Ww2 Paper

4 Pages 1016 Words

Always, Harry

Harry Jackson found comfort in letters from his family. Many times he mentioned not receiving letters from them quickly enough. Letters were taking longer to reach him because he was overseas and not at his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The mail was held up on account of invasions. At one point the airmail had stopped and Jackson was waiting up to two months for letters. Jackson was a captain in the 30th division. He spent time all over Europe, addressing letters from “Somewhere in Germany”, and “Somewhere in France”.
Jackson wrote to his family, mainly his sisters, Sallie, Bernice, and Juanita. He was very artistic, although modest about his abilities. He wrote, “trying to lend you my eyes to see the beauty and to help me ignore the ugliness of war” (Sept 12, 1944). Jackson sketched a Gothic church, an ass and wagon, headdresses, helmets, his dug out, cathedrals, a jeep, and some shoes among other things very well. Many of his letters had sketches of his visual surroundings on them. He also talked about hearing airplanes and air raids overhead, and guns and cannons on the ground. Of the new German Screaming Meemies, Jackson wrote, “ There’s no such thing as rank when you’re piled in a foxhole with privates, captains, majors, and colonels” (July 13, 1944).
One of Jackson’s jobs was clearing the battlefield of the dead bodies of fellow and enemy soldiers, hoping they were not booby-trapped. He had to bury the bodies of enemy soldiers. It was policy to mark their graves with crosses and hang their helmets. The weather made living conditions worse for Jackson. He wrote, “The most disagreeable thing about this whole affair is the weather” (July 6, 1944). It had been cold and chilly ever since he had arrived in France, and on July 25, 1944 he went without a jacket for the first time.
Jackson thought the French people looked underfed and had hardly any clothing. The children...