We Are The Forgotten Men
This is a short letter about the monotony of waiting during wartime. Alex covers various quotidian topics in this letter: His paycheck and what he will buy with it; the Navy housing projects; waiting for news; and a post script about the mosquitoes in New Orleans where he is posted when he writes this letter. The letter is sent to their apartment at 133 Navy Walk, in the housing projects that Sylvia was waiting to hear about in the previous letter. Alex mentioned trying to figure out “what’s what on those Navy houses.” I’m not sure if this means that he is asking about Navy Houses that they are looking to rent in New Orleans, or if they are hoping to rent their apartment out so Sylvia can visit. Your guess is as good as mine.
July 31, 1945
My Darling,
Nothing much to write to you about. Still I haven’t found out anything as yet because it seems that we are the forgotten men around here.
The way they rushed us down here, and now we still haven’t got regular bunks to sleep in and no one has told us what is going to happen next.
Tomorrow I am getting paid, and to my great surprise I’ll get $113.00. I imagine they give us subsistents [sic] for the period we were on leave. It was a pleasant surprise particularly because it will help a lot when you come down. I have a few things to buy such as a suitcase. My blues are unwearable because they wrinkled up so much in the sea bag.
2 –
So it has to be bought. Also tomorrow I hope I’ll know definitely what’s what on those Navy houses. I think I explained it to you that one can rent one for about 30 days. I’ll write immediately air-mail and let you know.
Things here are going so slow and that makes me irritable particularly because we know so little what is going to happen next. But I guess I just have to have patience.
Darling I miss you very much and also the baby. I really hope this mess will be over quick so that we may return to a normal life.
So far the Red Cross hasn’t told me anything. I guess it is early yet, but I think you ought to mail the doctor’s letter to me if he gave you one and I’ll know just when to use it.
I’ll write again tomorrow with more definite news.
Until then all my love my darling wife and sweet baby.
Alex
Darling the mosquitos are fierce here.
***
Alex’s reference to a note from Sylvia’s doctor was likely about her heart condition (the same condition we believe I had but was able to have repaired in my 20s). It had been dangerous for her to give birth and Alex was concerned about her health in many of these letters. I think he is saying here that he needs proof, in the form of a letter from her doctor, explaining that he might need to be home to help his wife. But this letter is from late July 1945 so I don’t think that he ever did this before his time in the Navy ended. Despite the details in this letter, I find myself making a lot of guesses to fill in the unspoken parts of what Alex is talking about.
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Brooklyn In Love and At War by Molly Rosner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
This letter is dated July 31, 1945 — less than two weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the war in the Pacific. He had been shipped down to New Orleans as it was a point of departure for troops (who would be shipped through the Panama Canal) from the European theater for reasignment in the Pacific. It was a terrifiying time for these guys who had just left Europe and were now possibly heading to the Pacific amnd a possible invasion of the Japanese main islands. The reason things were so “monotonous” was prossibly because the government was still making decisions about dropping the bomb to try to end the war and avoid an invasion. Everyone was in limbo waitingsince no one knew about any of this.
Dad told me in interviews with him that these were very tense days as all the Nasvy people around him dreaded the possibility of being redeployed to the Pacific and the horrible fear of invading Japan. He told me how he and everyone there cheered wildly when they learned of the atomoc bombing. I was stunned to hear this when i interviewed him as I know how his view of the bombings changed so shortly after the war. But, he explained that everyone was just terrified of the Pacific war and was happy they didnt have to go.