Cover: plain

From: Lt(jg) CR Cummins

USS LST 661

FPO San Fran. Cal.

To: Mansion Cummins

6109 Greenwood Ave.

Chicago, 37 Illinois

Postmark: U.S. NAVY 12 DEC 1945, stamped “AIR MAIL”

Stamp: 6¢ red airmail

7” x 10.5” paper, gold embossed USN shield, “United States Navy”—also embossed, plain

11 Dec

2300

And soon St. Nicholas will be here—

(That quotation isn’t quite correct, but I never was much of a poet).

This letter at Christmastime is from the same place as last year’s—such an unkind Fate, indeed.

Well, I wonder if you’ll have a tree this year—oh, I know you will—everybody else will be doing the work decorating the tree and pater will sit back in his plush chair surveying the proceedings. Mother would quite likely be in the kitchen baking ice-box cookies (oooh—my mouth waters). Loyd would be complaining because I had a larger handful of icicles than he had. Schwester would be arbitrating—or plotting where to conspicuously plant the mistletoe so that unexpecting David might be caught unawares.

We arrived this afternoon—a bay a short distance north of Peleliu. We now have 800 Japs on board—shove off tomorrow on a ten day trip to Tokyo Bay. The Japs are a miserable looking lot—all army, navy, and marines. Their stay on Babelthoup (sp?) for the last year was not exactly beneficial. Seemingly they have been affected by half the diseases known to man—largely due to lack and quality of food.

May you have a lovely Christmas and an extraordinarily humpty-dumpty superb New Years—

Bob