WW2 Era Letter written by Combat Engineer. “There were still plenty snipers there. But we cleaned them out pretty fast. We took 27 german prisoners five of them were officers.......”

[Heartfeltzero]

The letter was written by Benjamin Southam. During the war he served with the 1101 Combat Engineers. It’s dated June 1st 1945.

The letter reads:

“June 1st 1945

Hello Anna how is every thing? This is Friday night and thought I would write you a letter before I go to bed, it is nine o’clock. The weather was very nice all day. But yesterday it rained all day. I am feeling fine and hope every body back home is the same. I am still at the same place. I will enclose a few pictures of these parts around here. I hope you like them. I will also enclose the necklace, how does mom like hers? Or didn’t she get it yet. I did not get any mail for a few days, but I get the courier pretty regular. They are always about five weeks behind. I don’t know much news but i guess I will tell you about some of the trip when I came over here. I don’t know if you…

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will be interested or not. But here it is. I left Butner on the 20th of October and went to camp Kilmer NJ and stayed there 10 days. Got on the boat Oct 20 from New York Harbor we began to sail October 22nd. It was a nice big ship. It carried 3500 soldiers. I was on the water fourteen days. It was a very nice trip. We had pretty good weather all the way over. I did not get sea sick. But there was plenty who did. We landed in Liverpool England and went to a camp called Delamere park. It was a fair place but nothing to Bragg about. We stayed there until December 31st. Then we crossed the channel to Le Harve, France, that was New Years Eve. We walked about 12 miles that night and had to hitch tents. It was cold. It snowed and sleeted. We slept…

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outside for almost two weeks. Then we got a place in a big building. It was called a Chateau. We did not have any trucks yet, until about the 20th of January. I was glad when we got them. Then we left there and went to a place called Lunéville(?). We went there in box cars and only rode at night on account of air raids. We stayed in an old jail house. It was still plenty cold. Plenty snow. We slept on straw on the floor. Then from there we went to Steinberg(?), that was a lot better, but we stayed in an old barn on the first of Feb. We went to a place called Bischwiller(?) to build a bridge and boy did we get the stuffing knocked out of us. We got the bridge up all right. It would have been finished in…

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about twenty minutes when the shells began to fly. One guy got killed and seven wounded. I was plenty scared but came out lucky. We stayed in Steinberg(?) quite a while. Our next move was into Germany. We got in a town. I forgot the name but it was taken about three hours before we got there. There were still plenty snipers there. But we cleaned them out pretty fast. We took 27 German prisoners, five of them were officers. Well I guess I have told you enough for one time. But I will start where I am leaving off if you want me to. Let me know in your next letter. And make sure you write a big long letter. No V-Mail. So I will say good night and hope to hear from you real soon and often.

Love,

Pal Frank”

[TabsTabs1964]

Really interesting, mate.
Thanks for share.

Regards
Santi

[Kohima]

A fine illustration of the way soldiers make what must have been some terrifying moments seem almost mundane. Much of a soldier’s life is, of course, fairly routine, but artillery, snipers and rounding up prisoners will not have been the almost throwaway events he describes.
A fascinating insight and a nice find.

[Heartfeltzero]

No problem! Glad you enjoyed the read!

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Thanks!