Keywords

WWII;Robert W. Marshall, Jr.

Rights Management

All rights retained by Bryant University

Transcription

[Transcription begins]
December 16, 1943

Bryant Service Club,

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year to you way back there state side. I am fortunate enough to have a quart of good scotch, which by the way I could sell for fifty dollars, that I have carried with me from the states over twelve months ago; yes I think I'll have a Merry Christmas way out here.

I can imagine it's pretty nice to see all the old gang paying visits to the college & also great for them to be back. As for myself it will be July before I expect to be back in Little Rhody just two years since I left.

Out here its business as usual with strikes every day, to date I've been on nine strikes or raids as some people call them & several flights aiding ground troops. Don't forget for a minute that these ground troops are really going through hell up against japs who are experts in really digging in & making themselves invisible.

As far as dive bombing goes its still as much fun & exciting as it ever was only now we have a new added attraction & that's the stuff thrown up to greet us AA & there is plenty of it. You go into your dive with your two trusties blazing away right into your target all the way from fifteen to twenty thousand feet & straight down then drop your bombs & get out [fast] & I do mean fast unless you want a tail full of arrows & they can really burn. All this sounds wonderful nothing to it but don't forget you've got a target to hit that is about twenty to forty feet across such as a gun position. Sometimes your [sic] on your target & sometimes your not but you do your damndest for its either you or him.

The chow is fair nothing to brag about, plenty of dust when it's dry & plenty of mud when it's wet, bugs not to [sic] bad, rats plentiful in fact every night we have the well known rat race up & down in the hut chewing everythng they can get into.

This isn't much of a letter just a few odds & ends of our life out here & what dive bombing is like. No you don't feel too good at times in fact your [sic] scared stiff but it all happens so fast you don't have time to sit around & worry about it.

My regards to Mr. Naylor & any of the other teachers still around right now its me for the sack & a good night's sleep undisturbed by nuisance raids I hope.

Sincerely
Bob Marshall

P. S. Thanks for the letter & information on some of the Bryant Alumnus.
[Transcription ends]

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