TO BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY...

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FIRST ENTRY OF HOWARD'S JOURNAL. THEN CLICK "NEWER POST" AFTER EACH ENTRY.

Or click on individual chapters in the "History" column to the right. (Helpful hint: click on any image to enlarge)

Friday

35. Fire Damages Our Quarters

Monday, January 1, 1945
See football game, "Spaghetti Bowl." 5th Army beats 12th Air Force 20-0. I get 4 Bertha Heralds.


My copy of the "Spaghetti Bowl" game program.


Clipping from The Stars and Stripes.


Thursday, January 4, 1945
Company formation and parade. We get War Dept. citation. In evening Raymond comes over for visit.

Saturday, January 5, 1945
Three men go home. Sosa and Musil on rotation. Rickstein on furlough.

Monday, January 8, 1945
Articles of War. I go on pass, visit 52nd Q.M. in forenoon. See Raymond. In afternoon I go downtown see movie. Walk home with Varinoskus. Snow today. Get 4 letters from LaVerne, Mother, Dolores, Vera. Lately, the rumor is everyone goes home after 30 months overseas. We have one month left according to that.

One of my buddies, Vincent Varinoskus.

Sunday, January 14, 1945
Go to church at Apollo Theater in forenoon. Fire caused by oil burner in our quarters burns some of our equipment. Mashburn, Malley, Jergensen and myself lose equipment. Quinton Goynes gets burns on hands and face, is hospitalized.

Monday, January 15, 1945
Work all day cleaning and painting our quarters. Job pretty well done. Will move back soon. Get new style blouse issued to us today.

Tuesday, January 16, 1945
Seven of us move into different building. Company sends truck load to shows in evening now.

Wednesday, January 17, 1945
Putting new living quarters in shape. Install another oil burner. Get two letters from Doris and Opal and Jean.

Thursday, January 18, 1945
Our battalion starts a training schedule. 1,000 mile check on truck. Our company has dance.

Friday, January 19, 1945
Exchange windshield and top with Jergensen's truck.

Saturday, January 20, 1945
Install de-froster on our truck.

Sunday, January 21, 1945
My 30th birthday, a quiet Sunday morning. Got letter from Rene.

Wednesday, January 24, 1945
Drive GMC no. D to Q 53 get trash detail there, then haul load of matress covers to 102 bakery in Florence. A 66 mile run. In evening see "Buffalo Round Up," a 92nd Div. orchestra. Am seeing quite a lot of shows. Russians have been on big push for week and a half. Are around 140 miles from Berlin.

A GMC "deuce-and-a-half." [courtesy: www.roadandtransport.com]

WAR UPDATE: January 26, 1945. Auschwitz concentration camp liberated.

Prisoners escorted by Russian soldiers after liberating Auschwitz. The world is shocked over the brutality discovered there. [public domain]

No comments:

The Original Diary

The Original Diary
Here is the inspiration and primary source for this entire blog. Note the year for these entries was actually 1943, although Howard was using pages from 1942, as evidenced by the mention of the cities of Morsot and Tebessa and the fact that Howard was still in basic training in Texas in March 1942. He had to be creative with his limited resources and use whatever paper was available, which made researching this project somewhat of a puzzle at first.