s just too much! I thought you had learned a little about the possibility of wound infections – they are infinitely more serious than the average wound. Such a performance makes me gnash my teeth. There’s trouble enough nowadays without deliberately begging for more. I have an idea you once upbraided your mother about recklessness – it looks hereditary to me. In the earnest hope that you’ve learned a little from this, I’ll now drop the subject.

I trust Alice’s idea about getting gasoline enough to go to Southwest Harbor and back worked out all right. It would certainly be wonderful not to have to make numerous train changes, and to be able to take all your baggage (and Clara’s & Alice’s) with you. Considering how difficult train travel now is, I certainly think Clara is entitled to preference on rationing for medical reasons.

By the time you get this, that matter has been settled. Let us hope the Chevrolet is reposing in the foc’s’le and that you all had a pleasant and unhurried trip up in it, with a few gallons of gasoline still available for use on Mt. Desert.

I am not surprised to hear that Ned Benson is to go overseas again. It looks logical enough to me – he’s had field experience and he’s been home over six months. As regards the rest, while I don’t think promotion is a paramount issue, he’s far more likely to have a chance at promotion abroad now than at home, particularly if he has learned that reticence is a desirable military quality, especially in a junior officer.

With relation to casualties and the probabilities thereof, while I would not attempt to pass on the relative expendability of second lieutenants and generals, I should judge that in proportion to their numbers, more generals than second lieutenants have been killed in Normandy. I don’t believe any undue worry is in order there. As regards future wars, all I know about them is that we’ll not prevent them by losing this one or letting it end in a stalemate. For myself, when we’ve flattened out Hitler, that will be sufficient unto this day; if any more dictators have to be taken care of tomorrow, we’ll do that tomorrow. But a lot of the shine is going to be removed from the divinely appointed Fuehrers, Duces, and other would be Caesars after Hitler joins Mussolini as a synonym for contemptuous derision.

I am not concerned about a war with Russia in twenty-five years from now or ever. There won’t be any. Our danger from Russia lay (and lies) in our internal sapheads, of whom Professor Counts was once a good example, of whom the deluded disciples of Harold Laski still are. I think the danger is less than it was, and will be still less after this war is over (because enough people have seen too much of the government running everything to want voluntarily to extend bureaucracy).

It’s natural enough for Ned Benson to want more rank if he goes overseas again, and I think he’s certainly entitled to it on the basis of comparative experience; however, all he can do is go and get it. It will be best for him.

Let’s hope this matter is settled soon (as under present circumstances it may well be). If Ned has to go over, I hope Mary at least will get a chance to go to Southwest Harbor and stay there a while before you come home. And if Ned’s coming to this area let me know as soon as possible.

We had about half a dozen bombs in a salvo about midnight last night, with one glowing beautifully as I watched it on a straight line for my domicile, the exhaust looking like a comet. However, it started to dip before it arrived, so I watched it all the way down, glowing like a ball of fire till it exploded about half a mile short of here. No need to duck.

On the whole, not nearly as many come through as a couple of weeks ago. It will be interesting to see how the July casualty figures compare with the same period in June.

With love, Ned

Letter #56

July 30, 1944

Lucy dearest:

Matters have eased off here and we don’t work Sundays any more, though I go to the office in the morning briefly anyway to see if there is any mail, and to put my own letters (they can be mailed no where else). This morning there was no mail from you.

It has been a fair day here, so-so in Normandy. I hope the weather stays clear on the far shore a few days, for the British started moving today and for our own advance towards Granville and Avranches a few days in which the air support could keep on working would be a great help.

Except for the flying bombs, life in London is rather dull. Most of the theaters, which were doing a rushing business up to D-day, have closed up. The reasons – a lot of their military customers moved to the far shore, English civilians suddenly lost interest after D-day, and finally the flying bombs were the last straw to dwindling audiences. The Lunts, however, are still doing the provinces in "There Shall Be No Night," with the scene transposed from Finland to Greece (and I imagine the propaganda radio speech transferred from America to England).

We still usually get a salvo of about half a dozen flying bombs each night and something about the same around midday. Very few otherwise. It’s amazing how much surrounding glass gets smashed when one goes off. Poor St. George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner had all its windows taken out by a nearby bomb not long ago. They got all of them nicely covered with cellophane as a substitute, when a few days ago another bomb landing almost on the same spot as the first, took out all the cellophane. Now they are working on those windows for the third time.

If General Bradley’s army keeps up its advance, I don’t think it will be long before I may be moving over to the far shore again myself for a while.

With love, Ned

Letter #57

July 31, 1944

Lucy darling:

Dull day, no letters.

I just turned on my radio as I started to write this, tuned in Cologne to get the usual evening fairy tale, and got, of all things, "La Paloma!"

No bombs today at all, and none to speak of last night. However according to the Nazi evening statement, we have been subjected to a heavy and uninterrupted attack by V-1 all day. It looks as if Goebbels has developed the perfect secret weapon at last – so secret the victims don’t even know it’s in action.

We are still having so-so weather. I wore an overcoat both yesterday and today. On this subject, I enclose an editorial from today’s London Times.

By the way, lest you wouldn’t believe it, I enclose also the front page of today’s London Times to show you the screaming headlines with which that paper covers the war. (Ed: the front page is all personal ads) I suppose even on Resurrection Day the personal ads will still get the best space on the front page.

Things look fairly promising in Normandy, as well as in Italy, Russia, and in the air judging by all the emphasis being put by all of Goebbels’ commentators on the terrible new secret weapons shortly to win the war for the Fuehrer, I am inclined to believe Germany is in a bad way. It is really amusing to watch Germany spend ten years building up an arsenal of weapons before she dares to attack, and then imagining that when she’s failed, she can in the last ten minutes pull the proper weapons out of a hat.

I have an invitation to dinner Wednesday evening (Aug 2) with Sir Ernest and Lady Gowers.

I’ve been getting so Anglicized myself that I begin to yearn for tea (not at tea time) in the long summer evenings. So I bought myself a quarter of a pound of tea (on my ration books), wangled some sugar from the commissary (couldn’t buy that) and was all set except for the means of making the tea in my hotel room. There I was up against it, since I have no gas jet, could neither buy a Sterno nor an alcohol lamp, nor an electric grill. I finally solved it by turning my flatiron upside down and used that for an electric stove. It works, although somewhat slowly. As a result, I’m using up some of that Devonsheer toast from Altman’s along with my tea. The next war I go to, I’m going to take one of those immersion heaters along with me.

I suppose by the time you get this, you may know whether Ned Benson (Ed: Benson is the father of Ted Pollard) is going overseas and where. If you know, don’t be too secretive, be specific, in letting me know to what area and unit he is bound. Of course his exact sailing date is confidential, and I don’t care to know that, but I would like to know when Mary is likely to go to Southwest Harbor and how long you are likely to stay there. I’ll want to know that, together with the approximate delivery interval for letters from here, so I’ll know when to change the address back to Westfield. If Mrs. Hale (of Boston) should be in Mt. Desert, please give her my regards. I look back with pleasure at the memory of the visits we had with her and her husband.

I trust you can either get gasoline enough or find some other transportation to tea and popovers at Jordan Pond. You can tell the manageress there for me I’d gladly trade a couple of English beaches and throw in the Houses of Parliament to boot for their tea and popovers in place of the best tea yet I’ve seen in England.

Be a little careful and avoid useless accidents. And don’t forget that American statistics show that the home is far more dangerous than the battlefield. Give a little thought to what you’re doing before you do it.

With love, Ned

Letter #58

August 1, 1944

Lucy darling:

No letters today either. I guess this air delivery has its drawbacks – it’s fast once it’s started, but the starting is so uncertain.

Today I presume you are on your way to Maine, in the Chevrolet, I hope. Since your last letter was #75 of July 22, I have no very late statement of your intentions.

I’m still taking it easy here, waiting for the Army to acquire some more real estate with riparian rights on the far shore. It probably won’t be long now. And now that it is August, possibly we’ll get better weather. The sun shined this afternoon, so I took a walk about 7 PM (really 5 PM if you discount the double summer time) past Buckingham Palace where I got the most elaborate rifle salute from the sentry that I’ve ever seen. After that, round about the Victoria Memorial, which, far from being Victorian, each time I see it, I am more impressed by its beauty and its stateliness. (By the way, Buckingham Palace hasn’t got a window left in it – nothing but cellophane and celotex to replace the broken glass). And after that, I sat a while in St. James’ Park. Honestly, I could imagine I was back in Prospect Park of long ago, Mary’s “running and racing” park with the “big kitty” and all. There were the children romping all over the grass, playing leap-frog; the ducks and ducklings begging as usual for crumbs and children feeding them; elderly ladies and gentlemen (I suppose I qualified as one of the latter) seated on the benches basking in the sun (not so hot for a decent job of basking); and the lover and his lass (usually both in uniform) strolling down the paths or reclining quite sedately (for after all, this is London) on the grass. A more peaceful scene you never saw. {“From the Fuehrer’s Headquarters, the German High Command announces, “A heavy retaliatory fire from V-1 was uninterruptedly directed all day on London”}

With love, Ned

Letter #59

August 2, 1944

Lucy darling:

I mentioned previously that after receiving your #75 about four days ago, no more had come through. Today, by one of the mail freaks, I began to receive letters in reverse order. Lying on my desk when I arrived this morning were two letters, your #81 and 82 of July 27 and July 28 (both numbered 81, however). About noon, your #80 of July 26 was delivered, and about 3 PM, your #79 of July 25 was placed on my desk. However, 76, 77, and 78 have not yet arrived. I imagine there was a plane departure delay on your end of some days, and that the mail bags on the bottom of the heap, holding the earliest letters, didn’t get aboard when it finally took off. It is interesting to note that the last letter of that lot (#82) was delivered here 4½ days from its Westfield postmark of 3:30 PM July 28. All on a 3 cent stamp!

At the present moment there are missing only the letters previously mentioned in numerous letters before as being missing, #12, and about five or six others being 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45,& 46 (exactly), all of which went to France in late June or early July. No letters other than these are missing, whether their receipt has ever been specifically mentioned or not, all the way up to #82, except 76, 77, and 78 mentioned just above.

There also arrived today a package of cookies which you previously mentioned having sent from Altman’s. Showing the vagaries of the postal service, this package, which is postmarked identically as was the other Altman’s parcel post package, arrived nearly a week after it. The cookies arrived in good condition, and will serve nicely as tea biscuits. They are way ahead of the stuff in the Altman’s overseas package, only it isn’t worth bothering to send either one.

I’m sorry to hear you had another accident, the one to your left little toe. That seems a peculiar way to break a toe.  The whole works goes to show what I mentioned a letter or two back – that the home is infinitely more dangerous than any battlefield. I may add here that bathtubs are the most dangerous things in any home. I believe the old idea of taking a bath only once annually to be safest.

This inconvenience in getting about on your feet complicates the automobile situation for Southwest Harbor, in view of the statement that Clara couldn’t get any gas from Springfield up. I hope some way or another you were able to get gasoline for a round trip, but frankly I don’t see how, since it takes about 30 gallons each way. However, if you are able to do it, don’t bother to try to explain how.

You have probably noticed an increase in the speed of movement in Normandy. You mention in your #82 that the N.Y. Times carries a story (July 28) of a real breakthrough in Normandy. The Stars and Stripes by a coincidence, quotes a dispatch (clipping enclosed - Ed: “Patton Leading Drive?”), which couldn’t possibly have been the reason. I mentioned some weeks ago what would happen when a certain ungentlemanly character got to France and started to be rude to the Nazis. This is the man whom all the do-gooders in the U.S. who think that battles are won by perfect gentlemen who always treat everyone kindly, were trying to have cashiered because he slapped a few shell-shocked (?) privates. Wouldn’t it be startling if it should turn out that he was the one general who was able to tear the Nazi line to pieces in a hurry, and thus save the lives of thousands of privates who would otherwise be killed in a slow battle of attrition? Of course that wouldn’t make any difference to Drew Pearson or John Hersey, to whom muckraking means money in their pockets, but it may well earn the thanks of considerable numbers of parents, wives, and sweethearts who may consider the lives of their men of somewhat more importance than a few slaps, deserved or undeserved. Just observe what happens in the next few days from now.

I was startled at your news that Mr. Beard had married! And to a woman never married before either! How old is the lady?

With love, Ned

Letter #60

August 3, 1944

Your #83 arrived this morning. #76, 77 and 78 are still missing in addition to all the other letters previously reported missing.

It is pleasing to note that the western flank in Normandy has been torn all to pieces and the army has moved into Brittany, where I believe movement will be even more rapid. Keep your eye on this area.

I am afraid we are approaching another period of very erratic mail deliveries both ways. Today I got notice to stand by for another trip to the far shore on short notice. How soon I’ll actually move I don’t know, and whether this one is to be only for a preliminary survey of conditions or a more permanent assignment to work on them, I don’t know either yet, and may not even know when I depart. So I’ll have to leave most of my belongings here as well as having all the mail kept right here also and not forwarded, until I know definitely whether I stay in one new spot, or come back here again in between.

Of course whether I move tomorrow or not for a week yet depends on what happens across the water. I shall continue to write from where I am or am going, but I know the deliveries from there for a while are going to be uncertain, highly erratic and irregular, and often considerably delayed. The one thing you can be certain of is that bad news travels fast; they have a really fine system of reporting casualties; so don’t get worried just because several days or even weeks may go by without any letters – all it means is that the mail service is snafu – in other words, back to its normal situation. The only interpretation you can put on any lack of news for a while (should that eventuate) is that I am still perfectly all right.

I had dinner last evening with Sir Ernest and Lady Gowers, quite a pleasant time and we sat around and talked afterwards till about 10:30 PM, which is terribly late for London nowadays. Among other things, I learned they have a grandson at Rugby, who at 14 is a red hot communist – the usual story, one of his instructors. They received my sympathy, and the hope that he would outgrow it. However, with all the Laskis who are allowed to run wild in our educational system, I am beginning to think that parents had better learn to keep their eyes open. Considering all the adult and supposedly intelligent people who fall for this bunk, I do not suppose unsophisticated children can be blamed for swallowing it at the hands of a respected instructor if their parents do nothing to counteract the poison.

There was some discussion also about Nina, and her problems, which concerned Lady Gowers considerably, but I could offer no constructive solution.

I invited them to have dinner with me at the Senior Officers’ Club this Friday evening, but they couldn’t since they were going for a weekend to the country, so I made it for next week, provided I was still here. After today’s information, my chances of being here for a dinner engagement next week do not look too good. I may be peering instead at a freshly decorated harbor.

I had a letter from Howard Lewis today, in which he mentions your query about Captain Paul vs. On the Bottom in the Armed Services Editions. He says he expects Captain Paul “is not yet definitely scheduled but will probably come along in the early fall.” This covers that matter fully. I’ve also answered his letter.

I am enclosing Churchill’s speech of yesterday as reported in full in the Times. (You may not get it fully in the U.S.). I enclose also a separate clipping referring to the “harbours,” on which I worked before and after D-day. (Ed: this was the first public disclosure of the Mulberry project). These were the unforeseen things that knocked all Rommel’s calculations into a cocked hat and spoiled his expectations of easily pushing our “ill-supplied” armies into the sea. To his dismay, because of these “harbours” from D-day on, our armies were always better supplied than his were.

With love, Ned

P.S. I first crossed the Channel aboard one of the sections of these breakwaters.

Letter #61

August 4, 1944

Lucy darling:

Your #84 arrived this morning. 76, 77 and 78 are still missing. I don’t know whether by mischance that group got put on a boat or what happened to them. In addition, all the letters previously missing are still missing. I would appreciate it if you would occasionally send me a list of my missing letters, or if none are missing, state so affirmatively.

I am glad to see that you are driving to Southwest Harbor. I hope you will have gasoline to get the car back to Westfield, but if it should happen that you haven't or not enough to get all the way back, in either case don’t leave the car in Southwest Harbor. Drive it back as far as your gasoline will take you and then leave it in the nearest reliable city garage to await developments later, while you take the train the rest of the way. I rather imagine when I get home I’ll be able to get the car the remainder of the way to Westfield, but I wouldn’t want to have to go all the way to Southwest Harbor to pick it up.

I’m sorry to hear that Clara and Alice think they had better vote for a perpetual president because they doubt Dewey and Bricker are all they should like. For myself, I have no fears that democracy in the United States will ever collapse because we have (to go the limit that way) even a nincompoop in the White House, but it is no more immune than any other country in the world’s history from Caesarism, the cult of the indispensable man. God knows that over the rest of our lives the world and this country are both going to be confronted with major problems. Are we therefore to swallow Franklin Roosevelt every four years from henceforward on the grounds that no one else is so capable of handling America’s problems? I should hate to think that an America so flabby that it depends only on one man is the America I am fighting to preserve, for how then can it be saved unless that man lives forever to guide it? I enclose a clipping from today’s Stars and Stripes bearing on this issue.

I’m still around my old haunts. I took a walk this evening around Trafalgar Square and strolled by Norway House to look in the window through which we watched the coronation procession. After that up through Piccadilly Circus, down through Haymarket, and back to Whitehall to admire Big Ben’s tower. It is magnificent. However, there is not much pleasure in viewing these things all by myself, and I rarely go sightseeing.

You didn’t mention at all whether after you left Westfield you locked the house up and Mary and Ned were going to stay with the Bensons (Ed: Ned Benson’s parents lived directly across the street), or whether it was left open for them or what.

I note the last letter you say you received before leaving Westfield was #47. You have never acknowledged 40, 41, 42, 43, and 45, but of course you may have done so in your 76, 77, or 78 which I haven’t got (and may never get). That’s why I’d like to have a missing list occasionally.

My #50 is the first letter addressed directly to Southwest Harbor. I presume 48 and 49 will be forwarded from Westfield.

Matters seem rather wide open on the Brittany peninsula as no doubt you’ve read. I don’t believe the Germans will be able to hold on to anything in Brittany very long. And I think also that from now on the battle is going to be to a great extent a battle of movement. Not again is Rommel going to get enough men on the western front to man a heavily defended continuous front. His troubles are now about to start in earnest. If he isn’t dead, he’ll soon wish he were.

By the way, if the Man From Mars were to listen to the German broadcasts of the situation east, west and south, he would think this was 1940 or 1941, with the triumphant Germans sweeping all before them. The only sour notes are the names of the places where the Germans are hurling their enemies back with heavy losses – Warsaw, Rennes, Florence, but of course that would mean nothing to the Man From Mars. I wonder if those names mean anything to the average German.

With love, Ned

Letter #62

August 5, 1944

Lucy darling:

Your letter #85 and your card, #86, both of July 31, arrived this morning, with the enclosed “News of the Week” of July 30. On Saturday morning to read last Sunday’s Times and really get such a fresh review of the world’s doings, seems almost like getting the paper on the doorstep.

Things are moving on the Western front. Both the chairman of the Senate Military Committee, Senator May, and Field-Marshal Kluge, the German top commander, seem to be agreed that General Patton has been released in that area. What’s going on bears all the earmarks of Patton’s notoriously brutal and barbarous character; he’s tearing the enemy to pieces. Drew Pearson and John Hersey should immediately see to it that if Patton is by any chance actually back in command, that he is immediately withdrawn before some poor private gets his face slapped. Meanwhile, we should give Brittany back to the Germans and then retake it in a slower and more gentlemanly manner with the loss of thousands of extra lives of American soldiers, but with no faces slapped, no fictitious mules shot, nor any fictitious antique tables cut up by a barbarian general.

The battle against the flying bombs seems to be going well also. A few a day and night are all we get now – sometimes all day without a single bomb or alert. That means I think that more and more of them are being knocked down on their way, which may cause damage in southern England, but not so much here. However, things are enough better to allow the flying bomb to serve as an excuse for a resumption of summer weekends – this weekend is one of those Bank Holiday affairs which I’ll never understand – that is, Monday is a Bank Holiday. So the exodus (for civilians, that is) started yesterday, and damned little will be done in any British office until Tuesday. It’s lucky every country likely to attack Britain is already at war, or they’d surely take the opportunity to jump on her this weekend. (But since Pearl Harbor, far be it from us to think we’re any better). But except that it’s a change, why anyone should feel compelled to leave London, I can’t see. This morning I wore a topcoat; this afternoon I was comfortable in my heaviest blue uniform.

Meanwhile things are looking up for us. If Hitler only shoots enough generals, he may solve the problem of the elimination of the Prussianized General Staff and all we’ll have to do will be to liquidate Hitler and the remaining Nazis. And I use the word liquidate advisedly – they must be executed. If they manage to flee to a neutral state, such as Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland or Argentine, which refuses to give them up, then I see no out but war on that state to seize them by force. If these scoundrels don’t pay for their crimes, we’re simply inviting other embryo dictators to attempt to repeat. Sweden and Switzerland, I think will have more common sense than to give them asylum; Ireland and Argentine I’m very dubious of. George Bernard Shaw expects Hitler to finish his days in luxury in the Vice-Regal Lodge in Dublin. And I don’t think he thinks he’s being facetious about it, either.

I had a letter from Mary today, also written apparently from July 29 to 31. In it she refers to a letter she wrote me previously which I haven’t received. It must have been about the same time your 76, 77 and 78 didn’t get here. Refers to Ned’s going overseas.

I judge from the letter I did get (it may have been made clear in your missing letters) that Mary and Ned are staying in our house, as she mentions that the Benson’s are going to Westerly on the 30^th. Now I don’t know where to write to Mary. She says nothing about where to write her, and it looks as if whether I write to Fort. Meade or 714 Hanford Place (Ed: the Ellsberg’s house in Westfield), allowing for 8 days in transmission, I have no assurance she’ll be in either place. I’ll take a chance on Fort Meade. I judge from your letters they go back there Aug. 6 and will be there till August 10 or after, which may mean anything up till Christmas if I know the military procedure. Mary’s letter carries no enlightenment as to where Ned’s going, his future address, or anything. Know yourself? If so, pass along the knowledge.

Midnight

Hooray! The midnight news radio broadcast carries the news that Patton’s men have carried through a remarkable blitzkreig in the Brittany area – they are in the outskirts of Brest, on the Loire at the south, near Mayenne in the east, and streaming all over the peninsula, with Brittany severed from the rest of France! The way they’ve spread from Rennes has been miraculous – a hundred miles from there to Brest in hardly over a day.

The best of all is that the Nazis probably don’t have a left flank to their armies any more and can never form a front that we can’t outflank and roll up from the west or the south.

The air raid siren. First time I’ve heard it today. Since it’s after midnight, I guess it’s time to turn in.

With love, Ned

P.S. About four bombs at 4 AM, none very near.

P.P.S. I’m putting an airmail stamp on this; not to assist it across the Atlantic (which it can’t) but in the hope that in the U.S. it may secure quicker service between New York and Mt. Desert.

You might try it out while you are up there.

Letter #63

August 6, 1944

Lucy darling:

Sunday, nothing much to do. I went to the office to see if any mail had come in, but there being nothing, I left to sit in Hyde Park and read the Sunday paper. Our daily quota of flying bombs came over while I was on the park bench, some five of them at varying distances. That ended that business for the day.

I think I have this letter properly numbered as #62. If it isn’t, then there won’t be any #61. (Ed: Ellsberg had the numbering system off for quite a while).

After lunch I came home to finish up the week’s laundry. I had quite a field day yesterday on shirts, underwear and collars. Today I finished up on handkerchiefs and socks.

I took a brief walk after that. London abounds in squares, tucked away every few blocks – about as if every quarter mile you had a Gramercy Park tucked away. Of them all now, however, Berkeley Square looks least attractive. Somehow I expected more of Berkeley Square though I never saw the play, picture or whatever it was, but it just doesn’t have the appeal of most of them.

I came back to finish a book (got it from the Red Cross library) called “Torpedo Junction” by Robert J. Casey. Must be a couple of years old. Got a little start when towards the end, I saw the following:

                “May 3 (1942) Sunday – At Sea. Hot. I was headachy when I got up

and I still am. In spite of that I spent the day finishing Woodward’s “New American History” and starting Ellsberg’s ‘Captain Paul’”

That’s all there, but a few days later:

                “May 7, Thursday – I finished ‘Captain Paul’ today and was greatly

reassured. The nation that let fuzz-witted incompetence, pettiness, pride,

jealousy, nepotism, vanity, political expediency and two-bit dishonesty

do their best to wreck the first American Navy has somehow survived.

With a few alterations it is still working in the same old way although

there are reports that this is a different war.”

I’m glad I had a hand in reassuring Mr. Casey at a particularly gloomy period when the Navy and the country in May 1942 were still facing a tough outlook. You might ask Lute where this chap (he represents the Chicago Daily News) is now.

The war news goes from good to better. Somehow the Berlin announcers sounded a little less self-assured as they told the world today of the “huge losses” with which as usual they had repelled all attacks.

With love, Ned

P.S. 11 PM A flying bomb just went off with a hell of a bang not so far off.

Letter #64

August 7, 1944

Lucy darling:

This is August Bank Holiday, and most of London has gone somewhere else – the seashore apparently, for many of the beaches have been opened to visitors for the first time since 1940. It is also a pleasant summer day; in fact August has been more nearly an approach to mild weather than anything yet. That’s having an effect across the channel.

Negligible bombs today. I saw one pass overhead about 7:30 this morning (my eleventh) but that was the only one seen or heard today. I think between better weather and more experience, most of them are getting knocked down long before arrival. Goebbels had better hurry with V-2, or his new show will never have a chance to open. But even if it does, nothing that can be done in strafing London will have any effect any more either in the outcome of the war or its length.

However, Goebbels is still fighting valiantly and skillfully on the propaganda front. There is no doubt that the present troubles of the Polish Gov’t in Exile (London) with Stalin are due to Goebbels. A year or so back, he issued a story that the Germans had discovered at Katyn the mass grave of thousands of Poles massacred by the Russians some time in 1941. The Polish Exiled Gov’t (London) fell for it and demanded an investigation, implying they believed Russian guilt. That was the parting of the ways between them and Joe Stalin.

Having poured the poison in the right spot and caused the break, you should hear how Goebbels plays up Stalin’s recognition of a different committee as the government of Poland. He uses it to ruffle Polish feelings; to show how Stalin flouts Britain and the U.S.; and for plenty more.

Goebbels runs a regular radio feature – “The Have-It-Out Club.” This consists of a discussion (in England) between two English gentlemen and an English lady, all authentically English by their voices, of various questions. It’s marvelously done, to finish in each case with the conclusion that England is being done by America, by Russia, or by Churchill, and by the conclusion that Hitler and Germany really are the champions of right and that the English are being taken in. Don’t laugh – not since Iago used “trifles light as air” to lead Othello to his doom, has such a brilliant use been made of things which touch English life most deeply, to convince Englishmen that their allies are their enemies and to bring about the same result as in Othello’s case.

I tell you that if the British were as unsophisticated as the Poles proved in the face of Goebbel’s wiles, the United Nations would fall apart tonight. And I honestly think that in the desperate state in which the Nazis find themselves now, they are grasping at dissention among the Allies more than at secret weapons, as being their last hope.

No letter from you today. The last received were your #85 and 86 of July 31, the day before you left Springfield. Whether (as I suppose) you had no chance to write next day or got so far north as to run into the poor delivery zone, I don’t know yet.

You never have mentioned what arrangements (if any) you had been able to make for any help at The Anchorage. Something, I hope, which will give you some chance to rest yourself.

Missing letters to date are 12, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 76, 77, and 78.

With love, Ned

Letter #65

Aug. 8, 1944

Tuesday

Lucy darling:

Nothing from you today. I did receive a letter from Harry sent from Detroit June 26, which must have arrived here about the same time as your missing 38 to 46, that is, about July 2. After traveling redirected through two different navy numbers on the far shore, it was redirected back to Navy 100 and I got it today, after something over a month’s wandering. It may be that your 38 to 46 may therefore be expected shortly. I have started several traces after my missing laundry, which may seriously incommode me if I don’t get back my khaki uniforms.

The mail delivery between the U.S. and here is marvelous both ways. But once the mail has to start across to the far shore, it reminds me of the ox cart days on the Great Plains before the pony express got going. That’s amazing, because everything except the mail gets speedy dispatch almost every few minutes.

Life in London is getting very dull. There was not a single alert all day (or night) and I neither saw nor heard any bombs. Nevertheless Berlin assures me that a heavy attack is kept up continuously and further accuses the British ministry of outright falsehood in stating that effective counter measures are in service and that the Ministry is satisfied. They ask sarcastically if the people of London are as satisfied as the Ministry. If they are not, they should be. I enclose a clipping commenting on the next weapon (somewhat flippantly).

Another clipping from today’s paper is a picture of Major General Gale to whom long ago I promised a copy of Hell on Ice, which I’m beginning to think I’ll get for him when hell freezes over.

The third clipping makes me laugh. The Germans are stupider than I thought they were. Why, after we have a huge hole in their Channel defenses through which we could bring ten million men if we so wished, we should care about the remaining defenses, I can’t see. But if the Germans are wasting men, materials and guns piling up defenses along the Channel coast instead of before Paris, it certainly should be all right with us. I should have thought that if the poor dumb bells hadn’t learned from the Maginot Line the value of “unsurpassable barriers,” they would have learned on D-day, but apparently not. They are self hypnotized by their bellowing about “Festung Europa.” On top of all its other shortcomings as a fortress, it seems to have developed a lot of weak-kneed sisters among its defenders. I have a hunch that like the walls of Jericho, those of Festung Europa are shortly going to crash at the blast of a ram’s horn.

With love, Ned

PS 11 PM. The sirens are just starting to wail for the first alert today. Later. No bombs.

Letter #66

Aug. 9, 1944

Lucy darling:

Today your letters 77 and 78 showed up, but 76 didn’t. Nothing from you though since July 31 (#85 & 86) just before you left Springfield. I can imagine why not, however.

I received also a V-mail from Charles Kandel.

The weather has been better so far this month. While it’s cool every morning, by mid-afternoon it gets warm enough so that a heavy blue uniform is just a little on the not wholly comfortable side. No rain. All of which has been a great help to us since we broke through at St. Lo. Can you remember back to July 27?

It’s all quiet along the London front. Not a bomb, and only one alert now for two whole days in London. Berlin asserts this evening a heavy continuous V-1 attack on London. It adds that no effective defensive means has been found. That being the case, it is certainly remarkable how well the ineffective defensive means are doing.

I examined the group photograph you sent in #77 through a magnifying glass. I agree it is a good group – I thought both you and Mary looked lovely, and I particularly admired your hair. I also scanned you for battle-scars, but you hadn’t yet broken your toe and the other honorable wounds didn’t show. On first glance, it also looked as if you were wearing a decoration pendant from your neck between your breasts and I examined that more closely to see if it weren’t the Purple Heart, but it weren’t.

Meanwhile the battle in France goes better than any expectations. Our secret weapon (a general whose name is a deep secret) is running wild in central France and Brittany, and along the Caen front the Germans can neither hold nor get away safely. Rommel will still regret that he was ever damned fool enough to stand and fight so close to our bases and so far from his. I suppose von Rundstadt is saying (but not out loud) “I told you so.” By the time von Kluge and Rommel get away from the Orne, they won’t have any more remnants of a mechanized army than Napoleon had of the Grand Army when he emerged from his Russian campaign.

And meanwhile Hitler is worried to death over where the next amphibious operation is going to smack him. The “war of nerves” has come home to roost with a vengeance.

With love, Ned

PS Your 87 & 88 just arrived this morning as I mail this. I haven’t read them yet.

Letter #67

August 10, 1944

Lucy darling:

It was a pleasure when I came into the office this morning to find there your first two letters since you left Springfield, #87 and 88. And also one from Mary of Aug. 5.

I am glad you had a leisurely and pleasing trip, even with a flat tire en route. After all, what’s a flat tire except a minor annoyance, when you don’t have to take the tire apart on the road and patch it? But it does pay now to travel only the main highways on long journeys, so that help is reasonably available. (And usually they are also the shortest and the smoothest, which saves gas). How much gas did you use from Westfield to Southwest?

About your question on a revised estimate of income tax, none has to be made on Sept. 15. It can go till Dec. 15. Actually, the fact that General Foods reduced its dividend won’t make much difference. And I included very little from Craftsweld in the estimate, though more I think than you’ll get.

You have made no mention of whether you were able to get Mrs. Rice, or anyone in her place, to lend you a hand with the housekeeping. I earnestly hope you were able to get help, so that your visit doesn’t turn into just housekeeping under more difficult conditions. What I should like is that you as well as your guests should all have a lazy time just looking at the sea, the mountains, the rocks, and the pines, with broiled lobsters, steamed clams, popovers and marmalade, and blueberry pies filling in the gaps between looks.

For myself, I dream about the time when again I can sit on our porch at breakfast and look over the harbor towards Cadillac (Ed: a mountain), or heave the dingy in with the outhaul, or go pounding closehauled into the wind outside Baker Island with all Mount Desert spread gorgeously out in front of me over the waves. Of course that isn’t everything I dream about, but it will give you an idea.

What shape did you find The Anchorage in? And how about Southwest Harbor as a whole? Were many cottages open? Who was there we know?

Mary’s letter did not give me any information that was new. Since it was written the day before their return to Meade, presumably she had none. Did they drive their own car up from Meade this time? If not, then whose car did they use on leave? And if Ned goes overseas, do you know whether they intend to keep that car or to sell it? I can’t remember whether the Benson’s have a two car garage, but I think not. While I can’t imagine Mary having any pressing need for a car if Ned goes away, still if there are no extra costs for a garage, it might pay them to keep the car at least the rest of this year while their license and insurance is paid. I have an idea that car will increase in value as soon as the war is over and gasoline rationing eases up, for there won’t be any new cars very soon and its principal drawback, gas consumption, won’t be so important.

As a matter of interest, your letter from Portland was postmarked Aug. 1, 11 PM. Your letter from Southwest, written Aug. 2, was postmarked Aug. 3, 5 PM. Both got here by 9 AM Aug. 10. Mary’s letter postmarked Westfield Aug. 5, 5:30 PM arrived the same time.

I judge it takes a Maine letter two days to come down to N.Y., presumably the same time to go up. I have put air mail stamps on the last five letters to see whether that helps any in the U.S. However, my #51 which was mailed here on the morning of July 27 was delivered on Aug. 2, six days later, which is fine.

I went this morning with a Captain Pickering here to see a preview of “The Story of Dr. Wassell.” This is such a mixture of fact and romance that it has me puzzled. Have you seen it? It happens to be the first movie I’ve seen in London.

Captain Pickering (if I haven’t mentioned this before) was j. g. and my turret officer on the Texas when I was junior officer as an ensign. He left the regular service in the early 1920’s and has had a factory of his own in Ansonia, Conn., since, though he’s been in the Reserve all the time too. He told me a week or so ago he had heard from his wife, to whom he had written about meeting me again here, that she had said we were friends of Rose Bristol Morgan, whom the Pickerings know very well. Pickering said he knew Bristol before he married Rose, who was then really quite slender and ravishing (can you believe it?) and that he felt the Bristol’s troubles were due to a lack of responsible balance in Bristol.

I found making tea on an upside down electric flat iron, too slow a process. Electric stoves are slow any way and flat irons are worse. I got myself a small bedside lamp (intended for blackouts) and with alcohol instead of oil in it, it is doing a fair job in boiling me water for a cup of tea.

Today again was free of both bombs and alerts, except for one alert this evening during dinner, and then there were no explosions within hearing, at any rate.

With love, Ned

Letter #68

Aug. 11, 1944

Friday

Lucy darling:

No letter today. The last received was #88. The missing list is 12, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46 and 76.

The weather continues good.

I discovered the other day that the English-Speaking Union has its headquarters practically right across the street (on Charles Street near Berkeley Square) from the Red Cross Club where I usually get my lunch. I dropped in to examine it. The Union has quite a building, “Dartmouth House,” with several fine reception rooms, a library and a sizeable dining room. The house is one of the very spacious London mansions which was apparently built for semi-formal political purposes to suit or further the ambitions of its owner. I understand that was the way British politics used to be run; perhaps still. The house the Senior Officers’ Club has, formerly the home of Sir Philip Sassoon, is such another. (We had our windows blown out there a couple of weeks ago after lunch. Nobody hurt).

They were very cordial in the Union headquarters and said they’d send me an honorary membership card and urged me to use their building. Very nice of them, but right now I have more clubrooms I can go to than I know what to do with.

As I told you yesterday, I saw a preview of the film “The Story of Dr. Wassell.” On further consideration, if I were Dr. Wassell, I would sue the American film company who made it. In what is supposedly fact, they have tossed in a red hot triangle romance with Dr. Wassell as one of the angles. I’ll bet he squirmed when he saw it. Then they’ve given it enough comic relief to sink a ship.

I have been devoting some time to considering the basis of British government controlled broadcasting as exemplified by the B.B.C. vs. the American system of private enterprise supported by advertising. There is certainly a lot of tripe in both systems, but I believe the American listener on the whole gets a considerably superior type of program, particularly if he is a trifle selective in what he listens to. In Britain, regardless of what stations you tune in, you get your choice of only two programs – that’s all the B.B.C. serves up. And if you think soap operas are low, you should hear some of the twaddle and the tenth rate imitation music hall stuff that clutters up the B.B.C. programs. Our radio programs are as much ahead of the nationalized British offerings as Amer. Tel & Tel’s privately operated telephone service is ahead of the British government’s telephone service.

With love, Ned

PS I note when you stopped in Portland, you did not stop at the Danish Village. Is it closed, or are you cured?

Letter #69

August 12, 1944

Saturday

Lucy darling:

This appears to be clean-up day. When I arrived at my office this morning, there was quite a stack of letters (literally several inches high). On inspection, there were the following: #12, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, and 46, plus a couple of odd letters from cits, of last May. So that cleaned up all the old missing letters, even #12 which I had never expected to see. They’d all been on the far shore together, though how #12 ever got with the others I’ll never know.

So that left only #76 missing. After I got back from lunch, there was #76 reposing on my desk, together with a letter from Mary of July 24, mailed in Washington.

Now the slate is absolutely clean – there are no missing letters at all. If that could happen, I guess anything can – my missing laundry may show up yet.

To have made it a nearly perfect day, there should also have arrived another letter from you in Southwest Harbor, but none did. Nothing that way now for two days. #88 was your last received.

In looking over the just received letters, I note in your #42 the following “Sally said Ted isn’t returning to Milton. By starting Pingry this month, he will be able to graduate in January and then enter MIT. That way he’ll have had six months of college before he is 18 in July 1, 1945.” I pondered that. Why is it of any moment that Ted should have six months of college before he is 18? It seems to be of some importance if his family yanks him out of a private school which meant a lot to them to put him in Pingry (which means nothing to them) especially in June! If this is some cute little draft evasion or deferment scheme, since I note he’s to go to MIT and not Harvard, which I think it is, then Sally goes down several pegs in my estimation. This business of people’s feeling that “It’s all right to have somebody else’s husband or sons fight a war for me but mine? Never!” gives me a sharp pain. If they have any consciences, I do not see how they can sleep at nights. On whose sacrifices and sufferings should their freedom rest?

Your #40 brings to mind the old adage that one should never jump to conclusions, especially critical ones, even when the evidence looks convincing. In #40, you gently chide me for having let six days go by between my #10 of May 23, and my #11 of May 29 which you had just that day (June 22) received. Two days later in your #42 of June 24, you acknowledge receipt of a second #10 dated May 27, but no apologies for your previous strictures, albeit gentle ones. Is that doing your best in giving your struggling husband credit for doing as well as possible in a bad situation? At that time as I remember it at Selsey Beach, I was getting in off the water anywheres from 1 AM to 3 AM. Well anyway, even four days is a lot, to be avoided if avoidable.

Radio Berlin has stepped up the assault of the flying bombs to a new pitch, and so improved the aiming by new methods that they can now hit military targets in London alternately with explosive and incendiary loaded bombs. I must be living in a dream world or else Goebbels is, for in the last four days there has not been a total of over four alerts for the whole period, and I doubt that I’ve heard over six bombs that entire time. In fact, bombs are getting so few and far between now that we are beginning to forget about them altogether. There hasn’t been one all day today.

So after having heard that bit of news poured out by Berlin, I am a trifle skeptical of the next item which relates our terrific losses on the western front and the hundreds (we never lose less than a hundred) of tanks knocked out the day before by powerful Nazi counterattacks.

This is Saturday. London has been very quiet and three-quarters locked up (all locked up this afternoon). Londoners are taking weekends now for the first time in five years, and especially going to the beaches from which they’ve been barred since 1940. Actually the authorities are trying to keep them off the actual beach sands yet, at all the channel beaches, for they were once mined and while they have now been cleared of mines, there is not too much assurance of how thoroughly the job has been done. But at most beaches the crowds break right through what’s left of the barbed wire, in spite of the prohibitions. I’m damned if I’d take such a chance, even on a swept beach, just to go swimming. I’m afraid some of these holiday swimmers or baskers are going to get blown sky high yet.

We still seem to be doing all right, blitzkrieging around Brittany and central France. Rommel is probably out of it, but von Kluge suits me fine – he hasn’t any more sense of generalship than Rommel had. When it’s over in Normandy, there’ll be about as much left of that army as there was of von Paulus’ before Stalingrad.

Of course it may not be von Kluge’s fault. It is possible that the Germans are fooling themselves about what their flying bombs are doing and what consequently they can expect of what they call V-2 – when they get it going. Consequently von Kluge may in spite of his own better judgment, have been ordered at all costs to hang on where he is to cover the flying bomb and rocket launching areas while they win the war. I trust this is so, for that means the finish of the western German army, and as for V-1, it already is proved worthless as a military weapon, and I doubt myself that the much ballyhooed V-2 can do any better in effecting the outcome.

My opinion is that the skies are going to fall on the German armies in France within a few weeks. How any army can expect to last long when a huge force breaks through its flank and then starts to circle freely in its rear is beyond me. And then, not to give away any secrets, there is de Gaulle’s army, which we have been training and equipping for nearly two years now which as he says, will soon be in action. The Nazis have good reason to worry about where, but a good guess is that the French won’t fight on the Russian front. If I were Hitler, I should begin to take an interest in the new fall catalogs of wall paper designs.

With love, Ned

Letter #70

Aug. 13, 1944

Sunday

Lucy darling:

Another blank day – no letter. Still this is Sunday, and we don’t always have any mail delivered Sundays. Your last letter was #88 which I got three days ago.

As I told you yesterday, every missing letter of yours from #12 right through to 76 was delivered yesterday. There are now no missing letters whatever.

A very pleasant day today. I took a walk this morning down The Strand and along Fleet Street. While it can truly be said that flying bombs are doing little military damage, it is also true that for some odd reason (maybe Hitler abhors barristers) they have done plenty of legal damage. I believe more bombs have fallen in and close around the Temple Bar and the Inns of Court than in any other district, and I’ll bet that cases that haven’t seen the light of day since Dickens wrote “Bleak House” are now being thoroughly aired. It’s too bad, for some of London’s oldest buildings are in that area. One bomb fell there this morning. I don’t imagine anyone was around when it exploded, but it made a horrible mess of several four-storied old brick buildings which are just a heap of plaster and rubble now. I’ve noticed that the old buildings flatten out much worse from blast than newer construction. Bush House caught one about a month ago right on the doorstep, so to speak, but came through beautifully with slight local damage (lots of broken glass, of course), while the same thing knocks an ancient brick building into a cocked hat.

That ended my walk since the sight of destruction annoys me (I suppose I could stand it in Germany) and I came back, went to the Senior Officers’ Club for lunch, and then to my hotel. I put in the afternoon doing the washing and the ironing (remarkable how fast things dry here). Shirts, collars, pajamas, and underwear today (the underwear doesn’t get ironed). One of the inducements the recruiting officers always hold out in the Navy is that one can learn a useful trade for after life. They are right. When the war’s over, I can run a hand laundry.

I told you a week or so ago I was ordered to stand by to move on to the far shore again on about an hour’s notice. That lasted all of two hours, when it was cancelled. Then I was told simply to stand by and I’d go after a while. So I’m waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. You can probably imagine what.

Since the mails are sometimes unduly delayed, and you will probably have to make a decision about September 1^st as to what you’ll do at Southwest Harbor, I can only suggest that in the light of what I know right now, the only safe thing for you to do when you leave The Anchorage is to have it closed up for the winter. That is, if you have to leave and decide about September 1^st. On the other hand, if Mary comes up and you decide to stay much later anyway, then the decision can be deferred and I may know something more in a few weeks. The probabilities are however, that it will be advisable for you to shut the place up for the winter when you leave, and bring the Chevrolet back with you. As I said once before, don’t leave it there. If you don’t have gas enough to get it all the way back to Westfield, drive it as far back as you reasonably can and then leave it in some reliable garage till we can get it the rest of the way later.

I notice in Mary’s letter of July 25 which lately arrived with your #76, that Mary states that after Ned leaves Meade, she will drive their car to Westfield, stay there till she’s sure he’s left the country, and then go to Maine (if it’s not too late). She adds that she’ll try to sell the car in Westfield. While I agree that I think they might as well sell the car, I should think they’d have a better market at Meade than in Westfield, but it’s too late for me to tell them that now. Aside from that, I don’t believe there should be any hurry in their selling the car (at least not till it’s license has run out) unless they can get a price which will repay all their outlay (tires, repairs, etc.). It is probable that car will also have a better market when gasoline rationing eases up on the east coast, as it should as soon as Hitler folds up. There is not going to be any immediate supply of new cars when the European war ends, and I do think there will be an increased demand for used cars, so if Mary can garage her car for some time yet, she shouldn’t let it go except at a satisfactory price. (And if they don’t need the money now, it might pay them to hold on to the car anyway for some time yet, if they have a place to store it). Too bad it isn’t over here – I think I could get a thousand dollars for it on this side, maybe more.

11 PM. Air raid alert. The first since 7:30 this morning when a few bombs came over. A little later. One distant explosion.

Tomorrow the BBC will announce “Last evening flying bombs came over southern England, including the London area. Some damage & casualties resulted.” And Radio Berlin will state “London was subjected to a heavy attack by V-1. The population is evacuating in a panic, and the dislocation of food supplies is such that black market operators, all Jews, have cornered all available food supplies and are selling them at fantastic prices. The Government is unable to cope with the situation.”

Since I guess that’s all to that raid, while the “All Clear” hasn’t sounded yet, I’ll turn in.

With love, Ned

Letter #71

Aug. 14, 1944

Monday

Lucy dearest:

The mail delivery spruced up today and I received four letters - #89 and 90 this morning, and #93 and 94 this afternoon. I trust 91 and 92 don’t delay arrival for a week or so.

I see my letters to Southwest Harbor are getting fairly rapid delivery. Yours coming this way seem to take longer; the delay I imagine is in getting to New York.

Thanks for sending the financial sheet and the News of the Week. About once a month on the financial news is satisfactory.

At the present moment, it appears that von Kluge is going to have to retreat fast or suffer disaster, and it’s certain he’ll take a terrible lacing in his retreat no matter how fast he pulls out of the Vire-Mortain salient. Now is when the Nazis are going to learn what it means to retire with the skies full of enemy planes and superior enemy artillery pounding them day and night. Maybe blitzkriegs, which they thought the acme of manly occupations in May and June of 1940, somehow look less appealing to them in the summer of 1944.

Thus is faith rewarded. I was sure Britain wouldn’t surrender or be beaten in 1940, and that Russia would neither crack nor be overwhelmed in 1941.

I am saddened to learn that Clarence has deserted his post. Possibly if we get there early enough next summer we can entice him back on the job.

By the way, if you don’t use the foc’l’se this summer, you can ask for and get a substantial reduction in your water bill. I did last summer.

I judge from your letters so far that you weren’t able to arrange in advance for Mrs. Rice, and her assistance is doubtful. I hope you have been able to get in touch with her since, or with someone else. Scrambling round to get provisions with no car or only limited use of one, then cooking, then dishwashing, can be pretty much of an all day occupation – good exercise, perhaps even highly interesting, but hardly restful.

Give Walter Hayward my regards and my best wishes for a commission. It is regrettable that his illness has set things back some months. If I’d known he was going to be in Southwest Harbor and also felt sure that Mary was going to be, I’d have ordered the Argo put in commission and they all might have had some fun in her. Now that will have to wait another summer. By the way, are there many races going on now?

You mention he thinks he’ll now get married in November. And you want me to answer whether I’ll be there to escort you to the wedding. I wouldn’t make any bets as to whether Walter Hayward gets married in November or not, if it depends on his getting a commission, for I have a hunch that by November the need for oodles more naval officers may not seem so pressing. (Of course there will still be something going on in the Pacific). As regards myself, I still hope to be home by Thanksgiving Day. And I’ll bear in mind what you promise about outmatching the guard at Buckingham Palace. I shouldn’t mind.

I enclose an editorial from the Evening Standard that I think is very appropriate.

With love, Ned

PS You haven’t mentioned how Clara is. Is she managing to get a proper rest?

Letter #72

Aug. 15, 1944

D-day the Second

Lucy darling:

Today the operation in support which we have had on the cards for a long time, was launched near Nice. Here there was no tide to complicate matters and the Germans had pretty well thinned out their southern troops to support the Normandy forces. The landings were relatively unopposed in the face of our assaulting fire (the Nazis have had all delusions of impregnable coast walls slugged out of them) and things went beautifully for our Riviera tourists. They are off to a good start, and as soon as they get their tanks  and guns well ashore, they are going to go through the Nazis in southern France at a good clip. The Nazis have relatively little armor in the south to oppose them. And the Marseillaise are a different breed of cats than the Normans. And Devers, who commands there, is pretty much of a rough guy.

The big secret has finally been officially released today – General Patton is announced as the commander of the Third Army, who started in at St. Lo about July 24 and has since torn the German opposition all to shreds in Brittany and central France. The Germans have known for over two weeks who was kicking them around. I’m just wondering whether it wasn’t kept secret to prevent an American mutton-headed outcry from pushing Patton out of the command before he put the Nazis in a box. My own hope is that Patton will now receive something besides brickbats for what he’s done for his country.

At present everything is going well. With the heat being put on von Kluge’s army while it is on the fire, matters along the Brittany coast are just over the simmerer, so to speak, and I’m still admiring the scenery around here.

No letter from you today, but I did get a letter sent by one of my Massawa assistants, James Cook, from New Guinea, via 11 Broadway, 714 Hanford & Southwest Harbor, and readdressed in your handwriting from there and postmarked S.W. Harbor Aug. 9, 8 AM. If that thing could come along, why not your letters 91 & 92 mailed several days before it?

I received a V-mail letter from Mary Adams today.

I enclose a cartoon indicating a British (and a London British at that) view of the desperate state of panic we are in over here.

I can remember the days when I was younger when the German General Staff used to have nightmares about having to fight a war on two fronts at once. Now Hitler’s military genius has them involved on so many fronts at once that they’ll have to start using the fingers of both hands to keep track of the numbers. I have an idea an officer on the German General Staff now feels it’s a relief to be hanged so he can quit worrying before he goes crazy.

With love, Ned

Letter #73

August 16, 1944

Lucy darling:

No mail today from you. The system may safely be said to be erratic. The last letter received was #94. 91 and 92 are missing.

Matters still are proceeding satisfactorily. Southern France will be discovered to be pretty much of a hollow shell, so far as effective German defense is concerned. In a couple of weeks we shall learn whether Laval and Petain flee to Germany, stay to be captured, or postpone the reckoning a bit by moving into northeastern France. Vichy will be finis by then.

The curtain is coming down on Rommel’s original army that was going to hurl us back into the sea. By the time you get this, what’s left of it will be on its way out of Normandy, looking for a convenient river on which to rest its left flank, with that brute Patton slapping it in the face each time it strives to get over its shock and look like an army again.

The weather continues good for operations. It hasn’t rained since the end of July, and the grass in the parks and gardens is starting to burn up, but I guess we can all stand that. It’s somewhat warmer also. I shouldn’t wonder the English think it’s hot.

Nothing much is happening around here. Axis Sally (Midge) is missing from radio Berlin – maybe she’s been mobilized by Goebbels in his total war effort. Still I can’t understand that, for her place is being taken by a man with a not particularly effective American voice. However, in spite of that we continue to be hurled back on all fronts with severe losses – today they were unusually severe losses. You will be interested to know that when Berlin rebroadcasts the Tokio bulletins of what has happened to us in the Pacific, that there the case is different; in the Pacific we are daily hurled back with devastating losses.

With love, Ned

Letter #74

August 17, 1944

Lucy darling:

The mail situation is, as usual, snafu, but it could be much worse. This morning, letters #91 and 92 were delivered, thus clearing up one delay, but #97 also arrived while 95 and 96 are still coyly holding out on me. I do not know what the explanation is.

I regret that I have been misunderstood (husbands often are) in your #91 where you intimate I thought your accidents were due to carelessness. I am quite sure I neither thought nor said that – what I upbraided you for severely and I thought devastatingly enough to prevent a repetition, was not for carelessness in having an accident (or a trio of them) but in not immediately getting a doctor when you jammed the scissors into your thigh, thus violating every known rule of first aid for the avoidance of infection. I’ll repeat it here – few people pass out from injuries whether cuts or legs blown off, but the number who pass out from avoidable infections due to lack of immediate treatment is vastly greater. (See attached clipping). And who is Dr. Salvati, or any other doctor for that matter, that one should be so mindful of him as to let 12 hours pass after a deep wound just so he shouldn’t be disturbed? Bah! That you had three accidents is just too bad, but I am sure I have not criticized you for that – home is a dangerous place as the insurance company statistics will show and the bathtub is the most dangerous place in the home, for all of which reasons I seek the comparative safety of the battlefield.

I have no doubt that when I go to the far shore, any address will continue as Navy 100, certainly for a while anyway. When I have any better information, I’ll pass it along. Right now, I don’t know anything really. I have been standing by since July 4 and since that day I haven’t done a blessed thing, not knowing from day to day when I might move, or even where. Some people think war is one long succession of hazards and battles which break people down, but that’s rot – most of the shell shock cases you run across are of gibbering idiots who haven’t done anything for so long that they’ve become neurotic – when confronted with the need for action, their atrophied mentalities have given way. The real horror of war is just plain boredom.

About the station wagon. I said before that the best thing to do with it is to drive it home when you go. In spite of a dubious spare tire (and perhaps other dubious tires) that is still the best thing to do. Take it as far as your gas will take you; all the way since I judge from your lack of comment otherwise that you will have gasoline enough for that. As regards the tires, I wouldn’t worry about them. You don’t have to make a deadline on your return, and I never saw a tire that couldn’t be patched or lined so it wasn’t good for a few hundred miles more. You mention grade 3 tires as available. I’ve never heard of them, and probably compared to a standard tire that will go 15000 or 20000 miles, they are lousy; but if you need a tire that will take you 500 miles, it certainly can beat that, so get one if you have any doubts. Anyway, take the car home with you as far as gas or tires get you.

Talking about cars, I mentioned before, and you can pass this along to Mary, that unless she needs the money right now (which is doubtful) she and Ned will be well advised to put their car on ice and not sell it right now. It will be useful to them when Ned comes home again, and I think will command a higher price in the year after the war ends than right now.

I am deeply sorry to learn of the deaths of Mrs. Davenport and Miss Marcus. They were both real personalities, though quite different.

As regards Clara’s wondering whether I’d like to become a British subject, such a thing never entered my head. To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan about another sailor,

            “But in spite of all temptations

            To belong to other nations,

            He remains an American!” Why, of course!

I have learned just enough in my moderate years so far as to know the essential emptiness in inner satisfaction that goes with titles, with medals, or with public acclaim. Not that I mind them, but to sacrifice anything real for any of them is plain folly. That is something I’ve learned at least since my naval academy days. It will take far more than lack of recognition to pry me loose from the United States. Actually, I can’t imagine anything that could.

Thanks for sending me the clippings from the Bangor News, particularly the one about President Roosevelt commissioning the first Revenue Cutter officer back in 1790. There is something in the subconscious state of mind which lead the printer to make the error, and of the unthinking acceptance of it by the vast majority of readers who accepted it as natural, that warrants serious thought about perpetual tenure of office. What could Hitler really have done to Germany or the world, if he had not thought himself indispensable to it? Or Mussolini? Or Julius Caesar? Or Napoleon? Or Joe Stalin? The Lord preserve us from these indispensable men, who never cease moulding us to their heart’s desires, not ours, till death alone frees us from them.

Yes, I knew Moon. He was a classmate of Admiral Mullinix, who went out on the solitary escort carrier we lost in the attack on Tarawa. Moon had been through the Sicilian and Italian landings, then under considerably greater and far more prolonged strain in awaiting and carrying through his assault force attack on D-day here. After that he was shot right back to the Mediterranean, with no rest between, to lead the naval assault which took place a few days ago on the Riviera. (He was the only one of the assault commanders in the Channel who was returned to the Med. for that purpose). I guess he died as a result of “combat fatigue” as the Secnav put it, all right. What he needed was a rest when he got through in the Channel, but he was the only one who didn’t get it.

This afternoon I received the shipping notice from Dodd, Mead on the copy of Hell on Ice you asked Howard Lewis to send. I suppose the book itself will be along in a couple of weeks.

The news tonight is very encouraging. Patton has taken Chartres, and Dreux, and also Orleans. Von Kluge is certainly cut off from Paris, which Patton can certainly take when it pleases him. He’ll probably make sure he is well between it and von Kluge before he bothers with Paris itself. Meanwhile von Kluge is trying to get the remnants of his army away from Falaise. There won’t be many remnants to take across the Seine. And yet the Germans pride themselves on knowing the art of war! The damned fools should never have tried fighting so far from their bases and right in our back yard. Hitler will learn who the real military idiots are very shortly.

Letter #75

August 18, 1944

Friday

Lucy darling:

I’ve caught up on the mail again. Your 95 and 96 were delivered today, and also 98 and 99.

I loved your description of walking over the cushion of moss and needles that carpets our forest. It is beautiful both to touch and to see, and I look forward to the day (surely not later than next summer) when I can revel in it with you to my heart’s content.

I am very glad to know that the weather has stayed dry, clear, and even warm to hot. When you are not staying the whole summer, a few weeks of fog can be very disagreeable.

You have made no further mention of Mrs. Rice, so I’m afraid she never came to help. I’m sorry.

The papers here have mentioned the extreme heat along the Atlantic seaboard, confirming what the Bangor News has to say about Bangor. A few afternoons here have been a little uncomfortable for a blue uniform, but that’s all. New York City must be really hot, and as for Camp Meade, I should think that would be baking.

I’ve heard nothing from Mary since Aug. 6, the day they went back; I’ve written her only one letter addressed to Camp Meade about that time. Until I hear again from her, I have no idea where to write.

I notice you mention in your 98 that the news from Brittany “is thrilling to read about and to listen to over the radio.” I hoped you took the portable radio set with you to Maine, and from your comment, apparently you did. Is that so?

Talking about collaborationists, I trust that in the southern France campaign now getting underway, the French get their hands on the generals and their assistants responsible for the massacre in the village of Oradour, and string them up without too much red tape. The Russians did that at Kharkov, and I think it had a good effect since. Some such punishment might also act as a deterrent to the wrecking of French cities as the Germans retreat.

It is regrettable that Ruth Lawrence is having trouble with Miss Marcus’ brothers over her will. It aggravates me to think that some relatives believe that willy-nilly they are entitled to inherit even though they have done nothing in the way of friendliness or companionship during the lifetime of the deceased, rather than some friend who has actually done something to lighten the burdens and cheer the life of the person involved. I trust Miss Marcus’ brothers have their troubles for their pains. I see no reason why her will shouldn’t stand up. The queerest thing about the whole business though is the illustration of the fact that some men never comprehend that a woman really owns anything of her own.

I’ll reiterate here (in case the other letters are delayed) that in spite of gasoline or tire troubles, I think it best that you take the station wagon back with you when you go, or as far towards home as your gasoline and/or tires will take you. As I think this subject has now been covered in enough different letters, I won’t mention it again. I doubt that you will have any real difficulty so far as tires are concerned; it is always possible to keep your four best tires repaired enough to get along, even though you lose a day or so en route while they are being repaired. Think of the perils of the Overland Trail – Indians, blizzards, starvation, thirst! What’s a flat tire (or even five of them) compared to the dangers your great-grandmother overcame without dropping a stitch in her knitting as she drove along behind her sturdy oxen? I’ll back you against your great-grandmother any day in getting the family chariot through in spite of all the perils of the road.

I enclose a clipping on the flying bombs, which is of interest for several reasons, one the reference to Sir Ernest Gowers, and the other the mention finally of the damages around Buckingham Palace. Two bombs fell close together in point of landing but several weeks apart in time, near Buckingham Palace, and these were the two that fell closest to me. I mentioned them at the times of occurrence. Only one of these bombs (the second one) is mentioned in this clipping.

To my knowledge, no one was killed or injured by either of these bombs, which landed one on either side of the palace garden wall, but they didn’t leave a window unbroken in the palace or in any of the buildings fronting the gardens. St. George’s Hospital which faces this place, lost all its windows in the first blast, all its cellophane substitutes in the second blast, and now with its windows covered with tar paper and what little cellophane it can get, defiantly awaits the third blast.

In your #99, which came this afternoon, there is finally some news of Mary. Presumably she has already moved to Westfield. I’ll write her there now and if she has moved up to Southwest, the letter will at least be forwarded to the right place.

I trust Mary does get there before her birthday, and that you all have a party then. You will remember that on Mary’s fifteenth birthday we all went down the Riviera to the last village on the French side, Mentone, for her birthday party. They’ll celebrate Mary’s birthday along the Riviera this year in quite grand style. We’ll go back again and celebrate there once more on our own account.

My humble apologies for not commenting on the card in your #86. I thought it was lovely, and that the little girl pictured in it showed that angelic demureness characteristic of the sender. And I adored the affectionate message with it. But I said nothing then, and it’s no use saying anything now.

You needn’t worry if we have to assault either Ireland or Argentine to get our hands on the major devils responsible for this war. If it has to be done there are plenty of people who have never been outside the United States to handle the matter. It won’t prolong anything for those involved in the war already. And if it’s necessary, it will be highly necessary for future world peace and a chance for anybody to live at home in some safety.

You want to know how long the war will last? I don’t know, but I do know it will be over here before Thanksgiving Day.

A day or two ago I think I wrote that I gave Laval and Petain a couple of weeks to get out of Vichy, and was a little curious as to where they’d head then. The enclosed clippings indicate the boys are much faster on their feet than I suspected, and it appears they are now in Metz, cuddling up against the German border, ready for the last jump. I wonder if Laval will ever get out of France alive.

I noted the clipping you sent on Captain Ives. (Ed: Captain Norman Ives was director of the Port of Cherbourg at the time). I knew him well since the S-4 days, when he was made captain of the raised S-4 and with Momsen, did considerable work on submarine escape & rescue means. I met him again over here, and last had a pleasant visit with him in Cherbourg when I was there just after it was taken. I enclose a story from the Stars and Stripes here. This happened just south of Avranche on the road toward St. Malo, Aug. 2. A Lt. Comdr. Hooper and several seamen were killed in the same battle. This was a very sad affair.

There are a few other clippings of some interest.

With love, Ned

Letter #76

August 19, 1944

Lucy dearest:

As I said the other day, the mail situation is still snafu. Yesterday I received four letters. Today when consequently I expected nothing, this afternoon I received three more, 100, 101, and 102. That’s seven letters in two days. I presume now there will be a drought for a while. However, a five day delivery for your #102 from Southwest Harbor is excellent. Whether or not airmail stamps will make any difference in the U.S., you may already have learned. I’m dubious about it.

I am glad to see that as of Aug. 14 you are going to have Mrs. Rice at least as part time help. Never mind the expense, so long as it takes some of the burden off you.

No, my missing laundry is still missing. It has never come back from France. It is a month and a half now since it was sent there.

Thanks for the clipping about Sid Coe. I’m happy to see it.

Funny our letters crossed about the English Speaking Union. I now have the honorary membership card they sent me, and I’ve been there once since.

From your second comment on using it, I judge you did bring your portable radio up with you. It’s a good idea. There was an antennae wire over the window (inside the room) that you might hook it up to (possibly you have already) to improve the reception. It seems to me that radio had an antennae of its own, but if the end of that antennae were twisted onto the other (bare wire to bare wire) it helps.

As you stated, I haven’t yet started on the job I came for. Till we have acquired the locations, there’s no telling how much or how little the task will turn out to be, or whether there is any at all. At present, no heat is being put on the problem by the army, which is more interested right now on matters along the Seine. So I’m just twiddling my thumbs (not very patiently). Under these circumstances there is no use your figuring on staying at The Anchorage until October on my account. If you wanted to stay on yours or Mary’s that’s another matter, but by then I’m afraid you and Mary would have too much physical labor with the fireplace, and more even with the furnace. So I don’t recommend it. You will know as well as I (without my telling you) from the news reports when the day comes that this task can even be surveyed. I do not like this situation at all, but right now nothing can be done about it. When there is the slightest change, I’ll let you know.

With Love, Ned

PS Let me know what you intend to do as soon as you know. That is of course wound up with Mary’s uncertainties just now, I appreciate.

Letter #77

August 20, 1944

Sunday

Lucy darling:

Having received seven letters in the past two days (#102 is the latest with none missing) I naturally expected nothing today and was consequently not disappointed when I didn’t find any in my office. Besides, we rarely get any mail delivered on Sunday.

The weather here changed yesterday and rained for the first time in three weeks, and this morning was worse. Of course they could use rain here; things were somewhat burned up. It rained yesterday in France also after a long dry spell in which our troops and air forces made hay while the sun shined. I am not certain that the rain yesterday did the broken army of von Kluge any good; it’s entirely possible that now that he desperately needs to move, mud will hurt him worse than us, for we have the better roads to work on (and less interference).

The last few days the results have been marvelous. Von Kluge’s army is being slaughtered, both physically and in its mechanized equipment. The results of Rommel’s strategy and of his, have worked out better than my fondest hopes – the twin idiots have already suffered a worse disaster than my wildest dreams, and the end for them is not yet over. Their shattered remnants will be scourged to annihilation. Not least of the benefits is that the more fanatical Nazis in his army caught in the Falaise pocket are fighting to the death and not surrendering. They’ll die there, all right, which will give us so many fewer Nazis to cope with after the war. Von Kluge will cross the Seine with just about as effective an army as Napoleon had left when he crossed the Beresina at the end of his retreat from Moscow. The days of the Huns in France are decidedly numbered – for most of France, you can count them now on the fingers of your two hands.

I enclose several clippings from today’s London papers on various aspects of the situation. I particularly appreciated Hore-Belisha’s (Ed: an M.P.) article, both for his realization that Hitler never was able to invade Britain (many people suffer the delusion that he could but made the mistake of not doing it) and for his clear warning that it is up to Britain (and her allies) not to let Germany have another chance. The second clipping on the program of the Conservative group also appeals to me. (The Labour Party in Britain seems at the moment to be more interested in how to secure the life more abundant in pounds, shillings, and pence, than to insure any life at all by having a realistic foreign policy). The other clippings give some British views and a report on what’s happening to the collaborators in France. I particularly enjoyed reading Hitler’s prophecies – more especially since back in 1940 and 1941 the only prophecy I ever made (when the weight of expert opinion was otherwise) was that Hitler would roll in the mud and that I should help to roll him there. I still think that I’m a better prophet than either Hitler or George Fielding Eliot.

The rain this morning allowed the Nazis to slip through a few more bombs than they usually get in. One of them landed closest of any yet – 400 yards off. The flash of the explosion looked like lightening and the curtains blew in as if a squall had suddenly struck them (the windows were wide open, of course). The bomb landed on the roof of a new ten story building quite close to where I normally get lunch (across the street from the club which sent me an honorary card a few days ago). Since it was nearly lunchtime, I went over to look. There was the usual shattered glass, and some brick and metal roofing decorating the square (my bank on that square had its front door taken completely off its hinges, but so far as I could judge, my deposit was still intact in the safe. This is the first time the bank had its door open on Sunday). All the glass was out on two sides of the building struck, but not on the other two sides. The amount of the structural damage to the building was amazingly slight, showing what a modern steel-framed (brick-sheathed) building will stand, as compared to the ancient brick buildings which collapse like play houses. Unfortunately, though it was an office building, some of the offices were running even on Sunday. I don’t know whether anybody inside was killed (I doubt it) but the Civil Defense Rescue Workers brought out four injured women on stretchers whom I saw. Oddly enough, in the side of the building away from the explosion, you could see the office forces in there continuing with their work. I don’t think Goebbels would like that. He thinks everyone here is in a panic over his damned bombs (which they are not) and he further vastly overrates what damage they do. To know that he got a direct hit on an office building with a lot of people not bothering enough about it but to keep right on their desks would make him mad enough to start another purge, this time on his secret weapon dumbkopfs who can’t turn out anything more effective than this.

Since the Civil Defense had everything well in hand and there was nothing I could do, I went to lunch about fifty yards away. By one of those freaks, neither my lunch club nor the other one across the street from it even lost a pane of glass, so I didn’t have to pick any glass out of my stew. The Red Cross girls serving lunch had felt the shock well enough, but it was business as usual with them. After that I went back to my hotel and did the laundry. Not a very good drying day today.

With much love, Ned

Letter #78

August 21, 1944

Lucy darling:

Curses on this thin paper on which it is difficult even to write, but it’s all I have in my room just now.

I had a letter from Mary today from Fort Meade on August 15, giving me the news up to then. As you no doubt know it, I’ll not comment. Mary may be with you by the time you get this. I wrote her immediately giving her some advise, and sent it to Westfield, but it may be forwarded to you instead of being delivered to her at 714 Hanford (one cannot rely on what the post office will do), and consequently in case she is still waiting in Westfield for some time, I repeat what I said there. You will know whether it needs to be passed along. I do not recommend her going to any school like Katherine Gibbs this fall. I think the value to her will be exactly what it was in May Davidon’s case – a waste of time and money never to be made up by a hypothetical better position afterwards for a brief time. The second thing I advised was that if they had not already sold their car, it is better to keep it unless they have a pressing need for money which I can’t imagine.

I hope Mary had nothing but a few days wait in Westfield, however, and that she is with you already in Maine. She mentioned also that Diana might go up with her. I hope so, and if so, give Diana my welcome to The Anchorage.

No letter from you today.

The weather has continued rainy in France and also here.

I enclose clippings which may interest you. One of them contains a more accurate report of a matter I wrote you of yesterday. It appears the upper part of the building was residential. The account is in one way humorous. The episode took place “in Southern England yesterday.”  You will observe that a “Daily Telegraph Reporter” quotes what various people thereabouts “said to me.” Remarkable how fast the Daily Telegraph gets its reporters to Southern England.  All this reminds me of a standing joke of the last war: “The Prime Minister arrived at an American Port for a discussion. He was welcomed by Grover Whalen, representing Mayor Hylan.”

Still six people were killed, probably all on the top floor, which was rather a penthouse effect, and there is no humor in that.

I think the two pictures of Margaret Rose are charming. The last impressions we have of her are as a little girl of six, dutifully waving her hand from the balcony of Buckingham Palace under, as I remember it, Queen Mary’s guidance.

The Evening News throws the spotlight on a different angle of what’s beginning to engage the thoughts of British women. I don’t blame them (or American ones either). They are evidently figuring on wearing them this winter, since evening dresses are not summertime apparel. I think they are right. What’s the significance of bright cherry? Is that a camouflaged name for bright red? (Which I think has a meaning).

Then the picture of the Palazzo Vecchio decorated with British Tommies gave me a nostalgic thrill. I see “The Bag of Melons” has escaped any German cultural corrective attentions.

The gibe at Laval made me laugh.

I heard Montgomery on the radio today in a message to the troops regarding the victory in Normandy over the German Seventh Army. Somehow I like that man. Always have. As an added attraction, he speaks with a nasal twang that you’d swear was Yankee.

The war in France goes better every day now. Another dry spell would be a help to even more satisfactory results, but we should thank God for the last three weeks and not grumble over a few wet days to interfere with air action now.

I often wonder how dumb the German people really are. Since June 5, they have heard the following from Goebbels:

1. The Atlantic Wall is impregnable. No landing is possible.
2. We never said a landing was impossible. However, our troops will push the enemy back into the sea in nine hours.
3. We had no intention of stopping the invasion immediately. What we desire is to let the whole Anglo-American army get on French soil so we can destroy them all and end once for all this nonsense about continuing the war.
4. France, her provinces and her large cities are of no importance. We withdrew from them to preserve our freedom of movement, and to gain time for the use of our new secret weapons which will change entirely the concept of war from outmoded methods (including, I suppose, the Wehrmacht, which is certainly outmoded).

That’s where it stands at the moment. All I have to say about the Germans if they continue to believe Goebbels’ outpourings is to paraphrase a famous remark of the Duke of Wellington to a smart aleck who said to him, “Mr. Brown, I believe?” to which Wellington’s answer was “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Stand aside, sir!”

Germany’s tank forces, air forces, and armies are being so visibly kicked around and kicked to pieces on all sides each day as to make it difficult to believe that only a couple of years ago they made the world shiver with the thought that the German soldier was invincible. The German soldiers as I’ve seen them coming in look like rats – there isn’t even any manhood about most of them, for even in defeat a man still looks like a man if he is one. But there will be far fewer rats to plague the world in a very brief time. It won’t be long now.

With love, Ned

Letter #79

August 22, 1944

Lucy darling:

Three letters from you this morning all together – 103, 104, and 105, all postmarked out of SWH Aug. 16, 103 at 8 AM and the other two at 5 PM. Whether the airmail stamps make any difference in transit to N.Y. I doubt, as the results seem to be about the same as on the letters from SWH before you put them on. However, they may occasionally help a bit so I see no harm in their continued use.

I appreciated very much the cartoons you enclosed, particularly the one about the experienced cat showing the young idea how to “get your back into it.” Our cats evidently had been well trained.

In reply I enclose a clipping from today’s Times on the dog side of it. I always knew that Scotties had their hearts in the right place – I’ll bet that even lovable little Babbie would have reacted instinctively in the same circumstances.

When we can again have a pet, I’m for letting someone else let the cats get their backs into it, while we stick to Scotties.

The weather here continues bad – mist, overcast, and some fog. This has the disadvantage (among others) of letting the Nazis get more bombs through the defenses than usual. Last night two of them woke me up at different times, noisy enough to make me get out of bed to see if they were headed my way, but they went right and left. The damned things make a noise like a motorcycle running all out with no mufflers right over the roofs. We have a good air raid shelter in the basement of our hotel, and since I’m on the 1^st floor (we’d call it the second storey) right by the stairs, I could get down in a hurry in case of need. There hasn’t been any yet. It so happens my window looks out southeast towards Westminster Abbey, which is the direction they all come from, so if they come at all near, day or night, I can always see them and take evasive action if advisable.

Darling, it is perfectly all right for you to write me love letters on your thin paper – I wish we had nothing more than that thin paper separating us – it is so easily both seen and broken through, like your black filmy nightie. Each night and morning I look longingly at your pictures, in particular those two taken in Fanwood where you smile at me so lovingly that separation seems intolerable.

With love my dear, Ned

Letter #80

Aug. 23, 1944

Lucy darling:

No mail today, but that’s not surprising. It seems to be postmarked out of S.W.H. in bunches every two or three days only.  Three letters, 103, 104 and 105 came yesterday, all postmarked the same day.

This afternoon the weather cleared beautifully after several days of rain, mist, and fog which did us no good either here or in France. Now there is a gorgeously clear sky overhead and I guess the air force will be out en masse where they can do the most good, and our A.A. and fighter force will get a better chance to see and knock down the flying bombs. Good weather has never meant so much to me before as it has these last few months.

Over in France things are going much better than hoped for. The lacing that the German Seventh Army got in the Falaise pocket was terrible and they’ve certainly lost 300,000 men on a conservative estimate since D-day, over half of everything von Rundstedt, Rommel, and von Kluge ever had in Normandy. A good part of the rest of that army and most of their mechanized equipment will be gone before they get over the Seine.

As regards the rest of France, the Maguis are having an easier time than anticipated. Two days ago I wrote that in ten days most of France would be liberated – it appears now it won’t take that long. The day of retribution is at hand – already in many places in France the collaborationists are being tried and shot and with them will go such of the Gestapo as the FFI get their hands on and that will be plenty. Up to a few days ago, Goebbels regularly announced on the radio in his commentary on the war news “Yesterday 100 (or 200 or 300) terrorists were wiped out in France.” For some days now such announcements have been completely absent from all Nazi broadcasts. Possibly Goebbels has suddenly seen the imprudence of such comments with his own Gestapo now exposed to reprisal, but whether he has or not, the “terrorists” have the situation so well in hand that their enemies, not they, are the sole targets of the firing squads. No Frenchman, with the memory of Oradour so fresh in mind, is going to show the slightest compunction when the vultures, whether Nazi or French, who for four agonizing years were plucking at the soul of France, now are seized in their flight. Hitler is going to learn that the game of shooting what he is pleased to call “franc-tireurs” can work both ways. And every British soldier marching into Germany is going to be just as interested as the French and the Poles and the Russians in seeing that summary justice with the rope is done to the Nazi overlords responsible for all this. Psychologically, Hitler and Goebbels chose the wrong moment for what they are so gaily calling “reprisal weapon #1.”

I have just finished reading a small book I bought yesterday, “How to Treat the Germans,” by Emil Ludwig. It was probably published also in the United States, possibly last fall. The edition I have is British. Surprisingly enough, his recommendations are greatly similar to those of the Conservative MPs whose program I sent you in a clipping a few days ago. Ludwig’s analysis of German character and mentality is lucid and convincing. I think it explains why the Germans in America, when away from Bunds and Turnverein, can individually make fine citizens, but why in Germany (or clustered in groups in America) they continue (or revert to type) to become highly dangerous to the peace of the world. In general, I believe the corrective programs suggested are possible and the only ones likely to have lasting beneficial results.

If you haven’t or can’t conveniently get this book, I’ll send you mine. It will easily go in a first class letter, it’s quite thin.

Later – Midnight

“The Day of Glory Has Arrived!”

The news tonight has been electrifying – Paris is free, Marseilles is captured, Rumania is knocked out of the war! Patch in the south has Grenoble and is racing north, Patton’s tanks are streaming up east of the Seine, Montgomery is plunging ahead west of it, and overhead the planes are tearing von Kluge into shreds! I see now what the glowing sunlight of this afternoon indicated. Hitler’s house of cards is collapsing about his ears!

In a swelling chorus of triumph the Allied stations are roaring out the news in English, in French, and in German and never have I heard the Marseillaise played and sung with so much meaning. The German stations, all of them, are suddenly interested only in jazz and in classical broadcasts – not one of them has come on the air in English to comment on the situation, and so far as I can make them out, the German statements in German are very brief and mainly announcements of their musical programs.

The shock in Berlin over Romania’s defection after one strong smash from Russia, must be terrific. That Paris and southern France were slipping, Hitler could foresee though he was counting evidently on more delay, but the Balkan collapse must have been unexpected, and it is a solar plexus blow. Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland will certainly hasten now to abandon the sinking (and stinking) Nazi ship; Russia has huge southern armies freed for other fronts. Things will snowball up from now on, and it will not surprise me to see another and more successful assassination attempt shortly on Der Fuehrer.

I am positively intoxicated at today’s events! If only I had you in my arms now my joy would be complete! But the end is in sight! And sooner than I dreamed of!

With love and longing, Ned

PS At this moment the German radio station can find nothing more apropos to work on than “Indian Love Call.”

Letter #81

Aug. 24, 1944

Lucy darling:

No mail either yesterday or today. Tomorrow I shouldn’t be surprised to get three letters.

This afternoon I went to Westminster Abbey to hear the chimes rung in special celebration of the freeing of Paris. Over the Abbey, the French and British flags flew from a single staff, both run up side by side to the peak in close union, symbolic perhaps. I have never seen flags flown that way before.

For an hour, from four to five, the bells rang out wildly and continuously while I and others stood in a pouring rain before the Abbey, listening and watching the flags of France and Britain, welded into one by the rain, streaming out over England’s shrine.

The last time I heard those bells (the last time they chimed) was on November 4, 1942 in Massawa, when over the radio, their music with that of other English cathedrals pealed out triumphantly for the victory of El Alemain. Two years ago nearly. As I thought of all we had gone through to make this possible, it made tears come to my eyes. At El Alemain we were taking the first step along the hard road to victory; today our struggles have brought us near the end of it. Never will I forget the swelling music of those bells ringing out – a fitting sign of triumph over evil, of the resurrection of liberty from its ashes. Some of those bells in the Abbey tower rang out to celebrate the defeat of the Armada in 1588, but never have they rung with more meaning than they rang today.

The real event of military significance yesterday was neither the fall of Paris nor of Marseilles, but the defection of Rumania. This is likely, I think, not only to bring about the swift collapse of Germany in the Balkans, but will I believe have an important effect on the Italian front. I believe it will cause the German High Command, if it has any sense and is not wholly dominated by Hitler’s intuition, to abandon its plans for Kesselring’s stand along the so called Gothic Line just south of the Po Valley, and withdraw his forces from Italy altogether as rapidly as possible to set up a new front to try to hold Hungary against a Balkan drive, or failing that, to form a front to protect Austria and Germany against attack from the south through Hungary and through the Brenner Pass.

Where else Hitler can get an army for this purpose I cannot see, and for any prolongation of the war, this is of more importance to Germany than holding on to northern Italy a little longer. But whether Kesselring can retreat with any more safety than von Kluge is a question. His army is just as likely to be slaughtered in a retreat across the plain of northern Italy as von Kluge’s was in Normandy. Hitler faces a serious dilemma there. He desperately needs Kesselring’s 25 divisions more in Hungary than in Italy, but whether he leaves them on the Gothic Line or has them cut to pieces trying to move, they are now worthless to him in the new situation.

It has interested me to observe the effect of the calamities of the last few days on Goebbels’ radio offerings. Here also Goebbels is trying to disengage his forces. His news programs would still make the Man from Mars pity the enemies of Germany who everywhere are still being hurled back on all fronts with heavy losses. Germany is still, of course, disengaging according to plan, but for all that is said about it, you would think the plan was a wholly voluntary one. So on this front Goebbels has thrown his critics back with heavy losses. But on the other fronts he has suffered annihilation. His major program in English, entitled “Invasion Calling,” which has been going since early May, has completely vanished these last two days. This program was a peach, given day after day with hardly a variation. It always started with the same song, “Invasion,” a sarcastic gibe at such an idiotic venture. After a line about the invasion gathering “to conquer Europe,” you hear the song interrupted by a chorus of raucous “Ha, Ha, Ha’s” at such a silly idea. Then followed “On D day, which means Death, Disaster, Dunkirk, and Dieppe” and after that the moans of millions of mothers, “My son must die in the Invasion,” and as a finale “Don’t forget that everything is ready to greet you on your landing day!”

Following “Invasion” were always some rotten limericks, usually attacking the Jews, though there were also some perfectly filthy ones reflecting on the morals of the RAF. Then a discussion addressed to the Tommies or G.I.s in a very friendly tone pointing out how Hitler was fighting for culture and civilization, and telling them they didn’t know what they were fighting for. Then a discourse informing them that if they weren’t killed, they’d really enjoy life in a German prison camp where they’d be safe, and a final suggestion (the real meat of the program) that when they got to France, why fight anyway, ending in the advice (in a tone I can’t duplicate) “Take it easy!” Then came “Lilli Marlene” sung in a honeyed German accent (the only thing in the program not in perfect English) and the final statement,

            “Do you realize all your sacrifices are for the benefit of Jewish power politics directed from Washington and Moscow?” with a strong inflection on that last syllable.

Why Goebbels didn’t have sense enough to drop this rot at least after the invasion forces were firmly established ashore, I can’t see, but through thick and thin he kept it up till the fall of Paris yesterday. Now it’s gone. I’m sorry. I enjoyed listening to “Lilli Marlene.”

Then in addition to “Invasion Calling” (that was the program in which before D day he told us at Selsey Bill about the white crosses he had waiting especially for us in France), he ran “Calling the Yanks.” This was the one in which “Midge,” our sweetheart so she made out, intermingled nostalgic songs and Nazi propaganda. “Calling the Yanks” is also a fatality of the last two days. Nothing but straight music appears now on that hour. Both Midge and the propaganda have vanished. Maybe they have concluded so many Yanks are so busy chasing Heines there aren’t enough left with time enough left to listen to the radio to make the program worthwhile. Or maybe they’ve concluded that nostalgic note was the wrong one to sound – it’s made the boys over eager to cut Nazis to pieces so they can get back to the girls they’ve left behind them. Anyway it’s gone.

In his news broadcasts, Goebbels today completely ignores any mention of Paris. As for Rumania, nothing has happened there except a despicably treacherous attempt by King Michael which has already been repudiated by a new gang of Quislings which all Rumanians are implored to support. King Michael, it seems has his plane ready to flee at the proper moment, having already sent ahead of him a huge store of gold. (This statement gives an insight into what the Nazis themselves are thinking of.)

Goebbels is a liberal education. I shall miss him.

Everybody in London is happy over the liberation of Paris. However, I have gathered from some Londoners that they won’t feel liberated themselves till the Pas de Calais and the Belgian and the Dutch coasts are in our hands and the flying bombs quit bursting here. Maybe they are right.

With much love, Ned

PS I enclose a couple of clippings. I gather from one of them that Einstein has not sufficiently absorbed the relative values of sail area versus ballast in the keel (or lack of it). Or perhaps like other theorists, while his eyes are fixed on astronomic distances, he neglects the sail before his nose. However, I’m glad some dumb sailor was able to fish him out injured.

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