Byrnes, Ben

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"...All the boys over here are fighting hard to win so they can come home...Are you going to send me a Xmas box? If you do send me candy...."

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Written from Hemstead, New York. "...I am some place in New York in camp. Don't think I will be here long enough to get an answer...I sure am glad mamma came to see me but I could not get off to go any where. It was pretty bad. I know she came home sick...."

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"...We are still here [Camp Mills] and can't say when we will leave...How is mamma...This is some place here. We are not far from New York City but can't get a pass to go over. It sure rains a lot here..."

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Written on Army and Navy Young Men's Christian Association 'With the Colors' letterhead. "Please see if you can get this hand bag for me as they want to deliver it out to the house...we are looking to leave in a day or two...."

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"Please look after this express for me. Also see if I have any more around there. This is the second card theyt have sent me lately...." Signed by censor.

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"...Today was the last day of my 'mess cooking' on LST-713. Wolfe, the guy from New Jersey, had the duty while I went on liberty...I am enclosing an article that I cut out of the paper or rather magazine, a sailor wrote about his ship as a sequence to Lincoln's 'Gettysburg Address'; however, he calls it the 'Sperrysburg Address'....

Press cutting enclosed: "Dear Ed: The below was cooked up by two of the men in my ship...Amen. Ben Robertson, CEM."

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"I've finally regaind the warmth back into the upper part of my body. I watched the movie topside sitting on the Conn with no shirt or skivvy on, so I got chilled clear to the bone by the breezy night air...Quite a few places are secured on the ship now so it makes it very inconvenient for us to have to go around when we want to go anyplace. Ships sure require a lot of time, money and care, painting and so forth. It doesn't take the deck paint very long to wear off...."

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"...After dinner I helped to scrape down the deck and chip the old paint off of the starboard 'main deck' and back on the 'fantail'. Then we got that painted with the yellow [chromicide] paint after securing from that at four p.m. We gave the ship a clean sweep-down 'fore and aft'. My back got right red as I had my shirt off while I was working topside...."

Scope and Contents "...As yet I haven't heard a word from Frances Alwood...I still have hopes but if a letter doesn't arrive pretty soon from her it'll be a long, long time till I receive or will be able to mail any letters again. I think of Frances quite often and I do believe that I care a lot about her more than just mere friends...This morning, after quarters, we have quarters every morning--go up on the tank deck of the LCT that we have aboard and answer to the muster and get a list of the things that we...

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"...I helped to clean up the starboard scuttlebutt, small one-half size compartment where the water fountain is this morning. Then I painted on it till chow time...We got some new big records with radio programs recorded on them today--they aree good too. I've heard only two programs so far, 'Dinah Shore' and 'Spotlight Bands'. There are also a few old corny gay nineties records on board, too, sung by that girl who sings in the gay nineties revue on Monday nights...."