"my version of a night in a fox hole"- letters from the Pacific-1944

[dunmore1774]

I was digging through a pile of letters I picked up a while back and found this.  It is the description of a night in a fox hole written by Pfc. Harold Van Dyke, October 1944 in New Guinea, written to his wife back in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Very interesting, so I thought I would transcribe and post here.

 

Dearest, my version of a night in a fox hole. I can give it to you now since its over with:

Fox Hole

We began to dig in around 5 o’clock. I am a pretty lucky guy, being that I’m small, I don’t have to dig so much. Usually you pick out another guy that is small also. But make sure he doesn’t snore. You yourself don’t know whether you snore or not so put a boxing glove on him, if that isn’t handy, pad his fist with something. Because if you snore and if he can punch like Jack Dempsey, you are liable to wake up being a guest for breakfast with the Japs for hosts. After these precautions have been taken, you crawl into your hole with your fox hole buddy, open your K ration and partake of a sumptuous meal, consisting of this & that, very tasty. Cigarettes are lit up, cigs are usually somewhat stale & mildewed but smokeable.   Settle down nicely and soon it gets dark. Did I say dark, I mean stygian blackness. It’s funny how the night brings out queer noises.  Who- huh, I hear something, what could that be. You peer out there so long that your eyeballs protrude out of your head like headlights on a model T ford, good old model T’s.  That [scratched out] question, should I remain quiet and let that nip think that I have gone out to see the latest Broadway hits, or give him a royal American reception. We Yanks are quite hospitable that away. But dog gone it that nip thinks enough of us to come crawling out of his cozy hole in his stocking feet at that,  to come a visiting in the Jungle, what else can we do but give him a very warm reception. Now a nip will usually leave his calling card in the shape of a pineapple. Now fruit would taste good at this time of nite, but the ingredients wouldn’t be very digestible, being iron and powder. This kind of stuff goes on all night long and along come morning one is about ready for a booby hatch then comes a rain. Now is the time for bath. All one needs is soap, towel and bath salts.  Don’t worry about the tub cause you are already in one. Dawn comes along and believe you me it’s a gladdening sight. But don’t jump out of your hole yet. You see during the night, a few nips in their ever polite and considerate way, will go oh so quietly through our lines so as not to disturb our rest, and climb a most convenient tree and patiently wait for the dawn, hoping to see a careless G.I. pop out of his hole so he can relieve him of his worldly duties. But as I said before, in our very hospitable way, we take care of those night owls.—What a nite

Hope I didn’t bore you honey.  Goodnight my Love.

Harold

[themick]

What an outstanding historical artifact.  Thank you  for sharing that with us, dunmore!!

Steve