Morning Glory (43 page)

23 June, 1942

Somewhere on the Pacific Ocean

Dear Elly,

Well I’m on a ship green eyes but that’s about all I’m allowed to tell you not the name of it or our destination, which none of us have been told yet. We all got ideas though, judging from the direction we’re traveling. We rode the train to San Francisco and embarked here 21 June and life aboard a troop transport ain’t so bad. The navy is playing host so we got the soft life for a while and can cork off. Chow is good, all fresh meat and vegtubles and spuds and the navy does KP. About all we do is attend classes on Japanese intelligence and do calesthenics on the deck every day but tomorrow they say we’re gonna have a field day which means we got to clean our bunk area top to bottom. Mine’s in the forward hold, starboard, which is good. Not much engine noise and pretty smooth sailing. Red’s got the sack just below mine they’re like canvas cots. We play a lot of poker and a lot of the guys read comic books and trade them. Some of them read paper books and everybody talks about his sweetheart back home I don’t talk about you tho except to Red cause he’s my buddy and he dont go blabbin everything a man says. I didnt tell him the personal stuff about in Augusta but I told him about the time you threw the egg at me and he laughed hisself sick. He wants to meet you when this damn war is over. Well here’s my address till I let you know different—Pfc. William Lee Parker, 1st Raider Bn., 1st Marines, So. Pacific. I’ll probly write every day till we get to wherever they’re sending us cuz there’s plenty of time on this ship. I told you before how we call our rifles our sweethearts but when I write it now it means you. I love you sweetheart.

Your Will

June 28, 1942

Dearest Will,

This waiting is awful because I don’t know where you are and there’s no way to tell when I’ll find out...

22 July, 1942

Somewhere in the South Pacific

Dear Elly,

We’re anchored offshore again and where we are is the last Navy post office and we’re on definite orders. Tomorrow we sail for the last time and this is it. So tonight is our last night for writing letters and when we give em to our unit postal clerk for mailing we don’t know when we’ll get a chance to write again. We been told now where we’re goin’ and why but I can’t tell you sweetheart. All I can tell you is I’ll be riding on a sub tomorrow. I just want you to know that everybody’s calm here. It’s funny, it don’t seem like we’re going into battle except everybodys talking quieter tonight and polishing their rifles even though they’re already shining like the north star. I can tell you this much and hope they don’t cross it off. Where we are there ain’t no north star. Instead we see the southern cross which we have all learned to find in the night sky. I’m laying in my sack thinking of you and the kids and smoking a Lucky Strike and trying to think of all the things that are in my heart that ought to be said in this letter. But all I do is get a lump in my throat and think to myself god damn it Parker your goin back home, you hear? Elly what you did for me in the last year is more than anybody did for me in my whole life. I love you so much Elly that it hurts inside way deep down in my gut when I even think about it. You gave me a home and a family and love and a place to come back to and when I say thank you it sounds so damn small and not nearly as powerful as what I feel in my heart. I looked in Miss Beasley’s book of poems to try to find one that says what I’m feeling but there ain’t even words in there that’ll do it. You just gotta know green eyes that youre the best thing that ever came along in my whole life and no ocean and no war is ever gonna change that. Now I got to go cause I’m getting to feel a little blue and lonesome but dont
you worry about me cuz like I said before I’m with the best outfit there is. Just remember how much I love you and that I’m coming home when this thing is over.

All my love,

Will

August 1, 1942

Dear Will,

I got what I think is your last letter you wrote from on the ship and I got to feeling so blue I had to take a walk with the kids in the orchard to keep from breaking down. It’s so awful not knowing where you are or if you’re safe...

August 4, 1942

Dear Will,

It’s a big day today cause Lizzy P is 8 months old and I’m weaning her. My breasts are so full of milk they feel like they’re ready to bust...

August 10, 1942

Dear Will,

Miss Beasley brought the newspapers and the headlines are big today. I always get scared when I see the letters two inches high... this time about a big battle in the Solomons and all the damage to our ships and I’m so scared you were on one of them...

August 11, 1942

Dear Will,

... They just don’t tell us much here except to say the offensive continues with “considerable enemy resistance encountered.” It is only Monday but Miss Beasley came out again cause she believes like I do that youre someplace out there in the middle of that awful mess in the Solomons where the Japs are claiming they sank 22 ships and damaged 6 more...

August 18, 1942

Dear Will,

... you can’t imagine how hard it is to read the war news in the papers and still not know anything...

20 Aug 1942

Somewhere in the Pacific

Dearest Elly,

I’m alive and unhurt but I been in battle now so I know how it feels to kill another human being. You just have to keep telling yourself that he’s the enemy and thinking about when you get home how good things will be. I’m sitting here in a foxhole thinking about the back porch steps and that day I washed the boys at the well and we dried them off together. I’d give anything for a bath. Where I am it never stops raining. There’s palm trees and a lot of yellowish grass stretching from the beach to the jungle. I can’t say I like the jungle much but it does have things to eat. We were cut off from supplies for quite awhile and I want to tell you it was a sickening feeling when we looked out at the water and saw our ships gone. I drank so much coconut milk its coming out of my ears, which by the way got some kind of fungus growing in them. Between that and mosquito bites and rain it’s a pretty hellish place here but I don’t want you to worry because today our fighter planes got in. I wish you could’ve heard us cheer when they swung over and landed. It was the most beautifull sight Ive ever seen. Not only did they bring fresh supplies but they said the mail can go out. We never know if it’ll reach you though, but if this does kiss those babies for me and tell Miss Beasley I had to leave my book of poems behind but I tore out the page with my favorite one and I carry it in my field pack. Reading it and your letters is about the only thing that keeps me going...

September 4, 1942

Dear Will,

... well, Donald Wade went off on the schoolbus for the first time today...

Oct. 3, 1942

Dearest Will,

... The boys taught Lizzy P. to say daddy today...

Oct. 4, 1942

Dearest Will,

Your letter finally reached me, the first one from the battle zone. Oh Will I’m so worried about your ears I wish I could drop some warmed sweet oil in them for you and wash your hair and comb it the way you used to like for me to do. Miss Beasley and I think we figured out for sure where you are and we think it’s Guadalcanal and it scares me to death to think of you there cause I know the fighting has been terrible there and its Japanese territory...

WESTERN UNION


REGRET TO INFORM YOU YOUR HUSBAND WAS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED IN ACTION 25 OCT IN SOLOMON ISLANDS. UNTIL NEW ADDRESS IS RECEIVED MAIL FOR HIM QUOTE CORPORAL WILLIAM L. PARKER 37 773 785 HOSPITALIZED CENTRAL POSTAL DIRECTORY APO0640 CARE POSTMASTER NEW YORK NY UNQUOTE NEW ADDRESS AND FURTHER INFORMATION FOLLOW DIRECT FROM HOSPITAL J A ULIO THE ADJT GENERAL 7:10 A.M.


Nov. 1, 1942

Dear Will,

I’m so worried. Oh Will I got a telegram and they said you were seriously wounded but nothing else—not where you are or how you are or anything...

Nov. 2, 1942

Dear Will,

I didn’t sleep a wink last night just laid awake crying and wondering if you’re still alive or if you have lost an arm or a leg or your beautiful brown eyes...

Nov. 3, 1942

Dear Will,

... Sometimes I get so upset because all anybody will tell you is Somewhere In The South Pacific but Miss Beasley pointed out an article about Mrs. Roosevelt visiting the troops overseas and even it started “Somewhere In England,” so I guess if it’s good enough for the president’s wife it’ll have to be good enough for me but I’m worried sick about you...

November 4, 1942

Dear Will,

It just struck me that the telegram said corporal so you got promoted! I shucked off my drears and turned my thoughts positive cause thats the only thing to do. You’re alive I know it I won’t give up hope and I’ll write every single day whether I hear from you or not...

4193 US Navy Hosp. Plant

APO 515

New York, NY

Dear
Mrs. Parker,

I am pleased to inform you that on
1 Nov 1943
your
husband, Corp. William L. Parker, 37 773 785, was making normal improvement.
Diagnosis
wound left thigh.

Thomas M. Simpson

1st Lieut. M.A.O. Registrar

4193 US Navy Hosp. Plant

APO 515

New York, NY

Dear
Mrs. Parker,

I am pleased to inform you that on
6 Nov 1942
your
husband, Corp. William L. Parker, 37 773 785, was evacuated to zone of noncombat and underwent surgery on wound, left thigh. Is making normal improvement.

Virgil A. Saylor, 1st Lt.,

MAC Registrar

U.S. War Department

Official Business

20 Nov 1942

Dear Mrs. Parker,

As commanding officer of your husband, Corporal William L. Parker who was injured in action 1 Nov 1942 on the Island of Guadalcanal, I felt it imperative to reassure you that his condition is no longer life threatening and that eventual recovery can be fully expected. On 6 November he was transferred by air to the Navy hospital at Melbourne, Australia, where he underwent successful surgery and awaits transfer to the United States.

Corporal Parker is a credit to his company and to the United States Marines. He fought well and without complaint. On 14 Sept 1942, while engaging the enemy in action on Guadalcanal, Corporal Parker displayed conspicuous gallantry in attempting to rescue Private Otis D. Luttrell by dragging him to a foxhole under heavy enemy fire. On 25 October Corporal Parker again proved himself a leader by singlehandedly knocking out a Japanese dugout emplacement which was holding up our advance. The enemy hole-up was situated in a cave made inaccessible by severe enemy fire from inside. Corporal Parker voluntarily crawled to the cave from its blind side, attempted to knock a hole in the roof and when unable to do so, attempted to kick the rocks away at the foot of the cave. Four times he threw hand grenades inside only to have them promptly returned by the Japanese. Next Corporal Parker tried holding the grenades for three seconds before delivering them. When these were also returned, Parker reportedly “got mad” and made a dynamite bomb which he thrust into the breach killing eight Japanese soldiers but receiving injuries to himself from an enemy fragmentation grenade which simultaneously detonated at the mouth of the cave.

Because of Corporal Parker’s determination and bravery the 1st Raider Bn. won a decisive victory over the Japanese at the mouth of the Ilu River, rendering them a loss of 12 tanks and some 600 troops in the 1st Marine sector.

It is with pride and pleasure that for heroism above and beyond
the call of duty I am recommending to the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces that Corporal William L. Parker, USMC 1st Raider Battalion, be awarded the medal of valor of the Order of the Purple Heart.

Yours truly,

Col. Merritt A. Edson

Commander, 1st Marine Raiders

USMC

Balboa Naval Hospital

San Diego, California

Dear
Mrs. Parker,

I am pleased to inform you that on
6 Dec 1942
your
husband, Corp. William L. Parker, 37 773 785, was transferred to Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego U.S.A. for further medical treatment.

Balboa Naval Hospital

San Diego

7
Dec. 1942

Dear Elly,

I’m home again and you don’t need to worry any more. A Red Cross nurse is writing this for me because the doc won’t let me sit up yet. I finally got all your letters. They caught up with me in a hospital in Melbourne. Elly honey it was so good to read all those words from you, all about Donald Wade going to school and Lizzy P. saying her first words and how they taught her to say Daddy. I wish I was there with you all now but it looks like that’ll be a while yet. My leg isn’t so good but at least I’ve still got it and it might be stiff but I’ll be able to walk, they say. The docs here say I’m still carrying a piece of metal in my left leg and I may have to have surgery again. But what the heck, at least I’m alive.

I’m sorry they didn’t tell you more right after I got hit so you wouldn’t have worried so much. I would have done so myself but I guess I wasn’t in much shape for writing. But don’t you worry now. I’m okay and I mean it.

By now you know I got hit by a Jap grenade while I was
trying to flush eight of them out of a holeup near the airfield on the Canal which it’s okay now to tell you where I was, on Guadalcanal. The Canal was rough and we lost a lot there but we set them back and the airstrip is ours now. If we hadn’t the Pacific would still be theirs and I’m damn proud of what we did. I might as well tell you now my buddy Red didn’t make it and thats all I can say about it at the moment because its hard for me to think about it. So as I was saying it doesn’t seem much to put up with a few chunks of steel in your leg. But I have to confess I never was so glad to see anything as I was to see Old Glory waving over the Navy Hospital on good old American soil when I debarked here. Damn, Elly, I wish I could see you but this leg will have to mend first so I’ll be here a while but I’ll sure be looking for your letters. It seems like since I joined the Marines I’ve lived for mail call. Now that I’m in one place your letters will get to me so write often, okay green eyes? Please don’t worry about me. Now that I’m back things’ll be just fine. Kiss the kids for me and tell Miss Beasley to write, too.

All my love,

Will