As for the letters themselves, several of them
were written in pencil and were almost illegible. Except
for the aid of a magnifying glass and the total recall of the subject of this
missive, deciphering would not have been possible. The complete series of
letters from a GI from a war fought over a half century ago is remarkable
enough, but the discovery of letters written to him from parents, sister, brother
and assorted relatives, and friends is astounding. The ex-GI cannot remember, but
it seems reasonable he brought them home on furlough. At the time, it was a patriotic duty to write to the
servicemen, even to boys whose names and addresses you could get in grade school.
In the process of transferring these remnants of history to the printed page, a
few obstacles loomed. I wanted to transcribe the words and phrases faithfully, but
found that many people during the 1940s were not blessed with perfect
handwriting, spelling or punctuation. I did not mean to portray these letter
writers as uneducated or ignorant, merely people who were unaccustomed to letter
writing. If I would have polished the grammar and sentence structure, sincerity
and genuine concern for the recipient of them would have been lost; therefore, I
did not change a word or insert a punctuation mark.
Also found along with the correspondence were major headlines from The Kentucky and
Cincinnati Post during 1944/45, wartime maps of the European Theater of
Operations clipped from the same newspapers, and most significantly of all,
dozens of clippings of Ernie Pyle's column, the revered morale builder of this
period in American history. These artifacts will be added to the site as it progresses.
