The sending and receiving of letters became a staple during WWII and was often times encouraged that women on the home front write to their men overseas to keep their morale up and give them the strength to fight for their country knowing that there was someone at home depending on them to come back safely. With the large influx of mail being sent between the servicemen overseas and their romantic partners on the home front, break up letters were bound to get sent eventually. The majority of people involved in the war, both at home and on the front lines, were 18-21 years old and dealing with the harsh realities of war. Being separated by a great physical distance exacerbated fear and loneliness, leading some people to seek out the comfort in others. Young GIs began receiving what they called “Dear John” letters from their significant others informing them that they were no longer happy in the long-distance relationship and either found another male suitor or broke things off in favor of being alone. News and propaganda depicted receiving a “Dear John” letter as one of the worst things a soldier could experience on the front lines, with one journalist comparing the heartbreak of a ‘Dear John’ letter as worse than anything that they would experience fighting in the war. These letters did cause pain, as any breakup letter would, and placed blame on the young woman penning the goodbye letter, referring to them as unpatriotic and heartless to hurt someone fighting for their freedom. There were also instances of “Dear Jane” letters where servicemen would write to their girlfriends or fiancées back home to inform them they were no longer interested in continuing the relationship or they got married while overseas, as was the case with John and Margaret.
Citations:
Carruthers, Susan L. “World War II 'Dear John' Letters Changed American Society.” Time. Time, February 14, 2022. https://time.com/6137746/dear-john-letters-world-war-ii/.
Fallon, Claire. “Can We Stop Pretending the Publishing Industry Is Fair Now?” HuffPost. HuffPost, August 28, 2015. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/can-we-stop-pretending-the-publishing-industry-is-fair-now_n_55c25732e4b0d9b28f05354a.
During WWII, South Carolina had 20 POW camps that housed a large number of German and Nazi soldiers alongside Italian POWs. Within these camps, the POWs would perform various labor-intensive jobs ranging from agricultural harvesting of southern crops like cotton and supplying the raw materials from forestry jobs to aid in the paper industry. While the German and Italian POWs were required to perform various tasks, the camps abided by the Geneva Conventions rules on how to treat prisoners of war and accommodated them with adequate housing, a variety of food for their mealtime, and a daily allotment ranging from 10 cents to 80 cents to use at the on-site commissary. The adherence to the Geneva Convention was to signify that the US would be diplomatic and just in the way they would treat the foreign POWs hoping to convey that the same level of respect would be bestowed upon American soldiers in foreign POW camps. The camps were far from idyllic, but many of the German POWs preferred being held in the US and away from the active war that their countrymen were experiencing and knowing that they would potentially be going back to cities that were devastated by the fighting and bombing. There were also intercamp issues that arose from the language barrier and allegiance to the prisoner’s home country and adherence to their harmful ideology. Some of the POW camps in South Carolina were home to captured Nazis, two notable ones being in Aiken and the other in Charleston. There was an incident at the camp in Aiken between three Nazi POW soldiers, two of whom felt they were being cheated out of their food rations by the third man, took matters into their own hands and murdered him. It was later understood that the man was murdered because he may have expressed feelings that no longer represented Nazi ideology and perceived as disloyal to Germany. The second POW camp in Charleston offered an easygoing environment, giving the POWs time off which allowed them to play sports and even taking them to movies and restaurants in downtown Charleston on King St which runs the length of the peninsula. While the captured German Nazis, the same ones that American soldiers were fighting against overseas during WWII, were allowed to have the freedom to frequent movie theaters and restaurants, the same did not apply to the African American soldiers both during WWII and the postwar period. Jim Crow laws were still in effect in the southern United States and segregation was still being practiced in theaters and restaurants in Charleston. The restaurants and theaters that were allowing Nazis to partake in food and entertainment were the same restaurants and theaters that made African Americans enter through the side doors and seated away from the whites only sections or sometimes being denied entry altogether. African American servicemen did not fare any better, facing segregation and racism in the military as well as within the country they were fighting to defend. The Tuskegee Airmen, the all black unit of trained pilots, were met with disdain from other soldiers and airmen who thought they were not fit to fight in the war let alone be responsible for the operation of bomber planes. The government sent them overseas with the expectation that they would be unsuccessful but even with little support from their country, the Tuskegee Airman managed to complete twice as many missions as their white counterparts. Once the African American soldiers returned from WWII, they still faced discrimination in the form of redlining and were not receiving the GI benefits that were signed into law with the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944. After surviving the war, they were welcomed back by being unjustly targeted, subjected to racist laws and segregation, and attacked or murdered while still in uniform. The acceptance of Nazi POWs and their ideology over African American veterans illustrated the contempt America felt towards their own soldiers because of their race and the willingness to allow hatred and racism to thrive after fighting to destroy the same sentiment overseas.
Citations:
Alston, Charles Henry. “‘Good Hunting, Son, - You're On Your Own Now!!!".” National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/535667.
Blakemore, Erin. “How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, March 29, 2023. https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits.
Hamer, Fritz. “Barbeque, Farming and Friendship: German Prisoners of War and South Carolinians, 1943-1946.” Scholar Commons, n.d. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/lib_facpub/26/.
Smyth, William D. “Segregation in Charleston in the 1950s: A Decade of Transition.” South Carolina Historical Society, n.d. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27568213.
The following object description information includes basic elements from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). An additional notes field is included to list dates from the actual letter, envelope postmark locations, and any other identifying details.
What effect did these letters take on the mental toll of the soldiers who were still in active fighting zones?
What toll did this take on the women back home who were waiting for their soldiers to come home only to be told they married someone else instead?
The return letter to Margaret from the war department has an APO of 639 which is in Cheddington England. The town of Cheddington is 17 miles away from where John and Christine lived.
Their address is included on the letter that Margaret received from John's wife, Christine.
The areas highlighted on the map below shows where John was in England during WWII.
The first highlight is Cheddington, which is where the mail for the servicemen was sent and received. The mail would go through the military censoring process before being delivered to the servicemen or sent back home to the US via V-Mail.
The second area was Bovingdon, which was where RAF Bovingdon was located. This is where John's unit, the 1787th Ordnance Supply & Maintenance Company, was stationed during WWII. This was also where the RAF Bomber Command was stationed. They played a large part in the strategic bombings that targeted Germany during WWII.
The third area is Kings Langley, the town that John and Christine lived in during the war. It is located 2 miles south of the forth highlighted area, Hemel Hempstead. This was where John and Christine were married in July of 1944. It is also three miles from the Watford District where John and Christine's daughter Lynn was born in March of 1945.
Christine and John met at a dance, presumably for service men and women to have fun and meet people in their same situation, in 1944 while John was stationed overseas in Britain. Christine was serving two years in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s branch of the British Army. This was the same branch that Queen Elizabeth would later join in 1945 where she trained as a driver and mechanic. The Rainbow Corner Club in London was 30 miles from where John was stationed in Bovingdon and there was a high possibility that they met at a dance there since that was a place where American GIs could go hang out and relax and fraternize with the locals.
There are first hand accounts from women who served in the ATS during WWII. One from Doris Marland nee Briggs talks about her time in the 93rd Searchlight Regiment, only operated by women. Her job was represented by the women on the stamp below. At one point she was stationed near Hemel Hempstead, assisting damaged aircrafts by leading them to airfields with the searchlight, all while hoping they did not take on enemy fire from the German Luftwaffe.
Citation: “Auxiliary Territorial Service.” National Army Museum, n.d.https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/auxiliary-territorial-service.
Citation: Howard, Harry. “Royal Mail Honours Second World War's Unsung Female Heroes with New Set of Stamps.” Daily Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, May 3, 2022. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10778619/Royal-Mail-honours-Second-World-Wars-unsung-female-heroes-new-set-stamps.html.