AAF Indianapolis Area Contract Termination Audit Office
240 West Ohio Street
Indianapolis 4, Indiana
Tuesday, 5 December 1944

Bryant Service Club
Bryant College
Providence, Rhode Island

Dear Members of the Bryant Service Club:

Today I was pleasantly surprised to receive a very colorful box of candy from you.

It was very kind of you to remember me with your unexpected gift this Christmas season. Although I am not overseas, I am a long ways from home and still have to be ready to move wherever the War Department may order me to go on short notice. I want you to know that your thoughtfulness is deeply appreciated by me.

Thank you, and my best regards to all of you- with my best wishes to you for Christmas and a happier new year thank the last three war years have been.

Edward B. Williams, Jr. (1932)
Major, Air Corps, 0294095
AAF Indianapolis Area Termination Auditor

[Transcription ends]

Tuesday 3 April 1945

Bryant Service Club
Bryant College
Providence 3, Rhode Island

Dear Members of the Bryant Service Club:

Once again I have been pleasantly surprised by you—this time by an Easter box of candy! Many thanks for your kindness. Your expression of hope for our safe and early return, on your card enclosed with the candy, is appreciated by me too, because, although I am not overseas, I have seen very little of my wife and son, who are living in the East with my wife’s family at Glen Cove, Long Island, New York.

Thank you also for your newsy two-paged mimeographed Easter newsletter that I received last week.

My principal duty on my present assignment is in connection with the termination of war contracts. Specifically, I am the officer in charge of the AAF Chicago Regional Termination Audit Office.

Please note the change in my address as shown in the heading of this letter.

Sincerely yours,
Edward B. Williams, Jr.
Major, Air Corps
(Bryant College 1932)
[Transcription ends]

Sun., 6/21/42

HELLO, BRYANT ALUMNUS!

Here’s a little gift from the Bryant Service Club to tell you that the students of Bryant think of you and are proud of the part you are taking in our country’s defense. Good Luck to you always.

BRYANT SERVICE CLUB

Two flat 50s of Camel cigarettes!

This is the second surprise package from you. You may be sure that is a pleasure to be remembered in this manner,

Please acknowledge receipt of this package so that we may know we have your correct address for any future packages. Mail to Chairman of The Bryant Service Club, care of Bryant College.

especially since I happen to be on duty all night tonight.

E. B. W., Jr.
[Capt. Edward B. Williams, Jr.] [Transcription ends]

Headquarters, First Air Force
Mitchel Field, Long Island
New York

Friday, 31 July, 1942

Bryant Service Club
Bryant College
Providence, Rhode Island

Dear Friends:

Thank all of you for the two flat-50 boxes of Camel cigarettes that I received from you last Monday, the 27th of July. This is the third time that you have sent me cigarettes I believe, and I certainly appreciate your kindness because I find myself smoking cigarettes a good deal these days.

However, instead of beating around the bush I may as well come to the point by saying that my conscience would be considerably eased, grateful though I am, if your generous actions towards me were redirected to one of the $50-a-month boys.

I hope that you will not misunderstand me or think me ungracious in making this suggestion. Nevertheless I do feel that my receiving cigarettes from you may prevent some Bryant alumnus who cannot as well afford to buy cigarettes from having anything at all to smoke, and I hate to think that my thoughtlessness in continuing to accept your gifts might deprive him of the pleasure of receiving them somewhere beyond the continental limits of the United States or at some station in the United States more distant from home than mine is at present.

I realize that many members of the Bryant Service Club must be foregoing pleasures and luxuries that they might otherwise enjoy if they were not contributing towards these pleasant surprise packages to Bryant alumni, whom they have never actually seen or known in person in many instances.

Your organization is most assuredly doing a great morale-building piece of work for all of us in military service, because there is nothing in the world quite like a remembrance from friends back home. It is so personal--I don’t know, it just makes a fellow feel that folks at home do care a little about where we all are, that they realize that our lives have been disrupted, and that we are all in this war together hoping and endeavoring eventually to make a better world and happier days for everyone.

Yours very truly,

Edward B. Williams, Jr.
Captain, Air Corps [Transcription ends]