17 Dec. 1944

My Darling,

Seem I must start another letter off by apologizing as I neglected to write to you yesterday, I had intended to write your letter last night as I have been lately but I got entangled in several games of Rummy with Capt. Wally and Al Whitehouse. We were playing with vengeance, cutting each others throats right and left. They are both pretty cagey card players but we ended up even so I was satisfied. We didn’t break it up until the wee hours of the morning though. However to penalize myself for not writing to you I gave up a jaunt in the boat I had intended to take this afternoon and stayed in to write. Now my conscience is some what appeased.

This has been a lazy Sunday so far. I did get up for breakfast at 7:30 A.M. but that was really because I was so cold. After eating and getting warmed up a bit I went right back to the old charpoy and dozed until lunch time. When I had finished lunch I came back to my office and wrote a letter to Mom. Then hoping that the water might have warmed up a little I went over and shaved and took a shower. However I was sadly mistaken as the water was ice cold. Boy did I shiver and shake. When I had rubbed down briskly with a good rough towel I felt good though. At present after dressing in all freshly laundered clothes from the skin out and slicking my hair down I am busily engaged in writing to a very lovely girl, my wife. Remind me to introduce you to her some time.

Hell that paragraph brings about another request. Evidentially the last time I used that Wild-root Cream Oil Hair Tonic you sent to me I must have left it in the wash room. Anything you leave laying around here is gone 2 minutes after you leave it so now I am without any kind of hair oil. This time I barrowed some stuff but damn it all Hon it makes me smell like a blasted rose and am all greased up like a gigolo. I don’t like it but it is all that I would appreciate some more of my favorite brand in the next package you send. Okay?

Have got some news that might prove interesting to you. According to an official notice we received and the Command Post we are now allowed to reveal our location here in India. We are situated about 2 miles from the town of Khulna on the bank of a river which they say is the mouth of the Ganges, a holy river. It doesn’t look like it on a map but that is what the Indians claim. The town has a population registered at approximately 45,000. How many more live and sleep in the streets and the fields I couldn’t tell you. Figured by American standards and going by population Khulna would seem overpopulated. There is really nothing here in the way of accommodations or faculties for the white man. Outside of a scattering of small British detachments there are only 2 white civilians in the place and they are only here because of the war. I have never been in the town except on business. Of course the town has numerous brothels which attract a great number of the men but that is all.

The place where I went hunting recently is a section of the jungles called the Sunderbans. Game of all types are to be found there as it is almost uninhabited by humans. Anyone who gets lost there is as good as dead ad far as the outside world is concerned.

As you surmised we were formerly stationed on the outskirts of Calcutta at a place called Lansdowne. Even though Calcutta is the second largest city in the British Empire and has numerous restaurants, theaters, bars, stores etc. I hate the place. I never visit there unless I am sent in on business. When we were at Lansdowne I was in the city the greater part of everyday. It is indescribably filthy and even the very air is foul and sickening to breathe. I have never run across so many obnoxious odors in my life. It would put a sewage disposal area to shame and that us no exaggeration. As you walk along the streets you are continually beset on all sides by all sorts of beggars, most of them ugly and revolting to gaze upon due to their deformalities. To encounter a leper, covered and eaten away by its festering sores and wounds, is not uncommon.

Also the place is strictly G.I. A saluting area, rigidly enforced by some of the rottenest M.P.’s it has even been my misfortune to encounter. A few of them have been killed in what they call the lawful pursuit of their duties and no one mourned their loss. Perhaps one of these days they will catch wise. Hell sweetheart I shall have more to tell you about Calcutta and Khulna in future letters.

Don’t forget Hon that I worship you and always shall. This letter hasn’t been as affectionate as most Sunday letters but that doesn’t indicate any lessening in my feelings for you.

With all my love

Warren