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Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
27 December 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

Monday

I guess fate is working against me because no sooner had I finished that four page V-mail to you which I had written by hand so that I wouldn't have to do any typing today, when Captain Hanton had me work on several Courts-Martials. That took precise typing because there must never be an error on those sheets. And then the information was all jumbled up and half of it wasn't there so it took me from three-thirty until six o'clock to finish it. Of course, Captain Hanton was fretting and fuming in the meantime that it wasn't ready but he didn't realize I had to type extra slow with my bum finger in order not to make any mistakes and neither does he understand how much time I lost trying to get the correct data to put down on the Charge Sheets. Nevertheless, it is now on his desk but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that before I even finish typing this page, the whole thing will be back in my lap for retyping. The best part of it is that Regimental Headquarters said I shouldn't be too fussy with it because when they get hold of it; there will most likely be several more changes which will mean a few more retypings. It is too bad there isn't some sort of system whereby all concerned couldn't just get their heads together for five or ten minutes and fix up these forms just the way they want them and then it would take a mere matter of a few more minutes to type it up in its final form.

After all that typing, I decided I might as well just go ahead and type out this evening's letter although I am still taking care not to type on the finger which I cut. I learned my lesson in regards to resting up my body when it isn't well. I'll remember my lack of care when I strained my back at Ackermann to the day of my death. By working night and day without rest after I had strained it, I permanently injured it so that it will always be weak as it is now. Then too, there was the time when I went back to work. --- Pardon me while I retype my afternoon's work which has just come back per my prognostication of the first paragraph ---. Back again after a thirty minute job of copying over the afternoon's work with a few changes. Now let me see, where was I? O yes, the time I had the fever in college and went back too soon so that a day later I came down with a swollen eye. Those occasions taught me a lesson and I am not going to type on the cut finger until I am sure it is perfectly healed. By ruining that finger by premature use I could be cutting off any livelihood I might gain by the typewriter. Although, in that respect, I might say that my fingers seem adaptable to change and already I am typing with the changed position of my fingers with comparative ease and I can readily see that the speed would come just as when I had to learn how to operate the billing machine during Dolores's absence at RH&R.

Also this afternoon I met a sailor. His name was Charles Klein and he is a close friend of Michael Nyalka having lived in Pittsburgh and known him for years around the neighborhood. This sailor has been in the Navy for quite some time and has been around. In other words he has taken part in many of the headline encounters of recent months. Moreover he has pictures galore of actual battles themselves with guns flashing, depth charges dropping and shells churning up the water. He has other snaps showing submarines sinking, wreckage of Japanese planes in the water and formations of Japanese planes flying overhead. It was funny talking to fellow who had seen the actual pushing up of the front in this Pacific war. He seems like a nice fellow too. It seems that all the sailors have tattoos on their arms and he is no exception to the rule although to this day he wonders why he ever did get tattooed.

By the way, it looks as if this letter is going to have to go over into another page because I found out for sure that it is possible to reveal the name of this island but not our location on it. Therefore, the name of our valley and any nearby towns must still remain a deep dark secret.

Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
27 December 1943

(This letter has now been revised from the original because of various items which I took for granted as now being able to reveal, but, unfortunately, found that I was unable to do so. By now you have received the other letters mentioning this Island as being New Caledonia, although this was the letter which was to do so. Nevertheless, I will try to copy down as much of the original text as I can. In my closing paragraph I said --- there are so many countless number of things which I can mow tell you about the Island that it will take me a week of writing. Of course, you could get all this information from the Chicago Public Library but I know very well you'll never go there for that purpose. Well, now that it will be impossible for me to go on with this history and outline of the Island, I think it would be a good idea if you would go down to the Library and see if you can't get the book, "All You Want To Know About New Caledonia" by Monsieur Sidney Reichenbach. Outside of any knowledge of the Island I might have gained first hand, it contains all I could tell you about the place. Chances are that they won't have the thing so I'll still have to bring one home with me at the end of the war so we can read it over then)

Yes, Aunty Clara, we are on the island of New Caledonia. No longer do we have to refer to it as 'the Island'. From now on it is New Caledonia itself. It is funny being able to write the name of the place out after having had to withhold its identity for such a long while.

But now a word about this New Caledonia. I suppose by now you know where it is, just on the other side of the Coral Sea from Australia. Remember how in those days, before the war had me in its clutches, I would dream of the best possible places to serve overseas duty? That was when there were some fellows from the next block stationed here and I told you that New Caledonia would be the place I would want to go if I ever was sent overseas. I cited the advantages of it being out of the war zone, that the people on the Island were French and that being there might give me a valuable first hand knowledge of the French language. Later on I sort of changed my mind about this place when I discovered that those fellows who had been here merely used New Caledonia as a stepping stone to the wars. But anyway, that early dream came true and, by golly, if we didn't come to this place. Do you recall our conversations on that subject? It must have been during the late Spring or early Summer of 1942 and we were talking over the situation right next to the kitchen window.

We have white people and black people on this Island. The whites are the Frenchmen who came here from France and the natives are either immigrants or else have been here for centuries. No doubt, you know that all the people weren't blessed with dark skin and red hair. That red hair is caused by rubbing lime into the roots of the hair to kill parasites. It used to be a practical necessity to do this but now it is merely a tribal custom of theirs. Most of the natives are Christians and there doesn't seem to be any racial problem here as back in the States. Both the white and the black serve together, side by side, as soldiers,

(That is about as far as I can go with what original material I had written. Even at that I switched things around a bit in the above paragraphs to eliminate both items which are not advisable to mention or were grammatical errors on my part.)

(A bulletin came out the other day saying it was now permissible to mention quite a few locations in this South Pacific Area and I hope that during the course of this war that wherever fates might lead us, I'll always be able to let you know where I am. That would be just fine and dandy though instead of trying to tell you about South Pacific Islands, I could be telling you instead about the San Francisco Bay as it looks from an incoming ship.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman