Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: 1pLUs44 on August 26, 2010, 08:57:17 PM
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We were looking through some of my grandfathers old stuff, and found a couple hundred letters he sent during the war. There's a couple of really cool ones of him before and after battles (such as Anzio and Sicily.) We also found out that he was pretty well acquainted with Bill Mauldin, and in a letter he wrote to my grandma, he said something about sending some sketch books Mauldin gave him back home, which IMHO is really cool if we can find them.
We also found a newspaper article titled "Italians and Germans Poor Shots, 'Bud' Snell Writes." I'd scan it but it's already photo copied, so I don't know how good the quality would be, so here it is word for word:
German and Italian soldiers are poor shots, and the Italian soldiers don't give much trouble, usually surrendering after firing a few shots, writes Pfc. Rollie (Bud) Snell from Sicily, where he is with the invading 45th Division.
"The island (Sicily) is beautiful in places but the towns are ugly and the people and animals stay and sleep in the same house," Pvt. Snell reports in a letter to a friend here, "The night we hit the island looked like a Fourth of July celebration, with flares and tracer bullets and shells flying in the air. In my boat, we had on big scare when a shell landed close [to us?] (article ripped, can't tell). We all thought that we were goners.
"We didn't meet any enemy on the shore except one Italian soldier and he surrendered without firing a shot. The Italians and Germans are rotten shots; they could shot at you all day and not hit you."
Pvt. Snell has been in several tight places but "by the grace of God" came through with only minor damage.
He writes: "At one time I thought that I was a goner. I didn't have much of a fox hole dug as the ground was so hard. The enemy dropped three mortar shells around my hole, one burning my pants and shattering my rifle. The good Lord sure was with me."
"I was awfully seasick when on the assault boat, which we rode around and around in for three hours while the Navy and planes shot over our heads. We got off in water to our chests and boy, did solid earth feel good to me, but I was too weak and sick to enjoy it.
"One day a bunch of us lived on tomatoes and green watermelons we found after being separated from our unit. We have managed to get fresh vegetables from civilians. At first the prices were pretty high, but they finally came down. We met a few of them who formerly lived in America and made there money and came back. They all seem glad to see the American forces, but they surely are beggars for cigarettes, candy, and gum. Those are some American words they mastered quickly."
Pvt. Snell who is the soon of Mr. and Mrs. James R. Snell, 808 Idaho, closed his letter with the thought, "Wish me luck and please write a poor, lonesome, scared, homesick boy."
We found a whole bunch of other cool stuff, and I'll see if I can scan some of the letters he has about Bill Mauldin, and him in combat.
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That is freaking AWESOME :salute
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Cool. :aok
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We were looking through some of my grandfathers old stuff, and found a couple hundred letters he sent during the war. There's a couple of really cool ones of him before and after battles (such as Anzio and Sicily.) We also found out that he was pretty well acquainted with Bill Mauldin, and in a letter he wrote to my grandma, he said something about sending some sketch books Mauldin gave him back home, which IMHO is really cool if we can find them.
We also found a newspaper article titled "Italians and Germans Poor Shots, 'Bud' Snell Writes." I'd scan it but it's already photo copied, so I don't know how good the quality would be, so here it is word for word:
German and Italian soldiers are poor shots, and the Italian soldiers don't give much trouble, usually surrendering after firing a few shots, writes Pfc. Rollie (Bud) Snell from Sicily, where he is with the invading 45th Division.
"The island (Sicily) is beautiful in places but the towns are ugly and the people and animals stay and sleep in the same house," Pvt. Snell reports in a letter to a friend here, "The night we hit the island looked like a Fourth of July celebration, with flares and tracer bullets and shells flying in the air. In my boat, we had on big scare when a shell landed close [to us?] (article ripped, can't tell). We all thought that we were goners.
"We didn't meet any enemy on the shore except one Italian soldier and he surrendered without firing a shot. The Italians and Germans are rotten shots; they could shot at you all day and not hit you."
Pvt. Snell has been in several tight places but "by the grace of God" came through with only minor damage.
He writes: "At one time I thought that I was a goner. I didn't have much of a fox hole dug as the ground was so hard. The enemy dropped three mortar shells around my hole, one burning my pants and shattering my rifle. The good Lord sure was with me."
"I was awfully seasick when on the assault boat, which we rode around and around in for three hours while the Navy and planes shot over our heads. We got off in water to our chests and boy, did solid earth feel good to me, but I was too weak and sick to enjoy it.
"One day a bunch of us lived on tomatoes and green watermelons we found after being separated from our unit. We have managed to get fresh vegetables from civilians. At first the prices were pretty high, but they finally came down. We met a few of them who formerly lived in America and made there money and came back. They all seem glad to see the American forces, but they surely are beggars for cigarettes, candy, and gum. Those are some American words they mastered quickly."
Pvt. Snell who is the soon of Mr. and Mrs. James R. Snell, 808 Idaho, closed his letter with the thought, "Wish me luck and please write a poor, lonesome, scared, homesick boy."
We found a whole bunch of other cool stuff, and I'll see if I can scan some of the letters he has about Bill Mauldin, and him in combat.
very very cool stuff man.
are these actual letters? or something called "V Mail"??
I have all my fathers letters from the south pacific..and they are actual in V mail format..like micro condensed cards.
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We have a lot of actual V-Mail, and then we have some actual letters as well from the war. (I guess he kept them on him?) But we're learning a lot more about my grandfather's unit as we read through these.
I'll find some interesting letters he sent home and scan them on here or write 'em for y'all.
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:aok
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interesting :aok
The island (Sicily) is beautiful in places but the towns are ugly ...
huh? :headscratch:
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Tried uploading some of the pages of the Bill Mauldin sketchbook (that I finally found) and after I scanned them, I cant seem to upload them to photobucket or imageshack, is there any particular reason why?
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might be the file format type...
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I don't know at all, but I really hope you get it sorted out. I'd love to see them.
Also, if there are lots of good sketches, be very careful with them, they may be worth quite a bit more than you think.
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Tried uploading some of the pages of the Bill Mauldin sketchbook (that I finally found) and after I scanned them, I cant seem to upload them to photobucket or imageshack, is there any particular reason why?
Did you scan them to an image? If so, like Dichotomy said, what is the format type? Do you get an error message when you try to upload them?
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interesting :aok
huh? :headscratch:
You have to remember that they were talking about enemy territory at a time when censorship and propaganda ruled the media.
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:salute :cheers:
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Thats awesome Plus!
You should be proud! :salute
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Did you scan them to an image? If so, like Dichotomy said, what is the format type? Do you get an error message when you try to upload them?
I uploaded them as an image as .jpg. Would I have to rescan them? Or could I upload them on to like gimp and fool around with 'em there till I can upload them?
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I uploaded them as an image as .jpg. Would I have to rescan them? Or could I upload them on to like gimp and fool around with 'em there till I can upload them?
No, photobucket allows .jpg
hmmm, if you like I could take a look at them for you. see if you can send them as attachments in a pm.
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Great stuff there, please keep it coming.
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To ease the burden on your fingers from copying those letters to your computer, you might want to consider getting some letter recognition software, if your scanner can use it :aok. But anyway, great stuff to read, and let's see if those pictures can get up
:salute
-Penguin
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To ease the burden on your fingers from copying those letters to your computer, you might want to consider getting some letter recognition software, if your scanner can use it :aok. But anyway, great stuff to read, and let's see if those pictures can get up
:salute
-Penguin
The letters will take a little bit longer than expected, as there's a 3 ring binder that's about 5 inches thick full of letters my grandfather wrote from the war, I'm trying to re-scan the book on the computer to see if it was just my terrible skills at using electronics(which it probably is)
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The letters will take a little bit longer than expected, as there's a 3 ring binder that's about 5 inches thick full of letters my grandfather wrote from the war, I'm trying to re-scan the book on the computer to see if it was just my terrible skills at using electronics(which it probably is)
As they taught your grandfather: adapt, innovate, overcome!* :salute
-Penguin
*Or just call tech support
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Haha, I've been trying, I just don't know why they won't upload. I think I'm gonna give it one more try to mediafire, and then I'll just take a pic with my phone or something and try that.
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I was checking my e-mail and saw that you found the 45th group on Yahoo. Those guys will fill you in quite well. A number of them spend time at the National Archives with the daily reports etc for the 45th Division. Expect lots of mail from them :)
As a Mauldin fan, I hope you can get the scans of the sketchbook to work.