'Round the Girdled Earth

More Remarkable War Letters Written Men from the Four Quarters of the Globe

A MOST INTERESTING LETTER from thehottest corner of the South Pacificwritten by Lt. Jason B. Baker '41who has been pasting the Nipponese atGuadalcanal. This letter was written inearly November.

The Lord has been generous to me and after several days of hell on earth I am returned once more to rest behind the lines, sound of body, mind and spirit. As you may gather the sth has been on the offensive again, and as usual, I am not bragging, the 3rd Battalion has borne the brunt of the whole thing and most particularly, my Company and K Company supported by our M.B. Company.

We started out as the reserve Battalion but by dark we were on the front lines. The day and night and day to follow I shall never forget. After advancing about 400 yards, we ran into heavy mortar and m.g. fire. This held us up till about 4:30 in the afternoon at which time the order to charge was given. During this period, lying in the open, under a pitiless sun, under constant enemy fire we were able after-much use of artillery, mortar, and most of all constant use of the 37 mm. to soften up the Nips enough to get the charge under way. The charge is something one has to be a part of to know the thrill of it. It can't be described. Suffice to say, I love these boys of mine and those who went with us. They were superb. .. .they came to me after it was all over and shook my hand and slapped me on the back and said things that made your eyes fill up with gratitude and pride.

During the charge, we captured 30 m.g.'s and several field pieces. The only thing I wanted as a souvenir was too big and of military value, but its mine, namely, a Jap 40 mm. gun—. . . .1 pitched a grenade right in the old 5 ring. The Nips and field pieces firing right down the trail, point blank with high explosive shell, so "your uncle Jay" got through the line of attack of the enemy and snuck up to the right flank of the Nip's gun, about 35 yards I should say, and tossed, a "pineapple" right under the barrel of the gun—it dropped one Nip over the barrel and two more over the breach block. I think I'll join the Yankees, I hear they need a good pitcher? If it had not gotten dark shortly thereafter, we would have chased all the Nips right off the other end of the Island.

That night we set up all around defense and slept on coral rock in the pouring rain. About 2:30 a patrol of Nips tried to escape through our lines and when challenged and fired on, they fell in among us, so you couldn't tell in the dark, who was who. At dawn they pulled a bayonet charge, which caused us some distress and a few casualties, but succeeded in getting them nothing but their own ancestrial heaven. During the morning we pulled our right flank around and .joined forces with troops coming down behind the pocket of Japs and by 2:00 the situation was in hand "no Nips nowhere." I killed a Jap Captain and have his insignia of rank and his pistol—it is a beauty, a German Luger Automatic. A pilot at the airport gave one chap $300 for one like it. Shall I sell?

On the road back the General (Vandergriff) stopped us and congratulated us—400 Japs killed—no prisoners taken. We are praying to be relieved now and desperately need a few months' rest in a civilized place.

... .Tell the world the Marine's are still the toughest so and so's to be fovind anywhere.

JIM ERWIN '42, one of the three musketeers along with Jim Rendall and FrankBartlett of 68 South Main, and now NorthAfrica, writes an amusing letter from thathot spot. I take a few extracts from same.This was written to Proc Page '42, also inthe army.

When we last saw you in June at Dix, Rendall and Bartlett each had a long-handled shovel and I an over-size wheelbarrow to handle the pasture item we were handing out as to the way we were going to handle the Army. We handled it, all right. Today, as then, we are privates—buck variety—doing the work that a twelve-dollara-month clerk would do in somebody's shabby outer office. Bart was offered a Pfc. rating but rather unkindly refused the honor and made a pointed suggestion as to where the lieutenant could file said rating. No one can say we are trying.

Today the flight of years finds us in an unmentionable spot in North Africa—the kind of spot it takes a war to get you to. Flies, filth, and shabby natives who beg cigarettes by day and knife you from the shadows by night Suffice it to say that if you follow the news of the North African campaign carefully and analyse it to the best of your English department habits, you'll know all about something we're not a part of. No heroes graves for us, nor yet the glory of combat and the nervestrained lust to kill. We, old boy, are glorified laborers

We have learned a lot, too. Dartmouth, idyllic, aloof, and academic pays scant heed to the business of living; nor would I say that should not be. We are always conscious of the intangibles she has given us, especially resiliency of mind and the adaptibility so necessary in the army. But there is a grimness which the easy camaraderie of college knows not. We gave lip-service to a lot of wisdom (never really taking it in) which only now we realize is true. However, I am neither philosopher nor critic so will find another subject.

We had an interesting evening awhile back.... with a representative little man, of the French. And this is what we noticed. It is not to Russia, in the thick of the fight doing what France could not do; it is not to England, still to them "perfidious Albion" albeit she fights the good fight, that they turn in hope so very like children with shining faces. It is to us, America. But not at all in the ordinary sense. They are the new internationalists, these beaten, heart-broken French. They look to us for another Wilson more benign and, of course, more successful to map again an international concert of men. As long as men such as that soldier make up the bulk of France and France returns to Democracy, the world will never again have to worry about French support in a league of nations. For France it is America alone that can free the world. The faith that these people have in us and the responsibility that is ours are burdens not to be taken lightly. I as an American have a new perspective of my country. I only hope we are great enough to justify the faith that others have in us. It may well be I am too impressionable, but could you have seen this man, tears streaming down his face, grinding (actually!) his teeth quite audibly, you would have felt what I did. Truly, one must travel to get an education.

As Christmas approaches nostalgia becomes most intense. There will be few merry Christmases this year, but at least in Hanover it will be white. You knew last summer what it was to miss the Hanover plain. Imagine if you can a Christmas where date and banana trees stand listless in the heat, and you will have an idea what the Africans miss. Someday I will live in New England because there are four seasons and nature behaves as Nature's God meant it to.

FREDERICK HALLING (DICK) HALVORSEN '31, R.C.A.F. flier, shot down indesert, writes of his experiences in Egypt.These excerpts are from his letters homeand are dated from June to September,1942.

Just two weeks ago this morning I was attacked by three Messerschmitts and shot down in flames. I may have got one of them. (He did.) It was one of those moments when smoke gets in your eyes. At any rate, it was one of my more embarrassing moments, since when I turned my aircraft over and baled out I lost my flying boots and stockings as I plummeted upsidedownward. I had only two bad moments up there—first when, in turning over, I sent my cockpit through their line of cannon fire, and again when my parachute opened I thought I was. being held up by sky hooks and would never get out of the battle area of British and Jerry fighters.

I landed okay, scraping my legs a bit, and was dragged about 100 yards across the blue (desert) because I couldn't release my chute. British Tommies picked me up, released me from the chute, and one asked if he could take my rubber gloves off. For the first time I took a good look at my gloves and saw what he meant. Nasty sight. They put me in an ambulance where I had a mug of brandy and the m.o. dressed my hands, face and neck. Then morphine.

The dressing was done in a hastily dug trench, because we were being bombed To Tubruk, where I was dressed properly, and then on to this hospital where they specialize in burns.

I have mentioned the grimmer aspects of my wounds because I'm so blasted proud of the way they've fixed me up. A fortnight ago I was a mess; now my face is completely healed without a scar, my writing hand down to a light bandage covering new, unscarred skin!

Most of the casualties I've run across in the hospital have been either tank or armored car wallahs, or pilots. The pilots contend they'd be scared stiff in tanks (as I would) and think the "tankies" are crazy; whilst the tankies sneer at our intelligence and wouldn't have any part of our job. As for the infantry—well, why walk when you can ride?

Yesterday an odd coincidence occurred. I was visiting another ward and a chap recognized mesaid he'd picked me up in the desert when I baled out. Confirmed too, my Messerschmitt which crashed into bits, after exploding in mid air, in the midst of the Knightsbridge tank battle of June 13th (after three months I think I can reveal that!).

AVIATION CADET C. M. "STUBBY"PEARSON '42 writes a fine letter homefrom the U. S. Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida. I quote from the letter as itappeared in his home town paper. (The Independent Press of Madison, Minnesota.)

You see, this is what I want when the tumult and the crying die. I want a nation where all men have the right of freedom £nd the privilege of being secure. I want to see a state which insures to all of us political freedom, freedom to elect and appoint our leaders—leaders with a desire to serve—freedom to speak and to weep and to sing. This will come from our Democratic state—the state most suited to fulfill man's innate desires—the state, which comes closest in the long run to our political ideal. I want most of all to give every one the opportunity to earn his or her living—the opportunity to be secure. Every man with a chance to earn his bread and butter, with a chance to set a full bread basket before his family and square his shoulders as a man who has done his job well. I want happiness to reign as the Black Plague over the Dark Ages. I want people styled with the joy of living and feeding and working and loving and perhaps with just enough hate between neighbors to make the game more interesting. I want an economy of security made possible by suspension and guidance of industry, business, transportation, agriculture and communications, by a government backed by the people I want the nation to build upon the good old Christian philosophy which says good and thoughtfulness and intelligence and strength are the ways of life

These are the dreams I dream, these are my thoughts and if such are not the dreams and thoughts of other men this war is of no avail, your sorrow is lost, your reward is vanished for only suffering and danger of other wars will result The opportunity is at hand—this could be the last war—the instruments to make it such are in the minds of men for I have followed and have seen what a few are thinking. Will these few survive or will the mob stupidity once more prevail?

We cannot go back to yesterday. This is a new age—old institutions must become new.

ZT. WILLIAM W. GOODMAN'39, from' somewhere in the South Pacific, expresses himself about the future of education. (This is an abstract from a longerarticle.)

For what must we educate? Primarily, it seems important to me that men be educated to adopt the long view toward all problems, not the effect on the immediate present, but the effect on the whole outlook. National politics cannot and must not take into consideration only local cause and effect, but it must consider the larger, the international effects of its legislation and restrictions.

If at the end of the war there is established an international police force, as now seems apparent, such a force must realize that it is protecting the interests of the protected as well as the protectors. And such a force must not be dominated by individual interests which will surely doom it to failure.

The post-war college will have a tremendous part ot play. It must pick its students with greater thought to what they will do rather than what their parents have done. It is difficult for men to forget self-interest, but if we can make them realize—or will they too soon forget this warthat self-interest alone can lead only to future tragedy, and the peace of all must be insured if individual peace is to be realized.

AAL NEWELL '41 writes from an Officers' Training Centre in Brockville,Ontario.

Anyone who has gone to Dartmouth is a fool to try and describe how he feels about it. Even getting a letter postmarked Hanover makes me gulp still. That's the way I felt when I received your letter the other day I'm in the Canadian Army I imagine the army is the same all over the world. I've never been in better physical shape in my life. In this battle school they run us a good part of the time. I think you had the right slant on the army from the last war. It doesn't help the mind but it does wonders for the body.

The experience I've gotten the most out of though is being out of the country. I imagine the fellows overseas have found the same thing. I never realized just how wonderful home was before coming up here. The respect our neighbors have for the U. S.l think the world in generalis so great it makes one ashamed of himself.

CONTINUED WEATHER OF THE "RUSSIAN WINTER" VARIETY GREETED FOURTH CLASS OF NAVAL TRAINING SCHOOL WHOSE MEMBERS (LEFT) ARE GUIDED BY UNDERGRADUATES, THEY PLAN TO TRY NEARBY SKI TRAILS, AND (RIGHT) MARCH BUNDLED IN HEAVY COATS.