impink earl ernest eckert (1 Ergebnisse)

Unbound. Zustand: Near Fine. A small archive of 5 letters to Pennsylvania native, Dallas Heist, from two different hometown soldiers (one of whom was his brother-in-law), while they were serving during World War II. All letters are very good or better with tears from opening and modest age-toning. Dallas Heist of Mertztown, Pennsylvania was 14 when his brother-in-law, Earl Impink, and family friend, Ernest H. Eckhart shipped off to basic training. Too young to join the war effort he participated like many others by writing letters to those he knew in the service. The earliest letter is from June 30th, 1943 from Impink who was serving with the 49th Rep. Squad at Kelly Field in Texas. "You were right when you said you guessed it is hot down here in Texas. You don't even have to do any work to get soaking wet sweated some times." By August of the same year he was moved to Jackson, Mississppi with the 2010th Ord Maintenance Company. "The whole company was issued brand new model M1-1903-H3 rifles the other night and we are going to the 200 yard range tomorrow and Saturday.Then on Saturday we will each shoot 5 practice shots and 40 shots for the record.We must make 134 for marksman, 168 for sharpshooter and 178 for expert." The last letter from Impink comes from China in 1945. "I guess they better stop this drafting business or you may find yourself in the army too.I really did like it a lot when I first came in but now it's getting kind of lonesome." The second group of letters comes from Sergeant Ernest H. Eckert who was first with the 420th Signal Company and then with the newly formed Strategic Services Unit, both while serving in China. In a letter from August 20th, 1944 he writes, "all I can say is that you people are on the ball up there as far as answering letters is concerned. Keep it up kid, some day I'll thank you many times for it." He continues, "you should see some of the things over here thought and you would really marvel at what makes the world tick. Some things are hard to believe but if one sees them with it's own eyes one cannot say that such a thing does not exist." In the second letter dated November 9, 1945 Eckert tells Dallas how much he loves playing ball, even in China, as it reminds him of his younger years and home, and tells a story of breaking his arm in camp at Ft. Monmouth, NJ in 1943. "Even over here in China we play football, volleyball, handball, basketball. Sometimes we have really swell games." Eckert was involved with the Strategic Services branch of the U.S. military who, with the outbreak of world war, was able to firmly establish it's operations. Stationed in China, men were used to train the Chinese and keep an eye on the Japanese. "By the summer of 1945 four man OSS teams were training and leading large groups of Chinese partisans in operations against Japanese communications in southern China.An OSS mission even investigated the possibility of supplying arms to Mao's CCP, who were conducting guerrilla warfare against the Japanese from bases in Yenan." A small, but interesting, grouping of letters from a unique theater of World War II to a young man on the homefront.