WW2 Era Letter Written by U.S. Serviceman in Ireland. He writes about the weather, countryside, furlough to England, Jerries bombing London, visiting Giant’s Causeway and more.

[Heartfeltzero]

This letter was written by an Emmett Gerdts. He was born on May 11th 1904. During the war, he served with the 256 Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company. The letter reads:

“ Northern Ireland
April 16, 1944

Dear Gordon,

I received your most welcome letter and will try to answer it before waiting any longer. It is quite a job to keep up with my correspondence any more but I try to anyway. This is Sunday and I wrote 7 letters this A.M. and this is my second one since dinner so you see what a task it is. I’m not very good at this sort of thing anyway but I like to get letters and the best way to be sure of getting them is to answer as soon as possible. I have been very busy since I returned from my furlough in England.

The weather here is very nice now. It rains often but the sun comes out after each shower and is very warm. They say it never gets hot here even in summer and seldom freezes in winter. The rains are never very hard ones, more like a sprinkle but they are very frequent. The country is fast becoming more pretty to look at. The trees and bushes are all getting green and the pastures which are green all year round take on a fresher and prettier green from now on. Two weeks ago we made a trip in trucks up to the “Giant’s Causeway” which is a particular formation of rocks along the Atlantic coast at the very northern end of Ireland. We left on Saturday and returned on Sunday. It was a swell trip and we all had a fine time.

The farmland around here is all plowed or being plowed and they are planting. They have a lot of cattle and sheep here which accounts for so much pasture land. You should see the sheep dogs work the sheep. I enjoy watching them and do so at every opportunity. Most of them are black and white Shepards and are not quite as big as laddie. One day I saw one dog bringing about 30 or 40 sheep down a road by himself and he ran past them and stopped at an open gate and made them all go in that field. When they were all in and grazing he sat down on a little hill and watched them. They are almost human at times and are very friendly when they are not working. We called to the one I just told you about and he never paid any attention to us, he was so busy helping his sheep together.

The sun was shining brightly just a few minutes ago and now as I looked up it is raining outside. I have been traveling around over Northern Ireland in both trucks and jeeps for some time now but I’ll still take Indiana for mine. I have been lucky so far on these narrow winding roads. I have only had one accident with a jeep and nobody was hurt. Just bent up the jeep a little. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. I had Esther send me some #120 films for a Kodak I bought in a town near here so maybe I’ll have some pictures to show you some day. I should like to hear you play the piano but that will have to wait a while yet. Tell your Mother and Dad I received their letter and also thank them for the maple sugar which I enjoyed very much. I’ll try to write to them later too.

While I was in London, I was lucky too, they bombed it the night before we arrived and then we left on a Monday morning and the Jerry’s hit it again that night but we were in country by then. I was very sorry to hear of the death of Fred Hukride(?). Well Gordon, I guess I’ve run out of material so I’ll have to close for now. Write when you can. With best wishes to you and your Mother and Dad, I remain as ever your friend,

Emmett. “

Emmett would survive the war and return home. He would pass away on July 28th 2005 aged 101. He is buried in the Washington Park East Cemetery in Indiana.