Monday 29 Jan 1945

Dearest Kitten:

It will soon be two years that I have been working for Uncle. It seems like ages ago in some ways. The main reason is because a day away from you is like an eternity. The longer that we are separated, the longer the days seem to be.

It is far from the best thing to do, but I wish that the time would just fly by and reach the day that I can take you into my arms again. What a day that will be.

I will try to answer letters #176-7-8 & 9 which reached me Saturday of last week.

You wanted to know if I had a good time at our company party, well, I certainly did. About the blonde, I am afraid that there is only a brunette back home that can stand the kind of line that I throw. As a great lover, I am sadly lacking in technique. Maybe it is because I am slightly rusty from lack of practice.

Sorry but I have never been invited to tea. It might boost my ego a bit if some young thing would though. A man likes to think that he is still quite a killer around the women you know.

By the way I have a story to tell you. One of the men in my company got married, back in the old country, while he was in the Army and has a daughter. Well, he has got himself a dinkum Aussie gal friend. The other night one of his buddies had a double date and the fellow who was supposed to go out with him couldn’t. So knowing that the other guy goes out, he asked him to take over the date. His answer was, “Sorry but I am true to my girl friend.” I wonder what his wife would say if she knew the facts.

Knowing what a beautiful voice you have, I do not blame Bobby for telling you off.

Haven’t seen the comics that you sent as yet. Give them a couple of months and they will finally arrive.

Sorry to hear about your Dad. It must be  hard for him to be inactive after the way he has worked all his life. Give him my regards and tell him to take it easy.

Tell Lorraine that I am sorry to disappoint her but we are still in Australia - Brisbane. You see they are saving us. They are saving us so that we can march in one of the victory marches down Broadway.

I sure wish those kisses were real. What-d I say? Wish they real? That’s what I mean.

A new saying in the Company, What did I say?

So you finally received one of my boxes. The second one should be right behind it and the third one should be about two weeks behind the second one.

Whatever you can do to help someone who has less, do it. It will never be lost. That is one thing that I like about you. You have such a big heart.

What’s this, trying to let me know that you’re going to be the boss when I get home. When I get home and something detains me and makes me late, you had better not tee off on me or you may be sorry.

Well Sweetheart, I have to close and get some shut eye. I love you darling Wife.

Regards to everyone & kiss the babies for me.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob

Tuesday 23 Jan 1945

Dearest Kitten:

You must feel like the forgotten Woman or something due to the number of letters that you do not receive from me. I assure you that it is not because I do not think of you as you are always in my thoughts. There is nothing I would rather do than to sit down quietly and scribble off a letter to you. Most of my scribbling is usually in the line of duty though. Just be thankful for each letter that you receive from me.

Sunday I had plans all laid out and it included writing a nice long letter to you. After dinner Sgt. Donohoe, McMurray, and myself started to take some pictures outside the camp. We were standing alongside the road and a Warrant Officer stopped in a staff car and offered a ride into town. We decided to go in town and take some pictures at the Botanical Gardens. After we used up our film, they wanted to stay in town, have supper at the Red Cross and go to the show, which we did. By the time we got back into camp and I had gotten things straightened out for Monday, it was too late to write. And so to bed.

It just occurred to me that you might be interested in the fact that I love you with all my heart and that the empty void I have in the pit of my stomach is from being so far away from you and not from the lack of food. Yes I am very much in love with you.

Yesterday the mail clerk was very good to me. Two letters #174+5 with the pictures of you, Barby, & Connie.

Photo taken Dec. 24, 1944.
Connie(?) & Barbie

Sgt. Nicholson wanted me to ask Connie if she would care to write to a lonesome supply sgt. What a hunk of woman, was his comment when I showed him the pictures.

It is nice to know that you dream of me. I am dreaming of you more & more lately. Could it be because I love you? Guess it is.

Let me know how Roger G. is making out. He will certainly find things a lot different than what he was accustomed to.

I noticed the mistake in the announcement from the Panas and figured that something was wrong. He should be more like me. Neither births bothered me. Who fired that shot? Give them my best and tell Tess that if she ever has another one, she should try a little more action and less talk.

O.K. from now on, you can rest assured that I will not send any telegrams unless it is of the utmost importance.

Sure wish I could ship a bit of this heat to you as I could do with a little lack of heat right now. It hasn’t been too bad lately. Warm during the day but we have to sleep under covers at night.

How did Dad like the Beachcomber? I know that he must have gotten a kick out of them. He always enjoyed things like that. I hope that he enjoyed himself.

If this mess doesn’t hurry up and get cleared up, I’ll be returning in time to see my youngsters graduate from grammar school. My daughter, I should say our daughter, is getting to be quite a big girl, but when is she going to get some hair? She doesn’t seem to have any more hair now than the last time that I saw her.

Yes I remember the velvet dress of Barbie’s. She looks sweet enough to eat. Should I tell you what you looked like to me? Better not, this is inflammable paper.

Your skirt looks nice. You’ll have to make a suit for me when I get back home. On second thought, I don’t think you had better. The first suit that I am going to buy is a zoot suit. Tight at the ankles, flaring at the thighs and half way between my adams apple & belly button. The coat will reach down to my knees. he color will be orange & blue check with a wide purple strip throughout. People will think that the visiting firemen have landed.

Going poetic aren’t you:

All my love all my life

Your beloved wife.

Nice very nice I like that. The poem that you enclosed hits the nail right on the hammer or vice versa.

Dad must have been feeling good when he wrote. I had a tough time deciphering his writing. He never took a drink until I was about twenty. He always admitted that he could not take it and that is the reason why he seldom takes it.

By the way, I am losing two of my sergeants. Sgt. Ryan & Sgt. Donohoe are going to Officers Candidate School.

Would you have liked to have had me try to get a commission? Don’t know as I could make it, but I sure could give it a go. For some unknown reason, it has never appealed to me. I am not sure that I could stand the petty disciplining that they hand out. Since being a 1st Sgt, for a year has made me very touchy, I am not sure that I would not blow up when the going got aggravating.

Doing very well today. Four pages all by myself, but I must call a halt.

Give my regards to everyone & kiss the babies for me. I love you my darling Wife.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob

Friday 19 Jan 1945

Dearest Kitten:

Don’t know how much luck I will have in finishing this letter but here goes anyhow. Just so that I get this in before I have to close I will get this much off of my chest.

The ache in my heart is caused by the continued longing for you. I love you and miss you so much that it is not very funny. I wish that I had the ability to put into words exactly how I feel toward you. It would go down through history as one of the greatest love poems of all times.

Unfortunately your husband is only an average guy whose only virtue or fault, other than loving you, is to get things done without regards to political or polite manners. no one would ever accuse me of being diplomatic.

Your letters #170-1-2-3 have reached me and I will attempt to answer them.

You must think that I have a marvelous imagination to be able to conjure up a winder scene as the perspiration rolls off of my body. Up in New Guinea it usually stays between 110 and 130 - Woe is me.

How do you think that I will be able to brush up on my French over here. Now if I were in France, I would look up a good looking Mademoiselle and after spending about three days and nights with her, I could probably get a Bachelors degree for the French language from Harvard.

Here I go again. Two hours later.

Bobby must be a regular chatter box. I certainly miss being bothered by my two youngsters. Nothing would please me more than to be able to see our children battling or playing with each other.

It has always been more or less an accepted fact that everything would be left to my aunt & uncle. They sure deserve it if anyone does. I know that Norman will help his mother & father, but it is just the idea of the thing.

So you lost seventeen cents gambling. What a sport. Wow! How do you afford it? Playing cards for small stakes is a lot of fun. The trouble with playing in the Army is that the stakes are usually high. When we had the NCO club open, it is now closed, I played a couple of times but always lost.

I received a notice from Mr. & Mrs. Panas on the birth of their new baby. I bet that Tessie must be happy that it is all over.

When I get the chance I will write to Andrew. It may not be right away but eventually, I hope.

Well, beautiful, time for me to close.

Give my regards to all the folks & kiss the babies for me. I love you Darling wife.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob

Thursday 11 Jan 1945

Dearest Kitten:

It’s just lovely to receive letters from you. Lovely, just lovely. A new saying going round the company. Remember how I used to say Hell no? Well now the saying is, Lovely just lovely.

Letter #168 came today and that is the reason for the saying. A letter from Mother arrived today also.

If the time ever comes that I start taking you for granted, just give me a swift boot in the place that I bend. The way I feel right now I could start courting you just as if we were not married. I hope that I will always act the way that I feel.

Letting the youngsters climb into your bed with you is a very bad habit. You should break them of it as soon as possible. The onliest way to do it is to get up yourself just as soon as they awaken. After a week of that they will soon get out of the habit of waking so early just so that they can get into our bed.

Of course I would like twin beds. It is the onliest way to sleep. After sleeping alone all this time I doubt if I will be able to get accustomed to sleeping with anyone else, even my wife.

Making the youngsters eat at their own table is very good training. You can make them thing that they have to learn table manners before they will be allowed to eat at the table with the grownups.

From Mother’s letter I take it that she is only working four hours a day but expects go to work steady very soon. I sure hope so. It is much better for her to be working than staying around the house feeling sorry for herself.

How did you like the pictures? In the past few weeks I have sent you enough to keep you busy for awhile.

Am feeling fine and hope that everything is going along smoothly at home.

Well Sweetheart I must close with all my love.

Give my regards to everyone and kiss the babies for me. I love you, my Darling wife.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob

8 Jan 1945 (Monday)

Dearest Kitten:

I love you with all my heart, and because of my love for you, I miss you so much that it has stopped being funny a long time ago.

How I wish that I could take you in my arms and tell you how much that I love you. Every nerve in my body is crying out for you.

Received letters #164-5-6 &7. Was sorry to find out that my packages had not reached you by Xmas. By the time that this letter reaches you, you should have received two boxes.

Yes my nose still bothers me, my cold is about the same. It is not a cold exactly but an irritation of the nasal passage.

The house must be getting to look nice. With all the improvements, I doubt if I will recognize the place.

During war times, people must expect to lose some of their loved ones. It is not easy I know, but it can not be helped. When a person reads about the casualties they never believe that it can happen to anyone that is close to them. It is a good way to be even if it is not always true.

If Bobby keeps it up he will make a regular tom-boy out of Barby. I bet that they are a kick with they start going.

Getting to be a regular seamstress huh? Knowing how to sew will always come in handy. You certainly have changed a great deal since the first time that I met you. What a brat tou were. I know, I wasn’t much better. We always got along together though.

I was never as lucky as Roger in getting time off like that. The best that I ever got besides my furloughs was a two-day pass.

So Santa scared the hell out of the youngsters. I can imagine how they acted. It is a rather startling outfit.

Thank God you were too busy to start feeling sorry for yourself or me Xmas day. As for myself, I stayed slightly mellow all day. If I had stayed sober, it would have gotten me down.

You should have received two packages by this time and there is another one on the way that should reach you shortly after this letter arrives. Remember you asked for a Koala bear? Well there is one on the way. I always try to please my Sweetheart.

It has been much cooler lately and do I appreciate that fact. By the way, I am losing all of my tan. Haven’t been able to get out in the sun much lately. Much too busy I guess.

Yes I wrote a long letter to Roland. The night that I wrote to him, I felt like writing and it just seemed to come to me without half trying.

Lately I do not seem to be able to think of anything to write. The only thing that I want to write is how much that I love you. Must be getting sentimental or maybe it is because I love you so much.

Give my regards to all the folks & kiss the babies for me. I love you, Beautiful.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob

Thursday 4 Jan 1945

Dearest Kitten:

This is your husband saying hello again. I want to tell you how much I love you, and how much that I miss you.

Is the moon made of cheese? No.

Can you tell me how long it would take a bow-legged mosquito to walk across Niagara Falls on an inch and a half rope if it takes cold molasses five hours to pour through a half inch hole? No, of course you can’t.

How much do I love you? The answer to that just can not be answered either, because it would take not just a book but a volume of books to put it all down. So I will have to be satisfied to say, I love you Sweetheart.

Received letter #163 and it was funny to read about snow and how cold it is back home, when I am roasting most of the time.

The youngsters are at a very cute stage in their career of life. How I miss watching them. I certainly could enjoy them if I were at home now. My day will come though and the heart ache of this separation will be all forgotten.

Yesterday the captain and I went into town and I bought you a little present. Haven’t mailed it yet because I am having a box made for it.

I am anxious to hear what you think of your presents. I hope that the belt isn’t too long. Despite what I said before, it is made of kangaroo leather, so is the billfold. You may notice that the billfold is larger than those at home. It is because the bills over here are so much larger.

It is cool tonight and is comfortable for a change. I am almost getting used to the heat.

We were stationed at Sydney for awhile and one Sunday morning the C.O. told me that there would be passes for fifty percent of the company from noon until midnight. Sgt. Ryan & Donohoe wanted me to go along with them. At first I did not want to as I knew that we would get into trouble for sure. Finally I decided to go and we took off. The city of Sydney is rather nice and we were looking it all over and trying to find something to drink.

We finally asked the clerk at a hotel how we could get a drink and he said that if we waiting about an hour until 7:00 P.M. we could get drink with our dinner in the hotel dining room. We waited and it was our first experience with Australian beer. It was warm out and we drank quite a bit.

Everything was fine until we hit the fresh air. Wow what a wallop. We were just roaming around looking everything over and time passed on. Came time to return to the train station for the return trip to camp so we grabbed a tram to get us to the station. There was only one trouble, the tram went in the opposite direction. By the time that we got straightened around we had missed our train and had to wait two hours for another one.

At one in the morning we were walking through the station to catch our train and who do we run into but Capt. Harris. The next morning I reported myself and the two sergeants that were with me for being late. He told me to forget it. Whenever I do something wrong I always get caught at it. Knowing this helps keep me on the straight and narrow.

Sweetheart send me all the Cuticura soap that you can get. It will help me keep down skin diseases.

Enclosed is two pictures that were taken a couple of weeks ago. My supply sergeant, Nicholson, and T/5 Paul Murphy. Murphy is the guy that I had to tell that his sister was dead last Xmas day. He wants me to go down to his place for a couple of weeks after this is all over. Please have two prints made of each picture and send them back to me as I want to give them one of each.

Well Beautiful, what did you think of FUBAR circular #1 that I sent you in the last letter?

See what your husband has to do before he will be eligible for rotation. I do not know who composed it but whoever it was certainly had a great sense of humor.

Have you heard the song I want to bivouac with a WAC yet? Xmas night one of the men in the show sang it and did the men enjoy that one.

From my pictures, do you believe that I weigh 177 lbs?

The boardwalk that we are standing on, covers a drainage ditch. We had to build our own drainage system to keep from being washed away when it rains. It took quite a while to build, but was worth it after we got through.

Well Sweetheart, I must close as it is late and there is some work that I must do before retiring.

Give my regards to everyone & kiss the babies for me. I love you, Darling.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob

2 Jan. 1945 (Tuesday)

Dearest Kitten:

How’s the most wonderful wife in the world? Fine, I hope, because your husband is feeling fine right now.

I do not know how long this letter will be as I have to take off to town with the Captain. We are buying an ice cream and ice maker for the company.

You are fortunate that the sewing machine company are good enough to loan you a machine until your other is ready.

We are having a hail storm right now. Ten minutes ago I was sweating my eye teeth out and just as I started this letter it cooled down quickly, and started raining and hailing. Some of the hail are as big as marbles and I am not kidding. The way that the weather has been, it is a mystery to me how hail could ever be formed. Australia is funny like that, it is a country of opposites.

You failed to tell me how our account was made out, so I am taking a chance and having it made out to the account of Robert J. Lemire & Irene A. Lemire. That is the Class E allotment. If it is wrong let me know immediately.

The belt that I sent to you for Xmas will go good with your sweaters & skirts. You should be all fixed for coin jewelry with the coin earrings in the other box. The piece of wood with the string attached is supposed to ward off evil spirits. By swinging around over your head it will make a noise which is supposed to be the voice of all evil spirits and warns them away from the person in the center. It is a belief of the aboriginals of Australia.

What is Tess waiting for? Hope it’s twins.

When you find out Norman’s overseas address, let me know so that I may be able to look him up. I could go for a talk with someone from home right now.

What a night that was, the Xmas eve that we trimmed the tree at home. I doubt if I will ever forget that night.

Bobby is too good natured, that is why he is always getting beat up. There will come a time when he will get sick of taking the worst of it and will he go to town then.

Sorry to disappoint you but I used to like to see my brother fight, so I used to go around looking for more trouble than I could handle just to make him get into it.

The less said about the way I felt over Xmas the better off I will be. I know exactly how you felt and there is only one thing to do and that is to pray that this mess will be over as soon as possible.

Sorry about the cigarettes, but it is impossible for me to send any home. They would not let them go through the mail. The Army utilizes a lot of valuable space to ship cigarettes to the men over here and it would not be cricket to turn around and send them home again.

Of course I do not mind you sending dad a card with the pictures. I sent him a Xmas V-mail myself. As yet I did not hear from him over Xmas but at least my conscience is clear.

Mother is certainly going to town. I am glad for her. She has had so much trouble that I am happy to see her get a few of the things that she never received when she was younger.

Maybe the new landlord will really fix the house up. It would be nice to have the ground floor.

Enclosed are some pictures that I told you about.

The two of myself dressed up were taken by my commanding officer with his camera and I used his camera for the other pictures a few days later. The four Lts are Officers in the company who happened to be in the orderly room that Sunday morning.

Sgt. Ryan is one of my platoon sgts. and he was suffering from a hangover and refused to be serious. He was trying to kiss me in the picture of the two of us. I was moving into position when they snapped the one of myself.

Sgt. Nicholson is my supply sgt. and T/4 Pound used to be the Company clerk. Pound used to sleep right across from me, but has been moved to a different barracks. Sgt. Nicholson sleeps right next to me.

T/5 Parson Hill is second in command of the supply room and is a natural comedian. He loves to drink and the more he drinks the funnier he gets. Everybody in Brisbane knows and loves him. I have yet to hear him swear, drunk or sober.

When he goes to town, he invariably gets slightly to completely high and on the way back to camp on the tram he either holds an auction with stolen fruit, holds a balloon ascension, or gives a sermon on the evils of alcohol. The people who live out this way look for him on the tram because he is so comical and no one can get mad at him.

One night he was holding a quiz contest when I was on the same team. He would walk up to someone and ask what their name was. When they answered he would shout, that’s right, you are the winner of one rosy red apple, and he had a bag full of apples. All kinds of questions like that. He spotted a woman with a gold tooth and told her she was a winner for having a gold tooth. It is hard to convey just how funny he is.

Well Sweetheart, I did well but I must close. You have all my love so guard it well until I return.

Regards to everyone and kiss the babies for me. I love you Kitten.

On the back of some of the prints are the number of prints that I want back with the original with the censors stamp.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob