WW2 Era Letter Written by U.S. Marine During Battle of Okinawa. He mentions seeing planes going down.

[Heartfeltzero]

This letter was written by a Raymond “Ray” Boyer. During the war, he served in the 2nd Anti Aircraft Artillery Battalion (2nd AAArtillery Bn) within the U.S. Marine Corps. They would participate in The battles of Tarawa and Okinawa. The letter was written while Ray was in Okinawa. His unit was emplaced near Yontan Airfield in order to protect the airfield against Japanese air raids and kamikaze attacks.

“ May 22nd 1945

Dear Miss Heckard :

I have a few spare minutes so I thought I would write a few lines.

I hope this letter finds you in the very best of health.

I am in very good health and feeling just fine. I did have fleas for a few days but I managed to kill most of them. All of the fellows had them, and now we all know just how a dog feels when it has the fleas. At the time it was no laughing matter but now as I look back it sure does seem funny.

I have seen a few snakes, in fact we have killed several. One night a snake popped right up in front of one of the fellows face, and scared him half to death. He managed to shoot it before it got away.

I have experienced quite a number of raids, and I have seen quite a few planes shot down. It sure is something to see a plane go down, especially when it is a Jap.

I have just received another issue of the Rock talk, and I sure do appreciate receiving it and reading all the school news. I really want to thank the staff for sending it to me.

I will have to close this letter as I have some work to do. I will try and write again whenever I have some spare time.

Yours very truly,
Ray “

[Willmore]

Hi JB.

Again, another fascinating letter that shows a brief glimpse of a soldiers life, thank you for sharing it with us.

Kind regards,

Will.

[bronk]

...I have a letter from a relative that was in the Vietnam War...from whichever war, they all seem ''typical''.....usually never mentioning the horrors, of course.....but mentioning the ''mundane'' things = ''fleas'', etc .....I was in the Corps and wrote the ''same'' things to my parents