Feeling Sentimental About A WWII Cover

John Becker posted this cover in another thread (it is his, not mine)

I didn't want to hijack his thread, but I wanted to comment on it. Even though we've all looked at thousands of covers, looking at this one tugged at my sentimentality.

A young man, Warren, Jr., in Germany, writing a letter to his father back home, no doubt to let him know he was alive, at least for the moment.

A letter like a million others mailed home by thousands of young men, many of whom never made it back to those homes and families.

It's real history we hold in our hands, isn't it?


Kirk

Mailed just a few days after VE-Day. Alas, no contents.

If the pencil notation reflects the date of writing or censor review, it was written the day after V.E. Day, perhaps in excitement given the air mail stamp--I made it, I'm coming home. Brief research shows the 291st saw action in the Ardennes in the winter of 1944, and this boy should have been home by November 1945. Remarkable.

With a booklet single with a very small partial plate number.

Holding a piece of history ...

Here is a cover addressed to PFC Francis L. Firsich, US Army Air Forces, Army Air Corps of Batesville, Indiana. Killed in action Nov 27, 1943. Recipient of the Purple Heart. Memorialized at North Africa American Cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia.



Here is a cover addressed to Sgt Willard H. Hixon, Co C of the 501st Parachute Infantry, of Terre Haute, Indiana. Killed in action Oct 5, 1944. Recipient of the Purple Heart. The cover contains a 3-page letter from his mother. He never saw it.



On a lighter note, Here is a cover from someone in the War Crimes Investigation Detachment, mailed in Oct 1945. I have not researched the sender, but I'll bet there is a good story here.

APO 451 was in Werdohl, Germany at this point in time.

APO 500 was in Manila, Philippines.

KIrk, I totally agree with you. I have a collection of over 70 covers with letters from an American soldier in the South Pacific to his parents during WWII. They are a fascinating documentation and chronicle, and I must say I'm honoured to be able to possess them. I did a small exhibit of some last year at my stamp club boarse and have since been working on laying the rest out chronologically in two binders (lots of vario pages!) What I've read is fascinating in terms of what these guys experienced (mostly boredom) and thought.

APO 500 was located in Manila until September 1945 when it moved to Yokohama, Japan. In February 1946, it relocated to Tokyo.

My Dad wrote his mom every day when he was away during WWII. My mom has a large tote with all the letters. They are very hard to read as he saw many horrible things especially while he was on Iwo Jima. I would like to put them in order but my mom is not ready to part with them.

jarnick: Interesting, my source didn't show the move to Yokohama, but then again it was a government publication.

Battlestamps & jarnick,
A cited reference would be helpful for APO location information of this type as it goes beyond Forte & Helbock's APO location book. Thanks.
My real hope in posting that cover was to find more infomation on the operations of the War Crimes Investigation Detachment.

Here's my source in identifying APOs, but there's a disclaimer in the beginning that it may not be complete for APOs that moved around rapidly.

http://www.7tharmddiv.org/docrep/Lo...942-1947.pdf