Preparing for D day

Since I was on a destroyer escort our letters were not highly censored.

May 28, 1944, Sunday.

Dear Ronnie,

It is a beautiful warm calm day here in the Belfast Harbour, but it seems that this is liable to be what they call the calm before the storm. The harbor is full of warships and they say that every port in Scotland and England is the same way. We have anchored close to us three battleships-the Texas, Arkansas, and the Nevada, four cruisers-the Quincy, the Marblehead, the Tuscaloosa, and the Wichita. In addition there are 21 destroyers and two destroyer escorts besides us. Besides that the limey's have four ships and the French a couple of ships. If every Great Britain port is as crowded with ships as this place is, it all adds up to one hell of a lot of ships and guns men.

May 29, 1944, Monday.

I stopped writing to go to a show. There were two pretty good pictures of which I enjoyed the first, "Good Morning Judge," best. It was a comedy with a theme of business woman falls in love and stops being a business woman. The second picture was a murder thriller and had a few good points, such as plenty of pretty girls.

A liberty party went ashore today with the choice of either Belfast or Bangor to be landed at. We are in Bangor Harbor, but both towns face the banks of this harbor. One fellow was going to see if he can send a telegram for me and a couple more said they would try to find a souvenir of some kind for me. Maybe I will get something out of the deal. Time will tell. The boys have to ride ashore in a liberty boat and liberty expires at 10 PM.

An electrician standing watch with me last night is one of the boys I went to boot camp with. He was telling me about the time he spent in Great Lakes and Portsmouth Naval prisons since I saw him last. He went over the hill for 11 days and spent 11 months behind bars because of it. The reason he went over the hill was because he got lonesome for his girlfriend. Kenny Kalbfresh wrote me that he got himself in a little jam out on the West Coast. He got so drunk assure that he overstayed his liberty and his to ship. He did some brig time, he says, and is now aboard a different ship.

I just finished washing all my clothes. It was a good hour's work getting all the dirt out. I'm glad to say the the clothes are now drying on our engine room wash line. Have to wash about once a week because if I leave them go any longer than that I don't have any clean clothes to wear.

We will be here probably another two or three days from the looks of things. We've been getting instructions in first aid and have been warned to get our life belts in shape to use. Our steaming watches are changed so that as soon as we get underway, we will be standing four on and four off. That's the condition between war cruising and general quarters, and by standing watches like that all guns will be manned if it would be necessary to call us to general quarters at the first show of trouble. I still stand my watch in the aft engine room, but no longer have charge of the watch. I'm only a second class and they are now two first class now in charge.

Love,
Clyde