12 Feb 1945 (Monday)

Dearest Kitten:

Here it is the beginning of another week and I am still as much in love with you as I ever was. Yep, I love you with all of my heart and miss you very much. How happy it would make me to be able to take you in my arms once more. Wow! What a time it will be when I finally get home and can show you how much I really love you.

Saturday, I took the biggest part of the day off. In the morning I got most of my work cleaned up and at ten o’clock I left with a sergeant from B Company. First we hit pub call at eleven thirty. After that we had dinner at the American Red Cross, and went to the horse races. The Sergeant I was with goes to the races every Saturday and is a heavy gambler. We lost the first two races and won on the third. While cashing our tickets we got separated and I did not find him until the last race. By losing him I made money as I just picked out horses at random and bet on them. Two more of my choices came in and at the end of the day I had won about a dollar, eight shillings. Beginners luck I guess. Sgt. Strumpf lost quite a bit of money as he did not collect on any other bets. After the races I returned to camp and felt great after the excitement of the races.

The people over here are great racing fans. I was very surprised to see the number of women betting and looking up racing forms etc. from six to sixty, and do they know their stuff.

Sunday afternoon I went swimming at a pool in town. Sgt. McMurray and I went in and enjoyed ourselves immensely. After the swim we had supper at the Red Cross and saw a show. About the time that the show let out it started to pour. By the time that we reached home, we were soaked. It was late & I was wet so I did not write as I had planned. Funny thing about the Army, it is an unusual thing to have things go as planned.

Letters #184+7 came yesterday so I will try to answer them.

When this is all over and I return home, you can bet that we will raise a little hell and have a good time now and then.

The poor guy, I pity him if he looks like me, Connie’s friend. They must have been quite a striking looking couple. What with both of them six foot tall.

What got into Pauline? She never put herself out like that before. Could be that she is waking up and realizing that she is a big girl now and has to act like one. By the way how was the lunch?

I received a V-mail from André, was I surprised. He appears to be doing very well. Let’s hope that he is through with combat duty and that he will be sent home. He could not understand why my letter did not reach him. It must have been due to his moving so rapidly. The letter was dated 17 Jan so he must have put off writing to me for a couple of days.

It must have been tough on André to be so long without mail, especially at a time when he needed to be cheered up so much.

Sorry Sweetheart, the Army is calling and I must close. I love you my Darling Wife.

Your Loving Devoted & Faithful Husband,

Bob