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Don Morrison |
| Germany 20 May 1945  Dear
Mom,Received your letter of May 10 yesterday. I was sorry to hear that you hurt your arm. I don’t see why you don’t be more careful and quit climbing around on chairs. First of all the censorship has been lifted and I can now write anything I want, so I will tell you the whole story. After I left Breckenridge we went to Camp Shanks, New York. We stayed there about three days and on April 4th we loaded up on the H.M.S. Orion. It was a British ship and also a British crew; that is why the food was no good. We left New York on April 6 and landed at Liverpool, England on April 16 and we stayed on board until the 18th and then we moved about 60 miles southeast of Liverpool to a camp near New Castle, there we lived in squad tents. We we were there we went to South Wales once, but we came back a few days after D-day. On June 18 we landed on a boat at South Hampton for France. We stayed on the boat on the coast of France until the 25th because the water was too rough to unload. On June 27 we went in combat at Catetana. They were only about 8 miles in when we got there, After the breakthrough, we went to St. Malo and Dinard and took those cities. From there we went to Angers and stayed a couple weeks. We didn’t do any fighting there. In September we went to Luxemburg and drove the Germans across the Moselle River. We stayed there and held until the later part of November and then we went to the Hurtgen Forest in Germany and drove the Jerries across the Roer River. Just a few weeks after we left Luxemburg, the Germans mad that push in Belgium and Luxemburg. We just got in time or we would have got caught. From the Hurtgen Forest we went to the Ardennes in Belgium; there was some real cold weather there. From there we went to rest in Holland. On February 23rd we moved up to cross the Roer. On the morning of February 24th I was hit and went to the hospital and rejoined the company at Nuess, which is along the Rhine. From there we went back to Holland for a rest. We then crossed the Rhine and followed the tanks up to the Martz mountains and then we stayed there and fought while the rest of the division went up on crossed the Elbe. We were in the mountains about 10 days and then we went up and crossed the Elbe River and joined the rest of the division. We stayed there until a few days before VE-Day and then pulled back near the mountains again. I am in a town about the size of Dola by the name of Burgdorf. It is 14 miles north of Bad Harzburg and about 20 miles south of Brunswick. They are about 15 of us in the town and all we do is stand 1 hour guard at night and walk around the town 2 hours in the daytime. We really have it easy; don’t hardly do anything but lay around. By the time you get this letter you might not we in this town. I am also in the 9th army. I have been in the 1st and the 3rd. I think I have written you a pretty long letter this time. If you want you can send this letter to Wendell for I am not going to write this story ever again. I have 3 combat stars and I am supposed to get one more sometime. Well I will close for now, hoping everybody is getting along okay. Lots of Love, Don (330th INF/CN) |