August 11, 1945

Three Miles from

Egling, Germany

August 11, 1945

Dear Mother, Dad, & Girls:

            I have had two letters from you one each evening for the last two nights. We have moved since I last wrote and I don’t know the name of this little place. Hell, there is just two farm houses here and the big place that we live in, but the living quarters are the best since we have been overseas and it is just beautiful here. I would give anything if you could all see this place. It is just a big hotel—I guess, there are about sixty men of us in this platoon and there are enough rooms here for four or five men to the room. The house is sitting right on the top of a hill. Their house is white with flowers all around it and green grass is everywhere and all over the hills. It is green everywhere you look. Out in back we have an orchard and it is all fenced off and benches there just like a park. There are apples and plums and cherry trees there. On all sides of us are pine forests and farms. Right at the bottom of this hill about a mile away is a river. I can’t half tell you how this all looks but it is just too good to be true. We have good piped in water, electricity, good furniture, and showers and a bath tub. Then we eat out of plates and cups just like in a restaurant. It is the first time we have eaten out of plates for over a year and a half. There isn’t anything to do here either except keep the place clean and take care of our guard posts. We have a show truck come by to take us into town each night and we are getting passes to Munich now. It has been raining the last three days and has been cold enough to snow. It has snowed on the mountains. I’ll bet it snows here before long. We still have damn hot days and all go swimming in the river or in some near-by lake. We are all going to get to ski here this winter over these little rolling hills we have around here without killing ourselves. Then if we get to where we can stand up on them, I guess we will make trips up in the high mountains. All in all this won’t be such a bad place to have to spend the winter if we happen to. I don’t’ know just how long we will have to stay over here Mama. We were told that we would be over here anywhere up to eighteen months. They didn’t want to tell us anything sooner than eighteen months so we wouldn’t be disappointed if we didn’t happen to get home sooner. After what we have been hearing over the radio all afternoon, we might not be over here so long. Looks like Japan wants to surrender. I suppose that the war down there will be over with by the time you get this letter. I know they would start thinking when Russia declared war on them and they started using that new atomic bomb on them. Johnson has a good chance of being alive and getting out of there if they give up now like they want to. I sure hope so. I’ll bet Aunt Lilly is happy. If that war gets over with down there, we might get back by the next six or eight months but there isn’t any use making any plans for a long time yet.

            No Mama, I have never been sick since I left home, that is except maybe home-sick. Ha. The army takes darn good care of you, of course sometimes they can’t keep you from getting lead poisoning but that is to be expected. Yes I did get Roberta’s letter and answered it a long time ago. She should have it by now. The reason she didn’t get the answer sooner was because it didn’t get to me for a long time after she wrote it.

            I’m glad that you all had a good time on the 24^th of July. Rosalie was telling me about the doins they had up in Duncan. She said they had a real nice parade. And some horse races some place, I think she said she went to Safford to see them. She loves horse races.

            It was sure too bad about Frank Adams being killed. I feel more sorry for his poor old Mother than I do for his wife. I never did think too much of the girl that he married.

            I told you before that Kenneth was in the occupational army too. He is in the seventh army though and about three hundred miles from me.

            You say that you seen the show “Hotel Berlin,” well, I talked with a young woman who used to dance there at that hotel with the big German officers just before the Russians took it. She had moved out of there in a hurry. She said that they could hear the booming of the Russian guns in the distance and they would just take another drink of whiskey and try to drown it out.

            We are starting to play basketball here now. One of the batteries have found a big gym where we can play on the inside. There are lots of deer around here close so I can see where we are going to have a lot of deer steaks here too. We have a good little stove here in our room so we can do what we like. I have spotted a swell garden here close with cucumbers and all in. Ha.

            Oh yes, I got the other roll of film that you sent mama. Thanks, I will have some more pictures to send home before long. I got the comb and two pictures of my buddies in your letter last night. You can send some cookies out of the store or “egile, as the Germans say” makes no difference. I will be glad to get the hair oil and stuff. I’m tickled to death that you and Dad have got the placed fixed up like you want it. Now if you just had yourselves a little farm and a new car, everything would be just right. I hope you are all well. I have got to stop and write to Rosalie.

Love to all,
Your son,
Max