Cover: red and blue stripes around edge, \u201cVia Air Mail\u201d in blue [don\u2019t recognize the font]<\/p>\n
From: Lt(jg) CR Cummins<\/p>\n
USS LST 661<\/p>\n
FPO San Fran Cal<\/p>\n
To: The Cummins<\/p>\n
6109 Greenwood Ave.<\/p>\n
Chicago, 37, Illinois<\/p>\n
Postmark: U.S. NAVY 22 DEC 1945<\/p>\n
Stamp: 6\u00a2 red airmail<\/p>\n
reverse: some names in pencil, not CRC\u2019s handwriting<\/p>\n
5.5\u201d x 9\u201d paper, plain<\/p>\n
21 Dec<\/p>\n
2300<\/p>\n
Salutations,<\/p>\n
And a Happy New Year!<\/p>\n
We arrived in Tokyo Bay around 1000. Tokyo Bay, of course, is an enormous body of water. Actually we are in a place called Uraga\u2014on the left-hand side of the bay near its entrance\u2014you\u2019ll never find it on a map.<\/p>\n
Nothing worthy of note occurred\u2014other than continuous rough weather. After arriving here we learned that it was part of a cyclone that his the home islands\u2014we just can\u2019t seem to avoid them.<\/p>\n
The Japs were well-behaved. The sailors really enjoyed keeping them under control\u2014putting them on work details, making certain they toed the mark, et al.<\/p>\n
The Japs had the tank deck. All exits from the tank deck were locked except the truck ramp to the main deck\u2014up which they could come to the head and a breath of fresh air. We carefully rationed fresh water to them. For food we cook three 50 gal. cans of rice for them in the morning, 3 cans of beans in the afternoon. This food and other foodstuffs that did not require cooking were given us by the beach\u2014all American food, naturally.<\/p>\n
We had almost no contact with the Japs at all\u2014mainly because we were concerned about disease\u2014disentery especially.<\/p>\n
6 of the almost 800 died\u2014from effects of malnutrition. Many others were just specters of human beings.<\/p>\n
We unloaded them this afternoon, so maybe all of them will make it home by Christmas.<\/p>\n
800 doesn\u2019t make much of dent in the millions that have to be transported\u2014but they have a surprising number of ships that are not too apropo for transporting our own men.<\/p>\n
Most likely we\u2019ll be here tomorrow, then move a few miles farther down the day to a large naval base\u2014and two or three days there. There might be mail in Yokahama for us\u2014let\u2019s hope so.<\/p>\n
There is an actual possibility of snow for Christmas. Snow is predicted tomorrow for northern Honshu\u2014so you know what a drastic temperature we have had in the last ten days.<\/p>\n
Again\u2014Happy New Year!<\/p>\n
Sweet dreams, much love and even kisses\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 –Bob<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cover: red and blue stripes around edge, \u201cVia Air Mail\u201d in blue [don\u2019t recognize the font] From: Lt(jg) CR Cummins USS LST 661 FPO San Fran Cal To: The Cummins 6109 Greenwood Ave. Chicago, 37, Illinois Postmark: U.S. NAVY 22 DEC 1945 Stamp: 6\u00a2 red airmail reverse: some names in pencil, not CRC\u2019s handwriting 5.5\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,10,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7","category-aboard-ship","category-letters","category-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cumminsclan.net\/rc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}