Closing the Book on Letters from 1943

March 6, 2012 Leave a Comment


View Babe’s Path Through the Army in a larger map

With this cheeky letter to his parents in which he scolds them for continually asking him to send them a picture, we close the book on the letters from 1943. Next we start to transcribe and comment on letters from 1944, the only full year he spent in the U.S. Army.

Between his induction into the army on Feb. 19 and the end of 1943, Babe wrote 60 letters home to his family that I know of. Those 60 letters are transcribed here and I have included a scanned PDF of each of them. It goes without saying, of course, that he probably wrote scores more to friends and other family that I don’t have.

In the nearly 11 months that Babe has been in the army through this point in our project, he has traveled about 7,000 miles — from his hometown of Mount Kisco, N.Y., to Caserta, Italy. Use the interactive map above to trace his route; click the pinpoints to see more information about each spot and link to details on this blog. Read more of this post

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A Palace Babe Might Have Seen on His Trek North Through Italy

February 24, 2012 Leave a Comment

By this point in the timeline of Babe’s letters, his unit should be based at Caserta, Italy. I’ve mapped the location of Caserta in an earlier post. I bring it up here because I recently came across some information that I thought was interesting, and the way I learned about it was fascinating to me as well. It also told me a little something about what Babe might have seen in his odyssey through Italy.

This picture was provided by Pia Conte, whose father Luca George Conte, also served in the army in Italy and was involved as the Fifth Army marched north from Naples and Salerno.

Luca Conte in Caserta.

Pia Conte gave me no details about the photo, but my friends on Facebook helped me track down the location. Read more of this post

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Who Is This ‘Mr. Morgan’ Babe Keeps Mentioning in His Letters?

February 18, 2012 Leave a Comment

Mount Kisco Elementary, which was a K-12 school including Mount Kisco High until 1956.

In at least four or five of Babe’s letters recently, he’s made reference to “Mr. Morgan,” in the context of letters Babe had expected to receive from Mr. Morgan, but which had not yet arrived.

I had a vague memory of my father mentioning Mr. Morgan while I was growing up, in the context of a teacher from Mount Kisco High School, where my father had graduated and Babe had graduated at least a decade before.

When I emailed my father, he replied:

Mr. (Kenneth) Morgan was Dr. Morgan when I was in high school. I’m sure it would be the same man. He was a unique person. He was the advisor for Hi-Y; I was president one year. He was our math teacher. He used to write on the blackboard while still facing the class, if you can picture that. He spent hours outside of class helping us prepare for tests and Regents Exams. I was at his house several times for help. He really took an interest in the kids.

He was sometimes forgetful. He once drove his car to the train station and went to New York. When he returned, he took a taxi home and saw his car was missing and reported it stolen to the police. He was a great guy and great teacher and everybody loved him. I can believe that he corresponded with ex-students in the army.

I haven’t been able to learn much about him online. My father said he was a fairly elderly man when he knew Dr. Morgan, so he’s likely long-since died. I found one reference on a site that says, simply, “Dr. K. B. Morgan, Mount Kisco High School, Mount Kisco, New York, has been appointed Assistant Professor at Pace College (now Pace University, in Westchester County, N.Y.).”

I also talked to Pat (Schmelter) Rosafort, who works with the Mount Kisco Historical Society. We spoke on the phone on Feb. 7 and she recalled Babe and the news of his death, but not many details beyond that. She did remember a lot about Mr. Morgan; she had been a student at Mount Kisco High a few years before my father.

He was a special teacher, one we wish we had more of today. It wasn’t uncommon for one to walk by his home and see seven or eight kids backed around his dining room table getting extra help. He was a wonderful math teacher. I struggled a little with geometry and got extra help from him. When I got 97 on my Regents, he thought he had won the Super Bowl.

Mount Kisco High, by the way, graduated its last class in 1956 and consolidated with the Bedford School District (my mother graduated after my father; she may have been in the second class at the consolidated Fox Lane High School). The old Mount Kisco High building is now Mount Kisco Elementary School.

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What Was the ‘Good Old Music from the U.S.A.’ in October 1943?

February 16, 2012 Leave a Comment

In the last of Babe’s letters I transcribed, he told his parents, “Right now, I am listening to the news, which will be followed directly by some good old music from the U.S.A. Last night, I fell asleep right in the middle of the Bob Hope program.”

It got me wondering: What was the “good old music” from the United States. As it turned out, it’s not exactly my taste. The No. 1 hit the week Babe wrote that letter was “Pistol Packin’ Mama” by Al Dexter. I’ve never heard of the song or the artist until now. If you ask me, the song was pretty forgettable. But it turned into a hit later for Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, too, apparently. Read more of this post

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And Now, Why This Blog is Called ‘Well, Happy and Safe’

February 13, 2012 Leave a Comment

Is it off-putting to read a blog called “Well, Happy and Safe,” knowing that it’s about the wartime letters of an army infantryman who dies four days before the end of the war?

If it were, I wouldn’t be surprised, but for me, it couldn’t have had any other name. The last letter I transcribed on this blog, dated Oct. 5, 1943, began with these words: “I am still well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.”

From this 45th letter on, nearly ever letter he writes will begin with those words. I am well, happy and safe. He has landed in Italy. He is in the infantry. He is now in combat as a radio operator for an anti-tank company. He is well, happy and safe.

He’s been working up to this with variations on the same theme.

“I’m feeling fine and fit and I hope you all are the same,” he wrote at the open to his Aug. 22, 1943, letter.

“I’m feeling fine and dandy and I hope you all are the same,” he wrote, opening his letter of July 27, 1943.

“I don’t know how to start this letter except to tell you I am feeling fine and hope you are the same,” he said, opening a letter in June.

“My training here is drawing to a close and I’m still feeling fine. I hope you all are feeling good too,” he told his brother Bob in a letter on May 26.

I wonder if it’s a technique that he uses, just to get his pen on the paper and start writing something. Does he dash off that first line just to get the juices flowing, hoping that something else will follow?

Or is he really just that upbeat about his situation? Does he love being in the army so much that he really does feel well, happy and safe?

Is he just trying to set his parents’ minds at ease? Babe wrote that letter four days before his 19th birthday. Relax, Mom and Pop. I’m thousands of miles away on foreign soil wearing a uniform and carrying a firearm. You haven’t seen me in eight months, since I shipped out for basic training. Yes, I’m still only a teenager.

But I’m well, happy and safe.

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