Roman F. Klick’s Letter to his Aunt
Saturday
Zasshonokuma
Kyushu Japan
December 1st, 1945
Dear Aunty Clara,
A three day lay off in the letter writing
resulted from one cause ---- too much piled up
work caused by being absent from work and romp-
ing around town Tuesday and Wednesday.
But many things have happened since I last
wrote. Of course, anything can be stated brief-
ly and that’s the way I’ll state it.
Colonel Shubat left for the 11th Replacement
Depot at Nagoya on his way home.
Lt Kuras is leaving for the 11th Replacement
Depot at Nagoya on his way home, Tuesday 4 Dec 45.
All EM with 69 points in the Sixth Army are
leaving for the 11th Replacement Depot at Nagoya
tomorrow at noon.
All EM with 35 years behind them leave the
Hakata RR Station at 1200 Monday for Nagoya and
home.
All EM with 68 points leave the Hakata RR
Station at noon Tuesday for the 11th Replacement
Depot on the first leg of the journey home.
All EM with 67 points leave the Hakata RR
Station at noon Djdjday for the llth Replacement
Depot on the ffj3m leg of the journey home.
(Yes, Aunty Clara, they stopped naming days
when they reached the 67 pointers but we are now
the highest point men in Japan still assigned to
units)
When the next order comes out, we know that
we are the ones that will be named on it. Rumor
has it that we will not survive the week and will
join the advance party of 69 and 68 point men at
Nagoya.
By and large, however, the 67 pointers are
taking the entire proceedings very apathetically
since they have been burned too many times in the
past. One thing though was that when Lt Kuras
brought in the good word about the reduction in
point men being released, we were so excited that
we couldn’t work very efficiently for quite some
time and were full of gab about this that and the
other.
The Pacific Stars and Stripes gave a pretty
good story today on the 11th Replacement Depot
at Nagoya and said that the following named
ships were due in THE JOHN LYKES, EXPLORER,
MARINE DRAGON, EXTRAVIA and THE CAPE MEARS.
There you have it Aunty Clara, it is not al-
together outside the realm of the possible that
I may come home on one of those five ships de-
pending of course on whether they come in and
if we get into the depot in time to get on one
of them before they pull out.
But by now any dreams of a Christmas at
home have been blown sky high and perhaps some
times towards the middle of January we might be
agetting to the place we belong.
More news: All men (Officers and enlisted)
are entitled to a "controlled" trophy if they
have over 23 months overseas service. And do
you know what those controlled trophies are?
Pistols, binoculars and swords! So the Brigade
was allocated 249 trophies and our battalion (out
of about 25 battalions in Brigade) received 168
trophies!!!! Veterans, eh?
And of them we received about 36 pistols,
24 binoculars and the rest were swords. It was
all drawn by lot according to length of overseas
service and the number of points a person had.
After the drawing, all the eligible men were
called up to battalion headquarters and in
the order they had been drawn, they were en-
titled to pick themselves a trophy of their
choice. The pistols were really the ones that
went like hot cakes and I never expected to
get one of them or one of the binoculars which
cost over fifty bucks a pair. Therefore I
spotted a darn good saber that had class and
everything ---- but when there were but FOUR
PISTOLS left my name was called and there I
was the owner of one Japanese Luger which makes
about one of the most interesting war trophies
a man could want from the Pacific war no matter
whether the gun means a thing to him or not.
I could get a trade for that pistol in
either cash, a saber or a set of binoculars
anytime I want to and for actual cash value
of the binocular and saber. I would be the
gainer--- but the main iurpose of the trophy
is as a souvenir and that is priceless.
I know that when I get home and the
company starts coming over, that Luger will
be quite a drawing card (for the first time).
Like for instance Uncle Jack, my Dad, Senor G,
Mr Infiesta, Marty and the rest of them will
like looking it over inside and out. That even
drew a comment in Ebner’s "Scraper".
Anyhow, that is how the situation stands
now only I’ve got plenty and plenty of work to
do. Lt McLain is going to be new Personnel
Officer and seems like a good Joe. However, if
the 67 pointers leave this next week (I hope),
the office is going to be in a most peculiar
condition. For about a week or so there will
be new men in half of the positions as Lt McLain
will be the hew Personnel Officer, Garriss will
be the new Personnel Sergeant Major, Moskowitz
will be the new Morning Reports Clerk, Burkholder
will be the new Recruiting Clerk, Smarrito will
be the new Bn Sgt Mjr, Ebner will take Bill
Grauel’s place as Message Center Chief, and
there will be two new telephone operators to
take the place of Nelson and Kuckenbecker and
someone must take Andy
Mathis’s place at bugling while over in Supply
Joe Wright will be succeeded as the top kick
of the Supply Section.
So-long,
Roman
(This letter has been transcribed from scanned images.)