Dad didn’t know that he’d be shipping out for the 3rd Infantry Division’s fifth amphibious D-Day (after Morocco, Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio) in just a couple of weeks when he wrote this letter home.

27 Jul 44

Somewhere in Italy

Dearest Mother and Dad.

Even as much as I have V-mail I will write one. I have quite a few letters to write tonight as I’m trying to get a note off to everyone. I hope you will pardon me this one time.

There isn’t much news to write about. The war news as a whole sounds good. But the boys over here aren’t banking on it to(sic) much, for we all know it takes guns, tanks, and men to break the back of the German Machine. The German leaders still have a good grip of the army and there is still plenty of fight left in those soldiers. And they still have lots to fight with. So you see when you look at it that way then the darn thing still don’t look to(sic) good.

Say mom, what size is the film for my new camera? Is it 35 or 16 MM? I hope you can get lots of color film, but either way, color or black and white, I want you to buy as much as you can. Take the money out of my account but I want quite a bit of film.

We got some real American beer a few days ago. 4 bottles per man. We have been getting a good amount of the beer the Army makes here in Italy. But that stuff is green and sorta hard to take, but this was beer made in America and sent to us.

We also got two cokes per man with the beer and then two more tonight. The cokes are bottled here in Italy so we can get them fairly good. Boy it is swell to have them, too.

Tell dad I will try to write him a good long letter tomorrow night, but I am getting too sleepy now, and I have to get up too darn early in the morning. Write when you can. I will put that (request a package) on the bottom of each letter then you can send when you want to.

Love

Phil

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Handwritten V-Mail with no envelope. Also, have this letter, typed, with no envelope. There is a stamp on the back of the V-Mail: “May, N.J. Sep 2, 1944.”

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