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

Letter #82

August 25, 1944

Lucy darling:

As I anticipated, after two days without any letters, I received three today, #108 this morning, and 106 and 107 this afternoon. I also received a letter from Mary of Aug.18, saying she was leaving Fort Meade next day, which I presume she did as the letter was postmarked Baltimore, August 19. Mary did not state specifically whether Ned was leaving Aug. 18 or Aug. 19; I presume it was one day or the other. Nor did she indicate in that letter that she even knew what camp he was temporarily bound for; maybe she doesn’t know. I presume I’ll get another letter from her in Westfield, stating at least when she goes to Maine. I trust she doesn’t have a long delay waiting.

I see they sold their car for $290. That settles the question of their keeping it. Mary says they came about even, which is satisfactory.

She gave me Ned’s present APO; that’s of little value to me, since any letter so addressed would undoubtedly go back to the U.S. I hope if he gets another on sailing Mary will immediately let me know.

The inoculations Ned got are no indication of his destination, except that if he had got a yellow fever shot, he might have been destined for the tropics. It is of course possible he may as likely be sent to the Mediterranean area as this one.

By the way, I enclose a clipping on Canadian officer casualties; the American experience would be more or less the same, but better, I think. It bears out what I thought and said – the second lieutenants have no cause for special worry. My belief was that the generals had a higher casualty rate, and this proves it. The Lt. Cols. And up have the highest casualty rate. The majors, captains, and lieutenants (even including the higher ranks with a higher percentage) show a lesser loss ratio; and the enlisted men least of all. Frankly I’m sure that the lower the rank, the less the danger. As regards the actual figures, these percentages cover all casualties, killed wounded and missing. Both our experience and the Canadian show a ratio of about 1 killed to about 10 wounded; about 991/2% of the wounded recover. These figures give no basis at all for the pessimistic belief Ned had of a second lieutenant’s chances.

I left the office early this afternoon with the idea of going to a movie for a change, but on the way I passed a bookshop where a book called “The Left Heresy” by Harry Kemp caught my eye. Inasmuch as Harry Kemp used to be known years ago as “The Bobo Poet,” I looked into it, and having decided to invest my five shillings in it rather than the movies, I came home to read it instead. Harry Kemp is noted in the preface as an ex-communist. Not since I read Eugene Lyons “Assignment to Utopia” have I seen anything on the communist scene so thoroughly worthwhile. This book deals with why a Left (mainly British) gets that way, and particularly is illuminating regarding Left literati, including Laski. You might ask Clara if she’s ever read it. It was published here by Methuen in 1939. I’ll send it to you when I’m finished it.

With love, Ned

P.S. This finishes my supply of thin paper.

Letter #83

August 26, 1944

Saturday noon

Lucy darling:

Your #109 and 110 came this morning. Mary’s letter of Aug. 18 reached me yesterday, as I’ve already mentioned to you.

We are having fine clear weather these last two days, which has been a great help to our air forces over the Seine, and a drawback to the flying bombs. There hasn’t been one I’ve heard nor any alert for over 24 hours.

I see you state V-2 (according to the radio on Aug. 19) has just been launched. Maybe it has – we don’t know it over here. I think however the radio announcement must have been in error. Lord Haw Haw was still threatening us with it a night or so ago.

I’ve been spending a little time locating Ned and I’ve succeeded. I’m arranging to have dinner with him the same day Clara has her last dinner with you. We’ll probably have army beans at his army camp in southern England while you all (including Mary) are having lobster.

It now being Saturday afternoon, since I have nothing more urgent in a military way to do, I’ll go home and do the week’s washing.

With love, Ned

Letter #84

Aug. 26, 1944

Saturday evening

Lucy darling:

To my considerable surprise and intense gratification, I received this morning, when I was expecting nothing, two letters from you, #109 and 110.

Since tomorrow is Sunday and I doubt this letter will actually go forward then, though it will be mailed, I sent you a brief note this afternoon which I presume did go on its way. It is misnumbered 81. It should be 82 (Ed: nope, 83).

I did a little personal investigating with some of my army friends in the transportation business and got some actual data this morning. You will guess on what. I cannot of course, discuss it by mail.

Unless she delays for other reasons, Mary should be with you in Maine by the end of August, more or less. To my knowledge there is no reason why she should stay at home after Aug. 30, and probably not even that long. I hope she gets up there for her birthday (Ed: August 29), which may be possible. I haven’t yet heard from her again since the letter she posted Aug. 19 while passing through Baltimore.

What the reasons actually are I don’t know, but there have been no alerts or bombs now for about 40 hours. This is the record free period since the first one came over. The clipping enclosed speculates on the whyfors. I judge that Goebbels had better hurry up with V-2 or he’ll never get a chance to launch it, and that would make a bum out of Lord Haw Haw, which would be just too bad.

There are signs of loosening up in this country. The enclosed clipping on going to the beaches for the weekend has a deep military significance, both as regards the beaches and as regards taking weekends. Then in addition there is a considerable demand in the press for a loosening up right now of the blackout, which for most cities (even including London) has about as much practical value as it had in Westfield last winter and this spring. About its only value is, in the opinion of these Englishmen, just what it was in Westfield – it reminds them that there is a war on, but Londoners at least know that without the blackout. My own belief is that there are a lot of Colonel Pearsalls in London as well as in Westfield.

You mentioned something last July about advising Clara to have a diagnosis by a different surgeon before any operation, but you’ve said nothing regarding it since you’ve seen her. It sounds like a good idea to me. Have you pursued that suggestion further? Since the X ray man seemed to have doubts about it, I should think it would be worth getting an independent check.

Since this will probably be about the last letter to arrive while Clara is still at Southwest Harbor, will you tell her that I am happy to hear that she has received some rest and relaxation from it and is feeling better. I look forward next summer to having her for a visit there when I’m there myself, for Clara is always mentally stimulating to me. However, for her sake, I suppose it was just as well I wasn’t there this summer, for she might not have relaxed as much, though even then as a counter irritant I might have taken her mind off her operation. Now let’s see – speaking of operations – I guess I’m going to be at a disadvantage there – I’ve never had anything more complicated than having my tonsils out. I’ll have to stick to something like the fifth term problem, or the ethics of forcing communist revolution in Britain as the price of labour support in a war to save labour from fascism (among other things). But against a connoisseur in operations as Clara will be then, I doubt I’ll have a chance.

Since General Eisenhower moved the Supreme Headquarters to France (not to mention the few soldiers who went over on D-day) “southern England” doesn’t look as martial as it used to. In fact, I’m beginning to feel (and look) like the last rose of summer, lingering forlornly around Hyde Park, and as far as I’m concerned, I’d be quite happy if some kind omnipotence cut me off the withering stem around here and sent me home. But I must wait.

I notice in the news today indications of a serious assault by land, sea, and air on Brest. Perhaps that may soon have a significance.

With love, Ned

PS I am pleased to hear your father is better. How is your mother herself, and Betty?

PPS Talking about the loving embrace the chubby little girl you sent is giving the flag, Selfridge’s burst out today in a display in one of their large windows of quite an assortment of allied flags offered for sale. I think that is symptomatic of something. Merchants usually only stock up on something when they consider the season is right.

Letter #85

Aug. 27, 1944

Sunday evening

Lucy darling:

Sunday, and a very quiet day here, except that about 7 this morning we got about four flying bombs that I heard burst in this general vicinity. The “All Clear” came about 7:30 AM and there hasn’t been anything further. Altogether we had a 48 hour clear spell up to this morning, which is the record so far. It was a little hazy this morning, but it soon cleared into beautiful flying weather, and I have an idea there will be a massacre along the lower Seine’s course today. It is still clear tonight.

There has, of course, been no announcement of strategy from here on, but I doubt any drive in force along the coast from Le Havre eastward toward Calais. I imagine practically the whole army will drive straight for Germany by the shortest lines, without bothering about the Nazis to the north of them at Calais, in Belgium, or in Holland. One army might drive for Rheims, Luxembourg, and Coblenz, while another crashes through further south at Belfort. We’ll see soon. These moves would outflank the Channel and Belgium and if the Nazis have any sense left about getting out while the going is good (which they haven’t shown yet) they will have to withdraw in a hurry. If they don’t there will be another pocketed German army which will be thoroughly liquidated very quickly, probably by the Free French who would enjoy the task.

I see Bulgaria didn’t take very long after the collapse of Rumania to see the beauties of peace and declare herself “neutral.” Berlin is breathing invectives about Rumania and King Michael that would give your hair a permanent wave; other than that, it is telling the world that Hungary and Slovakia have given assurances they will fight loyally beside their German comrades till victory is won. Just wait till the Russian army has a chance to move through Rumania to the Hungarian border and down thru the Carpathian border passes and it will be remarkable what a little applied heat will do to Hungarian “loyalty.” I noted that Berlin omitted all mention of Finnish loyalty.

Other than the above, Goebbels heaved the enemy back on all fronts with heavy losses as usual.

As I mentioned yesterday, I expect to have dinner with Ned about Sept. 4 or 5.

I am sending you some assorted clippings from today’s papers illuminating the English scene. There is a doubt about what’s happened to von Kluge. It is believed that Field Marshal Model now has the command. A Nazi commander-in-chief gets worn out very quickly on the western front. The “military idiots” he has to deal with there are very wearing on the nerves, especially when he has also the prime idiot in his rear to deal with.

The clipping dealing with the German delusions about what their flying bombs are doing is I think, a quite authentic account of what the Germans believe and what keeps them fighting. I doubt that the German high military command believes it, but the troops and the man in the street does. Actually such beliefs as to damage done or their effects on the civil population are quite ridiculous. London is being hurt in a minor way – all the rest of England is no more touched now by the actual war than Chicago is, and could keep on if London vanished.

Yet even the British and the American reporters give a grossly exaggerated idea both of the danger and the damage, and the German radio, by quoting from them, bolsters up home morale. For instance, a young naval lieutenant who had been in England for two years up to July 1, got leave to go home for thirty days plus travel time. He just returned to London this morning. He had been in London for the first two weeks of the flying bomb blitz before he went home. There everyone asked him what it was like. He told them. Then while he was home (in Ohio) he read daily the American accounts and came to the conclusion that the assault must have been hugely intensified since his departure. He returned expecting to see devastation all about. A look around this morning convinced him he’d been misled – London looked just the same to him as when he left, which it was essentially. I am afraid if anyone told the American public just how slight an effect the flying bomb attack has had on London, he wouldn’t be believed. There has been some damage, it’s true, but it has had slight effect. Even the evacuation of which much has been made, has in essence been nothing more than a grand opportunity for women and children (while school was closed) to take a summer vacation at the shore or in the country at the government’s expense. If they had had to pay their own traveling expenses and their lodging away from London, not a thousand would have been frightened enough to go. Even so, the government is having a hell of a time with lots of them (who don’t find their new billets with all the comforts they expected on their vacation) who insist on coming back to London and do come back regardless. People don’t do such things in the face of real danger. About all the damaged houses, it should be borne in mind that the vast majority only have some windows broken.

The cartoon over the exhibitionist who hung out a flag and beat a drum when Paris was freed is true to life here. I haven’t seen a single flag displayed on any private house here, and not over a dozen on public buildings – the British are what you might call “undemonstrative.”

I went to the office this morning but there was no mail. (That was normal for Sunday). After that I took a walk along Bond Street (which was practically deserted) looking into the windows. Now, if you had been at my side, it would have been very enjoyable. Somehow I’m not much interested in looking by myself, though the shop windows, especially the antiques and the pictures displayed, were quite enticing. Talking about antiques, it made me grin as I looked as I remembered the time Mary wandered into one of those shops to price some tapestried chairs and nearly had them sold to her for about 1000 pounds. Somehow it seems to me she escaped only by promising to come back.

My idea is that when we’re clear of all this trouble, we’ll want to spend several winters (in Africa and the Mediterranean) and springs and autumns in England and the rest of Europe, with the summers in Southwest Harbor. I could have a grand time with you leisurely looking again at Bond Street, the Place de la Concorde, Florence, Rome, Algiers, the Pyramids and Luxor, and maybe even, briefly in season, Massawa. Then the North African Riviera is quite worth riding over, and I think we’d both like to see Greece, and have another view of Switzerland and possibly also Vienna. I think all this could nicely be done in about two sixth months’ visits in successive years, starting say in the early autumn of 1945. You save your pennies and I’ll start hoarding kisses (I’ve got quite a batch in reserve now, but I’ll need more), and it will be wonderful.

With love, Ned

Letter #86

August 28, 1944

Monday evening

Lucy darling:

I am overwhelmed – five letters from you today! #113 arrived this morning, and #111, 112, 114, and 115 this afternoon, good for all of them and excellent for 115 which was postmarked in S.W.H. only 41/2 days ago. I just reveled in them all!

As regards your query on my letter #70 which has a long slice taken off one side of the last page, that happened after the letter was written when I was cutting a newspaper clipping and the knife cut through into the letter which was underneath. I didn’t bother to do anything about it.

I have no doubt that the radio commentators and perhaps the press also have been urged to soft pedal a quick war ending, strictly for home consumption, to avoid slacking off of production, quitting war jobs and to prevent any political kickbacks if too high hopes are not realized. I have every belief the war will be over by November, not because Germany will collapse or surrender or Hitler will be spread over several acres in small pieces, but because by then Germany will be knocked flat by invasion regardless of internal happenings. A quicker ending may come by Hitler’s assassination, but it can’t be counted on. Germany is already defeated and her case is hopeless, but Hitler, Himmler & Goebbels are keeping the corpse on its feet. An invasion push from the Allies or a successful bomb inside Germany will end that act.

You asked how Hitler, Goebbels and Goering can explain the going astray of all of their plans and prophesies. The way it works is that Goebbels never explains such things, never apologizes, never intimates he was wrong in the past. He simply with great assurance tells the Germans that all is foreseen by Der Fuhrer, and provided for, don’t think, don’t question – obey and all will be well. If anyone should question why they should believe that in view of past assurances which have gone haywire, the response would be to shoot the questioner. So no questions are asked, and no embarrassing explanations are required. However, even Goebbels knows that even Germans have some slight memories and may have inner doubts, so he assures them that it is still all necessary to save them from a fate worse than death – the Bolshevists and the Jews. For those who think and doubt, that is the bugaboo he parades – for those without sense enough to think, there is the continual ballyhoo about the Fuhrer, - and for those who are satisfied with neither of these answers but still ask questions, there is the headsman’s axe which is the final Nazi argument in reply.

The end of the war will be different from 1918 and requires the crushing blow by invasion – there can be no new government taking over to make peace nor any acceptance of an armistice by the existing German government. Hitler’s government fights to the death, but it is still uncertain whether the death will come from our hands or be anticipated by a more competent group of German generals than Beck led.

However, on the Western front, the Eastern front, and in the Balkans, the attack is snowballing up and there can be no successful nor long continued defense. The assassination of Hitler is being delayed by his accomplices while they hope the miracle of V-2 may come off. Shortly both the bases for the attack will be lost and the remaining factories for its manufacture smashed, destroying even that unfounded hope. At that point, a group closer to Hitler than the generals (they’ll have to be), an inside Nazi party group led most likely by Goering, will bump Hitler off. But under no conditions is the European ending more than a few months off now.

Tomorrow is Mary’s birthday. My love to you, my dear, in remembrance of it; and to Mary, many happy returns under far happier circumstances. I look at both your photographs before me as I write, and kiss you both in thanks for the great happiness each of you has brought me.

In your #114 you note Mary has heard from Ned but doesn’t know where he is. I don’t either, but I do know when I may expect to see him here.

That picture you enclosed from Life, I am returning herewith. I agree with you, that if it were not for the movie camera in the picture, I could only look at it and wonder when that snapshot of me was taken without my knowledge.

Admiral Kimmel’s statement interested me a lot. It is possible he had some secret instructions from on high regarding the avoidance of “provocative” actions during a peace carnival in Washington. Maybe we’ll know – after election.

You ask what Hitler et al think of “soft” America and Britain now? I can tell you that Goebbels never refers to “decadent” democracies any more and never intimates that they are “soft.” We are now ruthless, perfidious, Bolshevistic, and ruled by “Jewish power politics” but we are no longer “soft,” except that the propaganda would indicate he still thinks we are soft in the head, but not in the muscle. I trust we are not soft either in the head or in the heart.

As regards the New Yorker covers you sent me, I think the one about the nude mother and her baby on the sands with the colored maid stiffly dressed up to the ears and down to the toes, is rich. So also is the one of the Italian monks gazing goggle-eyed at the pin-up girls. You ask if the pin-up girls shown are a fair sample. I regret to tell you they are not – they have too much clothing on. You should see the collection our navy mail clerk has pinned up on the walls of his navy post office cubby-hole behind his mail window! Or some I’ve sailed with in officers’ staterooms in vessels in the invasion fleet!

In rebuttal, I’m sending you a few clippings from the Stars and Stripes here and some English papers. The number of people being slaughtered in the U.S. is so great, the English are wondering when Washington is going to order an evacuation from the place to a safer area. It is estimated the buzz bombs will kill 24,000 people in a year (if they could only keep going that long) which is safety itself compared to the U.S.

My favorite pin-up picture is the middle one of the strips, labeled “Bon Ami.”

With much love, Ned

PS Fruit is very scarce in England, but today I saw some grapes displayed which looked so nice, I bought some. They were $2 a pound – ten shillings! As that was a lot I bought half a crown’s worth, a quarter of a pound for fifty cents. When I got home, they looked so skimpy I counted them to find I had exactly seventeen grapes for fifty cents – three cents a grape!

Letter #87

August 29, 1944

Lucy darling:

Yesterday I received five letters from you, thru 115. I presume I’ll get no more for a few days. Yesterday also, unfortunately, the papers report that an American mail plane at its Scottish terminus, crashed in a village while landing in a fog, with the loss of its whole crew, which is tragically regrettable. Whether it was an Army or Navy (or both) mail carrier I don’t know, and won’t be able to figure out for a few days now, till the mail has (or has not) been delivered. However, on the chance that it was carrying Navy mail, I would suggest that any special information which you may have embodied in letters from say 116 to 119, be repeated immediately in the next letter you write after you get this. (There are no missing letters up to and including 115).

A week ago Monday, I listened to a broadcast “Signal to U.K.” by Emlyn Williams. It struck me so forcefully that I wrote the B.B.C. requesting a copy to send to you, and also suggested to them that they have a record of it rebroadcast in the U.S. in Mr. Williams’ own voice. His delivery was so simple in its deep intensity and sympathetic understanding I felt it constituted a landmark in broadcasting, and that American women should also have the balm of hearing it.

I have just received from the B.B.C. a copy of the broadcast, which I am enclosing. The second paragraph of their letter refers to my suggestion as above.

I would suggest that you read this “Signal to U.K.” aloud. For me (and for all us overseas) it expresses my feelings exactly.

So on this day, Mary’s birthday, I send you as my gift for this day, Emlyn Williams’ beautiful expression of what is in my heart.

With love, Ned

Here is the B.B.C. letter:

The British Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcasting House, London, W. I

Reference: 28/MBH           26^th August 1944

Captain E. Ellsberg U.S.N.R.

U.S. Naval Forces in Europe

15 Grosvenor Square

W.I

Dear Sir:

In reply to you letter of 22^nd August, I am enclosing a copy of the talk by Mr. Emlyn Williams in which you are interested. It will be quite in order for you to send it to your wife in America.

I am afraid that there are no records of the talk, and I have no information up to date, of its being broadcast on any of our Overseas Programmes. But your appreciation has been noted with interest and is being brought to the notice of those responsible for these Programmes.

Yours faithfully,

(Miss) M. B. Hobbs

Director, Secretariat

Letter #88

Aug. 29, 1944

Lucy darling:

As I had five letters from you yesterday, up to #115, I did not expect anything further today, when I wrote you this morning. However, your #116 arrived this afternoon. This makes it unlikely that any navy mail was aboard the mail plane which I wrote you of this morning which crashed yesterday morning in Scotland.

I commented already on that Truman clipping you sent me, which is astonishing in its statement. Discussing the matter here with persons who have some knowledge of the situation, they say that the criticism is well founded in fact and that the responsibility lies where I guessed it did. The critic is stated to be correct in his statement “our people will be amazed by the truth.” It will be interesting to see whether they get it before my birthday, of ever.

Things are quieter here. From last Friday morning until Sunday morning, a 48 hour period there were no alerts and no bombs. On Sunday morning there were a few, with one alert. Then we had 30 hours more with no alerts or bombs. Yesterday afternoon (Monday) we had several alerts but no bombs were heard in our area. I understand a few fell in the outskirts. Today we had several alerts, but no bombs heard, though tonight I saw one flying through the night, a ball of fire some distance off and still traveling, so to me it looked as if it might overshoot London altogether. I didn’t hear any explosion.

The answers are several, but one is that the AA gunners are knocking most of them down. However, today has been rainy off and on, which somewhat cramps their style. It’s overcast now.

Another one just went by about half a mile to the left, quite a brilliant meteor, spotted in the beams of a dozen searchlights playing on it to mark its course for air raid wardens. So far as I could judge, it kept on about three miles beyond, and I could see the sudden glow when it exploded, but heard no explosion. You would think you’d hear a ton of TNT exploding three miles off, but in spite of the fact that I could hear the motor cut out a few seconds before the flash, I still heard no explosion. Queer.

Tonight’s radio reports put our troops at Soissons on the Aisne, and entering Rheims. Yesterday they were at Chateau Thierry on the Marne. In World War I, even when things were going better in 1918, it took them from July to about October to cover that much ground – now they’ve done it in 24 hours.

It was somewhat of a disappointment that any of the German Seventh Army got out of the Falaise-Argentan pocket, but there were three rainy days at an unfortunate period there that stopped the air assault. However the bulk of that army was disposed of, and most of their equipment was washed out. Practically all the rest of it was lost in the Seine. One cannot expect perfection in destruction all the time. The remnants of the Seventh Army amount to little now. We’ll shortly see how much the German 15^th Army from the Calais area, which has moved up to cover the fleeing fragments of the Seventh, is worth. It looks to me as if with Montgomery hitting them frontally, and Bradley’s 2^nd Army on their southern flank, they are in for a short life and a merry one unless they start running like hell immediately. In that case, they’ll have the pleasure of dying for Hitler closer to home. However, I think they’ll be ordered to stand and defend the flying bomb coasts. And that is shortly going to spell the end of the German 15^th Army.

With love, Ned

Letter #89

Aug. 30, 1944

Lucy darling:

No letter today, but that was not unexpected after the mass of mail of the last three days, ending with #116 yesterday.

Things are moving very fast on the other side. In a week or less, Patton will be either in Belgium or Germany. Germany is my bet. From a strictly military view, I think that is correct, but there is a psychological angle that might change his course more to the north. Every German broadcast, every German statement, shows the Germans know they have lost (see General Dittmar’s statement enclosed) but they are desperately holding on waiting for the miracle of V-2 and fooling themselves over V-1. Now neither V-1 nor

V-2 (if it eventuates) will make any difference but the Germans still think they will, and are hanging on by their eyebrows, thinking that they are with V-1 (or will with V-2) hurting the Allies (Britain) so much, as Dittmar says, that the Allies will ask “Are the losses---worth the candle militarily and politically, taking a sane view of the situation?” Now honestly in no way are the Allies, and least of all Britain, being hurt anything like in World War I, or in 1940-1941, and no such question is even being dreamed of here. However, if the German delusion were even in German eyes dissolved, it would make a serious difference in the German attitude towards continuing to hang on. So for that reason, it is possible that the war will be swung north to wash up the flying bomb coast quickly and destroy that German dream, though it is sounder strategy to bypass the Calais coast and break as quickly as possible in Western Germany. The next few days will show how this problem sizes up in Allied headquarters strategy.

The Germans are still crazy. Dittmar’s sole hope is to so hurt Britain by “a tooth and claw struggle” that she will want to compromise. What else does he think Britain has been up against since 1940? The Nazis have learned nothing at all – “Spurlos versankt” and “frightfulness” in the last war, more terrible ruthlessness and plain mass murder in this one are useless weapons against Germany’s enemies. From now on, German resistance is going to be a Nazi massacre with slight Allied losses, which will be a good thing in leaving less fanatics to deal with in Germany after the war.

The defense against flying bombs is getting better and better. If the Germans knew how few of the bombs they now launch get through to London, it would make them positively ill.

I enclose a report by two British reporters on what they say in Lublin (Ed: Poland), one report quite in detail. Here is what Nazi Germany has been doing to hundreds of thousands of helpless civilians, Jews mostly, but plenty of others of all nationalities in her grip. A more damnable crime was never perpetrated on this earth in history. And yet I swear that within a few years in the United States you will hear the “good” people absolving Germany completely of all this, denying it ever happened, laughing it off as just wartime propaganda to make us hate the enemy.

The other clippings illuminate the English scene from blackberries to buzz bombs to blackouts.

My dinner date with Ned (Ed: Benson) seems fairly definite now for next Monday night (Sept. 4).

With love, Ned

Mary ought to be with you now.

Letter #90

Aug. 31, 1944

Lucy darling:

The news tonight is breath-taking. General Bradley’s army has taken Sedan, crossed the Meuse, and may already be in Belgium; Montgomery’s men have taken Amiens and are closing on Dieppe; and Patton is sweeping into the Argonne forest to Germany’s border! I have not been conservative in what I thought our armies could do, but they are outstripping all expectations. Without doubt all this is the result of their so crushing von Kluge’s Seventh Army at Caen-Falaise-Argentan and the divisions of the Fifteenth Army sent to bolster it up, that there is not enough of a German army in northwest France to offer a battle in opposition, or to get into position to oppose the advances on Belgium and Germany.

Not the least important news is that General Montgomery has been promoted to Field Marshal, which no soldier has ever better merited. I send you a clipping from the July 16 Baltimore Sun, just at hand, showing how the experts on the eve of his great victory, were so blind as to what was going on as to hint that he might well be eliminated. If half the newspaper experts were boiled in oil and the other half set to selling newspapers on the street, we should be much better off.

I enclose also a cartoon from today’s Stars and Stripes, sent by a sergeant at the front, which when my eye lighted on it at lunch today, practically rolled me out of my seat. It’s an excellent illustration in a few strokes of what’s going on. Maybe it isn’t as funny as it seemed to me, but for us over here, it’s tops.

Your #117 came this morning. I judge from its delivery that no Navy mail was aboard that Army mail plane which I mentioned crashing over here a few days ago.

I repeat that I expect to have dinner with Ned II on the evening of Sept. 4.

With much love, Ned

P.S. I suppose Mary has been with you since her birthday at least.

Letter #91

Sept. 1, 1944

Friday

Lucy darling:

Yesterday it rained intermittently and sharply all day long. Today it’s clear and the sun shining, but with decidedly an autumn tang in the air which seems to say that September has come (as it has) and that the summer, which we have never had here this year, is over even officially (or astronomically, even).

As regards the question of my going again to the far shore, which you ask in #117, frankly I don’t know now. It is for that that I am waiting, in reserve, so to speak, but there have been so many changes in plan, some hinging on the military situation and some not, that I have no idea of what will happen. If I go again, I certainly have every intention of returning home as soon as my task there is completed; meanwhile I am just waiting. I once knew what was intended with regard to the far shore ports; now I don’t any more.

I think Mary’s idea of sending her bicycle to S.W. H. is an excellent one – she has a shipping crate for it in the garage, and I suppose she had it crated and shipped without waiting for her own departure.

Now as regards the furnace, which, as you say, you’ll certainly want in September. There’s coal enough, but you’ll probably need kindling. There is a water filling copper pipe to the humidity pan in the furnace which I think I disconnected to avoid freezing, and I think you’d better leave it disconnected and unused, and also warn whoever closes up the house (Gilley?) to see that it is so left, particularly with regard to its valves both in the kitchen above the hot water tank, and in the basement.

Your major problem will be the thermostat clock. You will want to use that, or you’ll probably alternately find yourself freezing and roasting, and all the time rebuilding a burned out fire. To put the clock in service, you will have to plug it in by plugging in a connection you will find in the basement overhead and to the right of the furnace. It will also be necessary to insure that the clock hands are synchronized for day and night, or you may find yourself 12 hours out of cycle, as Rose Bristol once was, with sad heating results. I do not think it advisable to meddle with the settings for “on” and “off,” morning and night on the thermostat, nor with the “on” and “off” temperature settings, unless absolutely necessary.

You can plug in the thermostat yourself if you desire, and then synchronize the time setting to insure heating in the daytime and not at night, by moving the clock minute hand till you are sure you are in the right 12 hour cycle. If all goes well, that’s all there is to it, but if you are dubious, you’d better get the electrician to come out and do it for you. When you leave, I suggest you yourself unplug the basement clock thermostat connection, and not leave it for the general closing up of the house.

I quite agree with you that next summer it will be desirable to have an architect look the house over to see what can be done to increase its beauty and its utility with a veranda; also to make it more habitable for early spring and autumn. My own idea is that for that we’ll want an oil burner and paneling downstairs at least, and probably upstairs also. And of course a big plate glass window in the front of the living room and of the porch also (the latter sliding, if possible). Then we’ll need a lawn on the point, and possibly even, a vegetable garden back on the old garden patch, where the Manset (Ed: their house was in a section of Southwest Harbor called Manset) bunnies can nibble carrots and cabbage. (I don’t insist on this latter). And we’ll see if we can buy a strip of land from the Woods, and clear up our own forest. (Talking about summer homes, a sizeable flight of glistening fortresses is passing overhead, bound homeward after unloading across the water. They don’t often pass directly over the town.) (See clipping).

Well, I see from one of the clippings you sent me that the activities of the N. J. Shipbuilding Corp. at Perth Amboy are coming close to the end. I quite agree – we have enough LCI(4)s to more than finish off the Japs, and they are no longer needed in Europe, where certainly amphibious assaults in France have come to an end and Germany lies wide open to land attack west, south and east. I shed no tears over the near closing of New Jersey Ship – that outfit gave me plenty of headaches.

Thanks also for the other clippings, which I have enjoyed reading.

If you haven’t already sent one for September, I will appreciate getting the Times financial pages.

I’ve got about $650 here now between my bank account in the Chase and my pay account, which we might use towards improving The Anchorage; I think that might be a good permanent memorial of Hitler’s contributions towards a new “world order.” I may have a little more by the time I come home.

I enclose a clipping of Mr. A. P. Herbert’s views on forgiveness. As between Mr. Herbert and Mr. Priestley (who is now one of Britain’s parlor communists) there is no comparison; I always felt that Priestley, after his disgraceful performance in America some years ago, was below par as a man. I’m glad to see Herbert, on the contrary, rising in stature.

Meanwhile the Pope is to broadcast tonight on the sixth anniversary of Hitler’s starting the war. As it is to be a shortwave broadcast and my radio doesn’t cover the shortwave bands, I’ll have to wait for rebroadcasts to see what he says. However, his previous statements have never to any sharp degree opposed Hitler’s progress while he was winning, and I am not prepared to listen with enthusiasm to any “turn the other cheek” or “forgiveness” counsel from the Pope now. Actually, while I know that up to the capture of Rome, the Pope’s position was not a happy one, still he passed up the opportunity to denounce the devil while the devil was in the ascendant; it’s too late now for him to get the world’s ear. What will be remembered when this war is over, will be Churchill’s voice, not the Pope’s.

I wrote a few days ago that the Germans had dropped their ridiculous “Invasion Calling” and how I was going to miss “Lilli Marlene.” Well, after two days they pulled themselves together and put on a new “Invasion Calling” program, leaving out the more laughable parts of the song “Invasion” but still keeping the rest of it. Thank goodness, they recognized the value of “Lilli Marlene” as an attraction and kept that. In between “Invasion” and “Lilli Marlene” are sandwiched some entertaining songs by Midge (back again) but no more of the nostalgic “Down By the Old Mill Stream” stuff, and some of the most adroit and poisonous propaganda items as before for dissention amongst the allies. However, I’m afraid I’ll shortly have to kiss this program goodbye, for while it’s broadcast on both Calais and Bremen, it is only from the Calais station that I get it really clearly. And in a couple of days, that Calais station is going to be all washed up, so far as German broadcasts are concerned.

All our armies are going great guns. Dieppe, Arras, Verdun, all in one day. The long weeks of heavy slugging at the German Seventh Army from Caen to La Haye de Puits (remember them?) are paying off heavily now. I don’t think there is anything left of the Seventh Army but its third commander, and the British captured him yesterday. Pretty tough when an Army commander can’t even stop for breakfast without having enemy tanks drop in on him. (See clipping).

It was a grand and glorious feeling to hear that the same Canadian division which assaulted Dieppe two years ago, captured it today. It was the Dieppe raid which brought forth Hitler’s shrill gibe, “The next time Mr. Churchill cares to invade Europe, I promise him he will not stay even nine hours!” Well, perhaps Adolph stopped his clock at H hour on D day, for it’s been a long nine hours since then – especially for him. By tomorrow night our troops will be on the Belgian frontier and long before you get this will be on the German border and probably across it.

About five years ago (this is the sixth anniversary thereof) two songs sprang into popularity, one German “Wir gegen nack England” (approximately) or “We Sail Against England” which the Germans used to sing vociferously but have now conveniently forgotten. They were reminded of it when the first prisoners from the Normandy beachhead were greeted by a band playing it when they came ashore at Portsmouth shortly after D day. The other song was sung by British tommies during the “sitzkrieg” before the assault on Holland in May, 1940; it was “We’ll Hang Out Our Washing on the Siegfried Line.” I predict a sudden revival in the popularity of this song – in fact Polish, French, Dutch, and American versions of it will be roaring out lustily from now on. Odd how both those songs came true. Maybe that’s where my washing is hanging out, for it has never come back. Perhaps it went east with our troops from Normandy and will shortly literally be doing that. I may ask General Patton to have the MPs search the Siegfried Line for my stuff.

With love, Ned

Letter #92

Sept. 2, 1944

Saturday night

Lucy darling:

I may have misnumbered my letter of Sept. 1. It should have been #90, regardless of how it was marked.

Your #118 and 119 came this morning. I rather imagined from what I knew over here, that Mary should be in S.W.H. for her birthday. I trust nothing in the complicated travel and taxi arrangements went wrong, and that she made it all right. It will be pleasant to have Diana there also.  It’s particularly nice to have Mary arrive before Clara leaves since they haven’t had a visit together for some time.

I don’t expect anything to result from the recommendation that Admiral Irish made; not that he didn’t mean it, but I’ve learned from Capt. Pickering (also a reserve officer now) that there are certain Navy Department policies which make action quite unlikely with regard to reserve officers. I wasn’t aware of them before, and I doubt that Admiral Irish is either. I’ll discuss this when I get home. Meanwhile I’m not worrying over it.

It’s too bad your own radio wasn’t working well enough to take up. I hope Alice leaves hers with you till you and Mary leave SWH. Does that leave them any in Springfield? Possibly if Alice’s goes back with Clara, you can rent one in SWH for the remainder of your stay. Otherwise there is Mary’s now, which perhaps you can get Madelline to pack up and ship to you.

The Oradour massacre came in July when the Germans in a perfectly fiendish manner wiped out the town of some 500 people, (including the people) in reprisal for some minor Maquis attack, which took place in the vicinity. A particularly revolting feature was the fact that there is Oradour sur X and Oradour sur Y, and the SS troops in their reprisal burned up the one that wasn’t even so much involved as being in the vicinity of the Maquis attack. Lidice was not in a class with what happened in Oradour; there in Oradour most of the inhabitants were herded into their church, the doors barred, and the church burned up. Hardly seven people escaped alive from the whole town. It made quite a stir over here, particularly in our Army, since Eisenhower’s statement about the F.F.I. being a part of his forces, was involved in the situation.

You may be interested in the flying bomb situation. It is now this:

            Friday, Aug. 25 & Sat. Aug. 26. No alerts, no bombs for 48 hours.

            Sunday, Aug. 27, in the morning one alert, 4 bombs that I heard.

            Monday night, Aug. 28, nothing for 30 hours, then two bombs seen, no explosions heard.

            Since Monday Aug. 28 to tonight (Sept. 2) no bombs seen, no bombs heard for five days now. A few brief alerts in that period, with a few bombs reported, but I believe they all fell short of London.

It looks pretty much as if V-1 is now washed up, though the German radio claims daily “Retaliation fire of V-1 on Greater London continues.” I suppose it does in Goebbels propaganda scripts. The causes for the practical cessation are probably: 1. Many sites captured. 2. Many supply depots captured. 3. Communications to remaining sites in danger. 4. Sites at present uncaptured temporarily out of commission while an attempt is being made to move their equipment to new sites further east, not yet ready for action. The probabilities are that this V-1 will not again get in action on any but a very limited scale from Dutch bases, and that for not long. I think V-1 can now be written off.

It is doubtful that V-2 will ever be heard of, except on Goebbels’ radio. Even that talks less now of secret weapons than of going down fighting, with a “people’s army” inside Germany defending every village to the last gasp – just the way they defended Cherbourg. There may be some value in this “people’s army” business, for it will help to disillusion America of the “good” German delusion. Actually I have no doubt we’ll run into some Nazis of that stripe in every village, ready to duplicate the performance in Notre Dame de Paris of last week. The Swiss papers believe, however, that giving the German worker arms for a “people’s army” will be a boomerang – that many of them will then be able for the first time to use them to bump off the Gestapo, in collaboration with the remnants of the German Wehrmacht, which also now hates the Gestapo, the SS, and all their works and will hate them even more if they are forced to continue the war after it’s lost and the Wehrmacht is broken into small bits.

Without any question, Goebbels is fighting for time now, not to put secret weapons into operation, but in the hope that given a few months (on top of war weariness in the U.S. and Britain) he can yet split the Allies apart on political questions. Even a relatively unpromising matter such as Montgomery’s promotion to Field-Marshal, is given a big play in creating discord between him and Eisenhower, in setting up dissentions  among British and Americans (each of whom is told (believe this or not) in the same broadcast that the other is playing him for a sucker) and when I read what our own Senator Chandler spouts on this general subject, I don’t know but that Goebbels is succeeding.

The big hope, of course, is to split the Allies wide apart over Poland. It would amaze you to listen to the skill with which Lord Haw Haw plays on this theme. Then of course all the other Goebbels standbys are being ridden for all they are worth now, and most expertly, I can assure you. I give these scoundrels credit for being able within a couple of years (when the Allied cohesion because of war dangers is over) to split the present Allies much further apart than they were in the 1920s – unless every one of them from Goebbels down to Haw Haw and the lesser American and British radio traitors, is executed remorselessly. I ago was an amateur compared with Goebbels and his satellites.

I’m sending some clippings that illustrate some of these things.

By the way, since I’ve just heard Ned won’t be at his camp till early Tuesday morning, we are changing our dinner date to Tuesday night instead of Monday night.

With love, Ned

Letter #93

Sept. 3, 1944

Sunday evening

Lucy darling:

This morning I went to the office, not that anybody works there Sundays anymore or even attends, but because it is the only place I can mail a letter. But virtue was rewarded – there were two letters from you, #120 and 121, and one from Mary of Aug. 25. This is the first time we’ve had a Sunday delivery in weeks.

Clara will be gone by the time you get this, but thank her anyway for the clipping she sent on the London publishing situation. It’s quite so. I told you some time ago I’d tried to buy here one of my books for General Gale, but the booksellers were out and after contacting the publishers, told me about the same as the clipping said. So I forgot it. (The book, by the way, hasn’t arrived yet from Dodd, Mead, though it was shipped several weeks ago. I got a bill and a shipping notice then.) I was surprised therefore when a bluejacket walked in yesterday with a British edition of “Captain Paul” for an autograph. He told me he had just bought it at Selfridge’s. So I rushed over there to buy one for myself, and asking the clerk how come, they said the book was so much requested (all of a dozen buyers I shouldn’t wonder) that the British publishers, Heinemann, had decided to reprint a new edition, and they had consequently stocked up on it again. (They had, too; aside from what they’d already sold, they had over a dozen copies on the shelf). I imagine that, for Captain Paul, in England of all places! After I read that clipping over again, I felt quite set up. So that you also may get the same swelled head for your part of it, I am sending that clipping back to you for your reperusal.

Your remarks on the cooling off in SWH and your warming up the bathroom with the hot water in the tub, strike a sympathetic chord here, where it also grew quite cool immediately Sept. 1 rolled around. Tonight I dug through my trunk for a sweater and emerged with the one Mary knitted me in SWH. I’m wearing it now in my room.

In response to your question in #120 of Aug. 26, I certainly have no intention or desire of staying over here for work once the fighting is over. I have no urge to spend the rest of my life on salvage, whether it’s in French harbors or elsewhere. As a peacetime occupation, I hate it.

Talking about your report of Leland Stowe’s broadcast on delusions about reeducating young Nazis, here’s another clipping on how “Tomorrow The World” strikes English critics.

I gave you a report on flying bombs yesterday. This evening it was announced that not one bomb had even been launched at England since Friday evening, and also that for the first time since they started almost three months ago, that the German war communiqué did not include its usual phrase “Heavy V-1 fire was directed at Greater London all day yesterday.” It didn’t even mention them. I have no doubt the Germans will try to resume later at longer range from some points on the eastern Dutch coast, but the defensive position against such points of attack is even more favorable than it was lately, so few will ever reach England from there. And even those bases couldn’t last long.

While I’ve heard plenty in the last few days about how Germany’s total mobilization will bring about stabilized fronts in the West as it has (?) in the East, no more mention is made any more about “secret weapons.” Having had the Calais coast kicked out from under them, the V2 weapon has suddenly burst like a pricked soap bubble right in Goebbels’ face, and now when he needs it more than ever for propaganda, if for nothing else, he is compelled to ignore it completely to avoid embarrassing thoughts in the home front mind. After all the hot air he has blown out about it, this sudden reversal of his propaganda might cause blushes to the garden variety of propagandist, but not to Goebbels who from long experience is used to sudden reversals. No apologies, no explanations will be offered, and Himmler will see that there are no questions.

The “stabilized front” business, makes me laugh. The Warsaw front will burst suddenly asunder before long just as the Normandy front did at Caen-Falaise a few weeks ago. And there is never going to be any in the West that will last over a week.  If a stand is made at the Siegfried Line or on the Rhine, it may cause a pause for about a week while Bradley and Patton bring up the necessary concentration, and then they’ll go through the “stabilized front” as if it weren’t there.

The Nazis should have learned by now that all their “Lines” and “Walls” and “Festungs this and that” are just about as good as the Nazis behind them, and that’s not much when we hit them in earnest.

I enclose a clipping on how Rommel gambled on the weather in Normandy and consequently sacrificed all the Western German armies. The writer misses the point. The weather was not only as bad as Rommel figured on, but much worse, so it cannot be said that Rommel acted on a meteorological miscalculation. He didn’t. What sunk Rommel was that he hadn’t figured that we had figured out a way to make the bad weather immaterial. What licked Rommel and ruined the German campaign in Normandy was our artificial harbors – save for them, Rommel’s plan of attack might have defeated the invasion, or at the very worst have cost us such terrific losses that our further progress would have required a campaign running at least a year longer. And God knows what the effect the reaction of that would have had in the United States.

I saw a review of “Anna & the King of Siam” which sounded interesting, but don’t bother to send it. I have access to libraries over here, including the Armed Services books. Just now I’m engaged in reading a very interesting book called “Captain Paul.” (Ed: written by himself). I’ve got so far as where the hero has just arrived at the island of Tobago. I can recommend it to you, but I shan’t send you my copy, as it may be available to you in the U.S. at some libraries.

Mary’s departure for SWH jibes pretty much with my information on this side.

I trust the weather in SWH doesn’t get too cold and that as long as you stay, you and Mary and Diana all have a grand time.

There is of course no point in punishing yourself by staying after it really gets too cold for comfort.

With love, Ned

The B.B.C. states that is certain that von Kluge now is dead, but not certain yet whether he committed suicide or died of a heart attack. German C in Cs facing our armies have a short life. Having seen our armies in action, I can well understand it.

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