Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/o PM San Francisco, California
20 June 1944
Dear Aunty Clara,
Tuesday
I was going to tell you who the guests on the program are this evening but I can't seem to locate a schedule any place about the office. Perhaps you may have heard of them before. I'll know tonight, after the show is over.
In my letter to Mrs Reed, I jokingly referred to the deluxe cooler etcetera which we had in our PX and by golly if they don't have that very thing. The fellows can buy real ice cold tomato juice, grape fruit juice and orange juice. That is better than we had in New Caledonia for our PX never did get a cooler or a soda fountain but the other outfit up the road received it instead.
Captain Knowlton, the new Orientation Officer, brought back a whole slew of maps today after scouting around at the different places around the island. Some of them were excellent and all they are waiting for is some plywood to be tacked onto and then they will be posted on the Dayroom. We try to have a duplicate map right here in the office and little by little the mail room is being covered with maps of the world. There is one gigantic map of the South Pacific which includes Japan and China on which Lt Suiter outlined the area underneath Japanese influence. It seems tremendous when looked at as a whole but each gain in strategic positions like Saipan Island are far more deadly than they appear to be. Do you realize that according to the statistics which they gave over the radio concerning the flight of the B-29, it will be possible to bomb Tokyo from Saipan. Now if they can clinch the deal by taking other islands further north in the Marianas group, coming down from the Aleutians and taking a few of the Kuriles and the take Marcus Island in the Pacific, they will have three bases from which to operate in bombing Japan. Of course from such small bases they could never possibly hope to put a1000 planes over that country at one time but they could very easily put over about fifty every day as I possibly might have commented on several days ago. Fifty planes a day over such a highly concentrated country should do the trick in a short time as far as cutting down their production is concerned. It is not like bombing Germany whose production centers are scattered throughout the country and whose industrialists have so planned their production that it is possible to keep the assembly lines rolling even if certain key industries blasted out of existence.
Another thing which seems incredible if true and that is, according to Joseph Grew, the former ambassador to Japan from the United States, Japan is in possession of only two main line railroads, which, although highly developed, follow only two routes, one along the east coast and one along the west coast. If such a situation yet exists and nothing has been done to remedy the situation the American air force could bring things to an effective standstill by merely continuing a bombing of key railroad points and stop the transportation of war material.
For a while I thought I was going to have an uninterrupted period of writing but it seems not. Mike Nyalka walked in and has been chewing the fat for the last hour or so and now it is just about time to head off towards the show area. Mike tells me that Beaumont made Technical Sergeant this week so he has reached his highest level as the Pers Sgt Mjr of the 353rd.
As far as any letter to Pat this evening, I guess that is out.
So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman