Well, no more Pinochle games

September 4, 1944

Dearest Wife,

Again a few lines to let you know I am well. These lines will be sent to our home address so that in case you have returned from the Catskills, you may have news of me directly, while my letters may be forwarded, which takes couple of days.

Days are passing with equal monotony,  so we all look forward to get to land, turning the ship around and head back home. Well it won’t last too long, if that Radio tells the truth, of the state with which we are beating the Germans soon it will be over. There is a lot of gossip going on about our destination. It seems there is a good possibility that I may go where everyone is, in that case the trip will be slightly longer but nothing to worry about.

Well, no more pinacle [sic] games. It seems that our healthy youngsters raided the merchant mess hall ice box and it went back to the

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Captain, so we have to keep out of their messhall altogether, in order to stop any further reprimands. It hurts a little, because the competition was quite keen, and as you know it is going on for quite a few trips, or has almost become an institution aboard the ship. Not only the participants, but even both crews took keen interest in the daily contest, and kept score on the good or bad luck of the players who were equally divided between the merchant marine and Navy, and your truly was one of them.

Mike the P.O. of whom I spoke in some of my previous letters has seen some action in the past and if an alarm goes off or the anchor hits the side of the ship he yells and runs. Yesterday we had a fire and boat drill. I was just nocking [sic] off a little sleep when the alarm [sic] went off. One of the boys an old timer started to yell “that’s it,” I half asleep in my skivvy and pants and only socks, on my feet jumped off my bunk and ran like hell to my station thinking it was the

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real thing, and only later did I realize that it was a drill. I moped back and put on warm clothing angry at the whole world for breaking up my peaceful slumber with dreams of green meadows and hula hula girls.

Tonight we shall have a minstrel show aboard ship and some of the boys will participate. If I knew that I could scare them like I do you, I’d make faces, but not a chance.

Darling, in a few days I’ll be in port I hope I’ll find a few big long letters from you, telling me about the new efforts of our little genius. I bet she could entertain(?) all the 70 odd men aboard this ship, in spite her little developed sex appeal.

This letter was started several days ago, but somehow I never could hit the right note, so it is the third copy that I am writing now.

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I’ve just heard over the Radio that as soon as the war is over with Germany demobilization of the men will take place. They’ll take men with long overseas service records and family’s [sic] out of the armed forces I guess you must be reading about it in the papers, so be cheerful because it wouldn’t be long and I’ll be home for good.

Well, that is all for today. Perhaps I can write again today in a much longer letter after the show is over. Till then, my love kiss the Baby for me.

A big hug and kiss for you,

Alex

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Pinnacle, Minstrel Show, Fire Alarms, Hula Hula Girls – this is a wild diary of the activities on board a naval ship. Meanwhile the sailors are floating around at sea, not allowed to say – or sometimes even know – where they are headed.

Alex waking up to a drill and running in his “skivvy” to his station sounds traumatic but is punctuated with humor. He was mad at the “whole world” for disturbing his “peaceful slumber with dreams of green meadows and hula hula girls.” Both Sylvia and Alex cushion the hardships of war with humor and snark.

Just as Sylvia noted in her last letter, Alex has heard the news that people in the armed forces with long overseas trips will be among the first to be demobilized after the war. He is more hopeful, however, not seeming to have heard that the Navy will not necessarily follow the Army’s guidelines. As we’ve seen, in 1945 the men in the Navy, at least from Alex’s perch, were still waiting to see if they’d be sent to the Pacific to finish the war with Japan.

Alex describes how much the sailors – both in the merchant marines and the Navy – had come to rely on the pinochle tournament for entertainment. It is easy to imagine the rowdy and intense games that everyone watched each night and how disappointing it was when they were put to a halt. I’ve mentioned before that my grandpa taught me to play Rummy, which sounds similar, but I guess to truly understand his experience I have to go learn Pinochle now.