Letter 3/1/45

I must admit, I've been putting off this post for awhile now, mainly because the letter I'm transcribing today is one of the more difficult letters to decipher in my grandfather's collection.  He already has pretty awful handwriting (which he has since blessed my mother with), and on top of that the V-Mail cameras that captured this letter were a bit funky, and that's putting it nicely.  The right side of the page is quite darkened, and there's a lovely black line running through the page from top to bottom slightly to the right of center.  My grandpa's already hard to read notes home have become decidedly harder to read with this letter.

Nevertheless, my eyes will take the strain today and see if we can't make it through this.  After all, our eyes are only young once, right?

Mr. A Kumasaka
287 Main St
Keansburg, NJ
U.S.A.

T/5 A. Kumasaka
ASN32609377
Hq Btry 863 FA Bn
APO 410, c/o P.M. N.Y.

1 March

Dear Folks,

I received Dad's letter of Feb 19 yesterday, in which he said that he hadn't received any letters from me in over a week.  I'm sure there was a mail delay, because I have been writing at least twice a week since I came over here.  I hope my letters have caught up by this time.

Things are about the usual with me just now.  I'm keeping up pretty well with my sleep, getting enough to eat, and getting cleaned now and then.  Today I had a shower -- a hot shower -- and my second one since I came to these parts.  The shower belongs to the Infantry, but the attendant lets us use it when it isn't crowded.  The water it uses is taken from a nearby river, and heated by a special unit on a tractor.  Then it is piped inside a tent to us eager Joes.

In closing, I want to wish Dad a happy birthday.  I'm sorry I can't be there to celebrate.

So long for now.  I hope everything is O.K.

Love,
Archie

Letter 2/4/45

Happy weekend everyone!

Please, can someone, somewhere, invent a 4 day weekend?  Week ends are wonderful, but they seem to pass us by so quickly!  One minute it's Friday night, and the next we're trying to figure out what we're wearing to work on Monday.  Give us more weekends!

I skipped updating yesterday because I was out enjoying my last day of summer, and the wonderful weather.  Today, then, has become catch up/laundry/dishes day, so I'm also updating everyone on here too while the dryer rumbles on the other side of the wall.  It's an exciting day, haha!

We're officially into February 1945 with our letters, and we're starting to really see some movement going on in my pop's letters.  I've been researching exactly where he was during all of this, and later this week I hope to give you an awesome play-by-play on what was going on while he's writing these letters.

For now, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and the next letter in the series.  

E

Mr. A Kumasaka

287 Main St.

Keansburg, N.J.

U.S.A.

T/5 A. Kumasaka

ASN 32609377

Hq Btry 863 FA Bn

APO 410 c/o P.M.

New York, N.Y.

4 Feb 45

Hello Folks,

     Just a few lines to let you know that I'm O.K., since I haven't written to you in a few days.  The reason I haven't written, of course, was because I have changed my station, and am now at the front.  We are attached to the Seventh Army and are located in the Alsatian Sector.

    At present, I'm stationed comfortably in a house, enjoying a heated room which I didn't have even back in the states.  It is so different from the pup tents we had back at Marseilles, that it hardly seems possible that we are closer to the conditions of combat.  The food is good, and we get two full meals a day; so I've nothing much to complain about, except that I could use a shower.

     Hope everything is O.K. at home, I received a letter from Catherine today, dated the 30 of Dec.  So long for now, will write as often as often as possible at present, the weather is mild; it's raining outside.

Love,

Archie

Letter 1/24/45

Today's letter was translated during my lunch break.  I love having an hour in the middle of the day to geek out on history in my cubicle.  Of course, I'd like it better if I didn't have to work at all, but sadly that lucky Powerball ticket doesn't seem to be in my hands yet.

I'm researching a lot more of my grandfather's military career outside of these letters, and I must say it's quite interesting.  I'm trying to compile it all into a few additional posts throughout this project, but I'm only using reputable sources, so it's taking longer than usual.  Darn you, Wikipedia! :-)

Anyway, here's the next letter I transcribed.  There's a section towards the end of the letter that is illegible, because my grandfather wrote into the blackened part at the bottom of the paper.  I've had several people take a look at the physical original, and no matter how much we stare at it there's no telling what was originally written there.  Again, another moment lost to history.

Take care, tomorrow's Friday!! :-)

E

Mr. A. Kumasaka

287 Main St.

Keansburg

New Jersey, U.S.A.

T-5 Archie Kumasaka

ASN 32609377

Hq Btry 863 FA Bn

APO 410 c/o PM N.Y. N.Y.

24 Jan 44

Dear Folks,

     Have a few spare minutes tonight, so I thought I'd write you a few lines.  I imagine that my first letters from overseas are reaching you by this time, so you should know by this date that I arrived safely.  I haven't received any letters from you yet, but I'll be watching the next few mail calls in antici-pation of a petter.  I'm writting all my letters on V-blanks because they are faster in travel.

     I had a pass last night and went to visit the largest city in this area.  It was there that I took a shower--my first in days; it cost 02 7m and was well worth it.  There are no restaurants open in the city, because food is too scarce.  Wine, beer, and cognac are available to quench the GI's thirst, but these are weak compared to U.S. standards.  The city on a whole, looks drab and dull, as any place should that has seen war.  I have bought a few post cards which I shall try to send later.

     What is the weather like in Keansburg?  It has been comparatively mild here the past few days, and with the milder weather comes plenty of that gooey "mud".

     So long for now. _________________________ Archie

Reporting for Basics

So I've been doing some thinking these past few days...

...as wonderful as my grandfather's letters are (once we can decipher the scrawling handwriting), and they are an absolute treasure, there's only so much his letters can tell us.  I mean, it's not like he could actually talk about what he was doing in Europe.  From the sounds of some of his letters, he sounds like he was on a nice little international vacation.

I'll admit, even though I'm a history major, my background on military history is somewhat weak.  You're only as strong as those who taught and encouraged your education, and I've never really had anyone in my life who was a huge military history lover.  I've always viewed the military and its history as part of a bigger picture.  It's not that I'm not interested in learning more, I have just never had a reason to.  Now I do.

Looking over his letters, I realized I didn't even understand everything that was in his address line.  I mean, look at this:

That looks like coding for some super secret society.  I realized I didn't even know what half of it meant...

So that's where the investigating came in.  For those of you with a solid background in military history, I apologize, you're going to probably be bored with this post.  For the 98% of you who are not well-versed in your USMH, you better pay attention, because there's a quiz at the end!

The first thing I looked at with my research was the top line, "T-5 Archie Kumasaka".  What did T-5 mean?  Was that even a 5?  Was it an S?

Thankfully, the internet had the answer.  It was a 5, and T-5 stood for my grandfather's ranking.  I hate Wikipedia (HATE IT!) but someone with too much time on their hands created a pretty awesome chart that explains where and what a T-5 ranked as during WWII:

If you'd like to see the entire article (you nerdy person you!) you can click here to have a history moment.

So to sum it up, a T-5 is a technical Fifth Grade, which is the same ranking as Corporal.  They were identified by the "T" marking under their Chevron-style bars.  They were also classified into the 5th grade pay scale, that's 5th from the top, 5th highest.  They obviously earned the same as any Corporal would.

That led us to the next question, then (we're falling down a worm hole here)....what would a Corporal in WWII make?  How much were these young men getting paid to fight for their country overseas?  

Thankfully, Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly published a great report on April 24, 1944 charting how much a single or married serviceman could expect to make while overseas.  Since my grandfather wasn't married at the time, I figured it's best to use the Single Man's Chart.  They do not use pay grades to list the different pays in the military, so I highlighted the one my grandfather would receive:

[1]

Not too shabby, gramps!  You'd be making what amounts to four thousand dollars a year after income tax, why that must be worth...well, how much would it be worth?

I'm so glad the U.S. government has put some of my tax dollars to work and found a way to provide inflation answers for me before I even realized I needed them...

[2]

Big money big money!!!  He was earning overseas what most middle class people earn today.  At least he was able to leave the war with a little money in his pocket, after everything was said and done.

Next I took a look at the second line of his address, "ASN 32609377".  Again, Google is our best friend, because we typed that in and found that ASN stood for Army Serial Number.  Makes sense, the government had to figure out a good way to take track you, not only to figure out who was where, but to determine pay, communications, just about everything.

The really interesting thing I found while I was searching for this is that you can bring up a ton of information dealing with Army Serial Numbers on the internet.  Again, I'm glad the government has been forward thinking in all of this, saving me many hours of frustrated hunting.  The National Archives have a fantastic search option that lets you look up anyone you may know who has a military background.  An ASN is the most surefire way to get an exact hit, but they also allow you to search by name, or even place.  Click here if you're curious and want to play around with the system.  Be warned, there are some errors in the system that time will never help to repair: if an application form was illegible, or left blank on accident, a "#" will be placed in the answer area showing no information was able to be gathered from the form.  The originals have been destroyed, which means anything we might have been able to gleam off of them today is null and void...they've gone to the great big recycling bin in the sky.

The next line is a complete jumble of letters, and it's what initially led me to start looking into this return address: "Hq Btry 863 FA Bn".  Hq Btry is short for Headquarter Battery, or as we call it today, simply headquarters.  You know, where you're reporting back to, and, more importantly, where your mail is going in and out of.  This is important for the people who need to send letters back to him.  863 FA Bn is stating what division and group my grandfather was in.  FA Bn stands for Field Artillery Battalion (more on that in another post), which lists not only what he was doing in the war, but where he was located.

To sum it up, if you were sending mail to my grandfather, you were sending it to the headquarters of the 863 Field Artillery Battalion.  Wherever that happened to be on that particular day.

The last line is fairly easy, "APO 410 c/o PM N.Y. N.Y."  APO is short for Army Post Office, and you were to reply to the Postmaster in New York City.  Seems silly, since NYC is a few thousand miles away from France and Germany where my grandfather was stationed, but it was a way for the military to keep everything organized.  You can't have my grandfather's return address reading "Paris France, north side, gonna push these Nazi's back!"  

Whew!  You still with me?  That's a LOT of history talk right there!  I hope you hung in there, because the more I dive into this, the more I want to know.  I've definitely been digging up some more information, but I'll leave that for another post.

As the hunt for my grandfather's life continues, I hope this inspires you a little bit to find out more about your relatives lives.  I know I'm blessed that my grandfather is still alive, that I can talk to him and ask him questions, but even if you do not have that opportunity anymore, don't let that deter you.  The internet is a great tool, and you'd be amazed at what you can find with a simple search.

That's all for now, gonna take a break from my research for the evening.  Have a wonderful day!  Before you know it the weekend will be here.

E

Notes

[1] Army-Navy Pay Tops Most Civilian's Unmarried Private's Income Equivalent to $3,600 Salary. American Merchant Marine at War. September 4, 2013. http://www.usmm.org/barrons.html
[2] CPI  Inflation Calculator. US Dept of Labor. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm