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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 75
c/p SF Cal
5 June 1945

Dear Aunty Clara,

Tuesday

Well, here is some news for you. Lt. Suiter finally located the Base Censor's office in the city and brought back some censorship regulations concerning this APO. For one thing, there is no restriction concerning the revelation of our former locations since they were south of the equator. Locations north of the equator can not be revealed until thirty days after leaving them. However, and this is the big baby, troops with a Manila APO can reveal their location as in or near the city. I did not believe we would be so fortunate as to be able to say anything about Manila but now that the lid is off I'll be able to talk about it a lot. I haven't had a chance to explore the downtown district or anything like that yet, although the other fellows have gone in several nights running now. We have a big map of the city and I'm going to try to get a good understanding of the place prior to my wandering around so that I'll have an inkling of just where I am and where I ought to go visiting. And, furthermore, there is little if no restriction on the taking of pictures for if the picture is censorable, the army developing laboratories will destroy it. Our monastery may be photographed completely, so if and when we get the film, I'll have plenty of interesting pix to send home.

By the way, when I said I was just "somewhere in the Philippines" did you have any idea that we were right in the big city of the joint? It is quite a change to be in a heavily populated section of the world once again after living first in the sparsely settled island of New Caledonia and then the deserted island of Guadalcanal which had no civilized civilians on it.

By the way, once again, I was sick today. In fact, I don't know exactly what is wrong with me but in a vague way my body seems to be breaking down internally. Last night I had a terrible pain along the right side of my chest, reaching right over my right shoulder. Then today I was extremely drowsy, fell asleep at my desk and didn't have any appetite so didn't eat lunch but forced myself to go to supper. I slept on past the one o'clock return to work hour and both Sackett and Lt. Suiter were pretty sore at me so I just took off for the Medics and told them my troubles. I had a fever of 100.4 so they gave me a flock of aspirin tablets and some bitter tasting brown tablets for my cough. Now, at eight o'clock in the evening, I am feeling better again. What I think has happened is that my recent cold turned into a sort of pleurisy or something. Too bad I can't get real sick and get home but then that isn't good either. All I ever get are minor ailments which come and go.

It seems that my letter writing coming up here was answered by some remote control system for today I received an air mail letter from Virginia which was written approximately about the time I was answering her letter. I have never seen the like of it. Now I'll be answering these letters while they will have received my last ones and are answering them in turn. I'm going to try to answer Virginia this evening just as I have managed to answer all the other letters of recent origin.

And here is something I didn't think I was going to get done. I wrote a letter to Mr. Hackbarth at Rathborne telling him that my address was changed, telling him about the kind of work I am still doing in the army and how I would much rather be working in Rathborne's office once again instead of amid all this army red tape. Also a bit about the Philippines and the monastery plus asking him about the news of the fellows in service from the office and about the office gang themselves.

I'm having a tough time writing this letter this evening and it will be even tougher when writing to Virginia for the generator is always konking out and the lights keep flickering from bright to dim to out.

The office work is getting tougher and tougher - everything has to be done right away and then there is always the future with the piled up work. For that reason alone it is going to be a great relief to me when I get out of this army. Either tomorrow or the next day we will move out of the chapel into our company again. It won't be far away because part of H&S is going to be just outside the chapel door. While the earth movers have covered up the original part of the tunnel they uncovered, there is now another section just at the foot of the chapel stairs uncovered and it also continues right on down the center towards the altar. Someone says that there was a tunnel all the way from the monastery to a church in the city so that the monks would not have to travel out in the open.

Grauel and Burdick have found a dance hall with some cute Filipino gals (dime a dance) and have gone there this evening for the second night in a row. It is just down the way a bit. Sackett and Lewis also have found a place where they can imbibe in the spirits to their hearts content so they are taking off each evening right after supper also. And me, I'm just waiting for a Sunday off so I can see what Manila looks like in the daytime instead of merely hitting the hotspots at night. A person never really gets to know a city by just visiting the joints. The only way a person has a working knowledge of a place is to study it out and actually spend a lot of time hoofing it around which I intend to do in the future.

Those dial twisters are at work once again and every so often they are switching it on to another station and half of the time it is in some foreign eastern language. Give me back the lone Radio Guadalcanal where the dial was glued to that one spot.

Our PX hasn't opened up yet and while we were sitting here in the last dark out of the lights, we were talking the situation over with one of the PX clerks and he says that when the PX opens, he believes the free rations of cigarettes will cease. Also, we did not bring the coke freezer and the ice cream freezer with us but had to leave that down there which means that we are not going to have those same facilities again. Probably within a short while of moving when it doesn't do us much good anymore.

O yes, Lt. Suiter walked in while I was writing this letter and he again affirmed what I had already said plus saying that we can take pictures of the wrecked buildings which the Japs burned and dynamited. Also, we can take pictures of the wrecked Japanese airplanes. Boy, I really believe those 177 to 0 scores now because the countryside is dotted with wrecks of Nip planes.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman