This letter was written by a Herbert C Brombacher. He was born on May 5th 1926 in Scranton Pennsylvania. During the war he worked in Publications with the Sixth Army in the Pacific. The letter reads:
“July 17th 1945
Somewhere in the Philippines
I guess my mom told you where I am. The Philippines are quite the place, with its strange customs and traditions. Here the men are all dressed up and the women do the work. All the woman have a cigarette in their mouth all of the time.
We have a Filipino boy in our tent. He cleans our rifles and makes our beds and washes and presses our clothes for one peso a week, that is fifty cents in American money. He wants us to teach him the English language.
I am working in publications of the Sixth Army. I do typing and cut stencils and run mimeograph machine. It is very interesting work.
I guess the boys of trinity are pretty well scattered throughout the world. I never thought I would ever end up here.
I have been to Manila a few times. It must have been a beautiful city at one time but it sure is torn to pieces now. The harbor is full of ships that were sunk.
We are having a rainy season now. It rains almost every night and when I say rain it comes down in buckets.
We have tents with electric lights in. I never thought overseas would be like this. The only thing I do not like are the mosquitoes. They come down at you like a formation of p-38’s.
I guess I will sign off for now for I have to go to work. Give my regards to the people of Trinity.
PFC Herb Brombacher”
Herbert would survive the rest of the war and would pass away on January 23rd 2001 at the age of 74.
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