August 6, 1944

Pvt. August Haferkamp 36684775
Hq. Co. 3rd Bn. 135th Inf.
APO 34 c/o PM. New York, N.Y.

Italy

Sunday, Aug. 6, 1944

Dear Mother:-

I'll write you a few lines to let you know that Freddie was here today to see me.  He and another fellow came in about 11 a.m. and left about 3 P.M. I had just came back from Division rear to find out for sure where the 8 Rep't. Depot was and he walked up. I sure was glad to see him. We had dinner together but it wasn't nothing extra today. I was (sic) they had came last Monday when we had the turkey. He is located about 40 mile south of here and he came up on a truck. They left early as the other fellow wanted to stop and see some one along the road. I went to see my Captain for a pass and he told me to come back tomorrow and he would send me to another Captain for the pass. This Captain was busy today or else I could have gotten it today. At least I hope he gives me one for several days. Freddie said now since he knows just where I'm at he may come up quite often.

He is looking and feeling fine. I don't think he has lost much weight since I've seen him last.

He thought we had a swell place here and I guess we have. He said the area they are in isn't so nice and the food isn't so good. They took there cots away from them and now they sleep on the ground. Well I've been doing that since last April.

We had our parade today and I'm sending you one of the letters I got. I received 3 of these. I didn't get the medal as yet only the ribbon. This ribbon is red and blue trimmed in white. Here is about the size [he drew a precise sketch that was 1 1/4" wide and 1/4" high with lines that distinguished first a narrow vertical stripe, the white trim he mentioned, then a 1/2" stripe of red, a narrow white stripe, a 1/16" stripe of blue, a narrow stripe of white, a 1/2" stripe of red, and a final narrow white stripe].  It is to be pin on our pockets. Maybe in a few days there will be some thing in the Stars & Stripes paper about it and if there is I'll try to send it to you. The 34th Division band played and there were a lot of pictures taken.

Well that's about all for the present so I'll close and will write you more in a few days. Keep the paper I'm sending and I'll send the other 2 to Dora. This draw where this took place was nicknamed "Dead Man's Gulch." Lot of lives were lost there.

So long.
Gus

This picture, a copy of which always hung in Dad's family home, was taken, I was told, when Uncle Freddie met up with Dad the first time.


This letter was postmarked Aug. 8, 1944.  My aunt wrote "received Aug. 16 -44" on the front of the envelope and "Aug. 6," which she also circled.

The medal he received, as he has written about in some previous letters, was the Bronze Star. The letter he mentions was not in the envelope with the letter he wrote his mother. In fact, non of the items that Dad said he had included with his letters were in the envelope with the letter. It is my opinion that items such as pictures and news clippings Dad has mentioned he has enclosed in this and past letters, were taken out of the envelopes when the letters received so that they could be shared with family and friends and were never put back into the envelopes.

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.