Introduction to Letters Written Home by Pvt. Gus Haferkamp

On June 23, 1943, a card was mailed by the Local Draft Board to my dad ordering him to report on July 3 at 3 p.m. to Dr. A.H. Hunter in Staunton, Illinois, for physical examination. On July 31, 1943, an Order to Report for Induction was mailed to him ordering him to report to the Illinois Terminal R.R. Station in Benld, Illinois, at 11:15 p.m. on the 12th day of August, 1943. He arrived at Camp Grant, Illinois, on August 13 and was inducted into the U.S. Army Like so many others in the United States, the lives of my parents were about to change dramatically.

Dad was born in Staunton, Illinois, on September 9, 1912, the youngest of seven children of Clemens and Mary Haferkamp. My mother, Dora G. "Dodie" Cool, was born November 7, 1915, in Bicknell, Indiana, the middle of 11 children. Her older siblings had all been born in Render, Kentucky. By 1917 the Cool family had moved on to Staunton, where her five younger brothers were born. Dad and Mom were married March 30, 1940, after dating for seven years. At the time of Dad's induction into the U.S. Army he was employed as a maintenance mechanic by the Atlas Powder Company in Weldon Spring, Missouri.

During Dad's 2 1/2 years in the Army, most of which was spent with the Infantry in Italy, he was trained and served as a telephone switchboard operator. His separation papers give this description of his duties: "Installed and operated and performed minor maintenance on both portable magneto type switchboard and battery switchboards. Answered calls and made necessary connections to complete circuits. Also helped lay the line and connected it to the switchboard. Can read circuit diagrams. Used hand tools in maintaining wire." A booklet written by members of the 34th Infantry Division, with which Dad served, includes this information, "Consider the 34th Signal Company, which hauled, and then laid, wire day and night for hundreds of miles tying-in the various units to a central directing point; the radiomen who welded into a flexible whole what would otherwise have been a disjointed and aimless group of small forces." I remember Dad, in answer to some of my questions as a child, saying that his job was laying wire, operating the radio, and tearing up the wire they'd laid as they moved on.

I believe it was his job as radioman that gave him the time to write so many letters home. His letters not only give a glimpse at his experiences, but also at life back home in Staunton.

By the way, as I am typing Dad's letters I won't be correcting his spelling. Dad was a good writer and a good speller, but there are mistakes in his letters. Perhaps because he was writing as if he were speaking, his hand just got ahead of his thoughts? To prevent any confusion, though, I have corrected when he would spell someone's name wrong. In the next letter, if not the next paragraph, he would spell the name correctly, so I don't feel this is a problem.