Camp McCoy in the Words of My Uncle: 2020-02-23

April 8, 1943

Dear Mom,

Just a few lines to-night but I know you'll be glad to have time.

I have just taken a shower and put on my summer underwear. It has been a warm day here. Yes, it has almost been hot. I have shined my shoes, washed my belt, got out my cleanest shirt & pants etc. You know why? We are starting on a two day Test. Boy, I'm almost blue in the face from taking tests.

The test is an oral & demonstration test. This will be before the boys if you want to call them that. Some of the highest ranking officers in the Army. They will have card places marked like 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 etc. You go to each one. They may ask you some questions and then ask you to show them how it is done. Each test will take place where that kind of equipment is. I'm beginning to think they want me to take MacArthur's place Ha! Ha! Some of the boys are shaking in the knees just to think they have to go up before them. I feel o.k. to-night but don't know about to-morrow. Oh well, I made the grade once on paper and feel confident on the next two days. I'll let you know later.

Marian sent the pictures to-night but they came out rotten. She said we could take more next time. It seemed the camera must have moved. She nor I can guess what went wrong.

Helen Ladd's mother sent me a big box of popcorn & molasses, you know. She had the box lined with wax paper and packed it so it made one big corn cake. She doesn't seem to gain much in health.

I read about the shooting in in Westbrook. I say that's going some.

We went out on a night problem the other night. No lights, no smoking and what a job going through the woods in the dark. The boys stand a big chance of getting hurt. Keep on your feet and you're o.k. except for the limbs that hit you in the face. What a job trying to dig at night. You can guess with roots & rocks and no lights to see what you're doing. Another fellow and I dug a hole under a tree, crawled into it for two hours. I was tired and made up my mind to take it easy. The other guy came from Caribou, Maine. We had a chat about the old state of Maine. We looked at the stars and wondered if the folks back home could see the same stars that night.

Guess I'll have some figs and go to bed. Love to You, Dad, Eugene, Helen, Joey and the little pig.

Love to All

Charles

P.S. I forgot the kitten. Ha! Ha!

^^Apr 5 Allies bomb Mortsel, Belgium's worse loss of life during WWII (936 civilians)

Mortsel, Belgium 1943

^^Apr 6 British & US armies link up in Africa during WW II

^^Apr 6 British offensive at Wadi Akarit, South Tunisia

^^Apr 7 Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg. In the 1920’s, it was Hitler who first sought out Mussolini, not the other way round, given Mussolini’s position as the doyen of fascism. After his appointment as Prime Minister in late 1922, Mussolini had not taken Hitler seriously, at the time an obscure leader of a marginal far-right party. The Nazi party’s stunning success in the September 1930 Reichstag elections prompted Mussolini to take a stronger interest in Hitler’s political strategy. To be sure, the Nazis shared some ideological common ground with the Fascists, above all a strong belief in war, political violence, anti-Bolshevism, and ultra-nationalism, but the Nazis had drawn up their two core issues well before any contacts with the Italian Fascists: the conquest of living space and the solution to the ‘Jewish question’. More than a straightforward common ideology, therefore, it was Mussolini’s successful combination of political violence with seemingly legal political activity during the Fascists’ seizure of power which attracted Hitler to Mussolini in the 1920's and early 1930's, as he was preparing for the Nazi seizure of power.

https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2018/08/14/mussolini-and-hitler-christian-goeschel/

^^ Apr 7 Lt Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg seriously wounded at allied air raid.

In early 1943, Stauffenberg served with the 10th Panzer Division in Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. On April 7, 1943, he was seriously wounded at Sebkhet en Noual, south of Mezzouna in the North African desert, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand, and last two fingers of his left hand after surgery.

On July 21, 1944, at 12:30 AM., Stauffenberg was executed by firing squad for attempting to assassinate Hitler by placing a small bomb in his own briefcase and placing it under the table where Hitler was having a meeting. He excused himself from the meeting to speak to someone. The bomb went off but killed no one. It was later reported that Stauffenberg died shouting, "Long live free Germany." https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/claus-von-stauffenberg