Photographer Tab3264th Signal Service Company (Photographic)Signal Corps Plaque

Photo Detachment #51

XIX Corps

William George Herold, Combat Photographer

Letters Home


These are copies of letters Bill wrote to his friends during the time the photos were taken. - Barbara Herold Marquet (William's sister)


Dear Miss B,

 

Just a short explanation of these pictures:

 

#1  this is a typical scene of hedgerow  fighting GI's. The German's are shooting just as much stuff  back at us as we're shooting at them. It was so hot with flying steel that i didn't even stick my head up over the hedgerow. But what does it look like! It looks like a fire in Schenley Park! But, behind that hedgrow in the middle of the picture there are Germans and they weren't dead ones either!  Behind that house they had a couple of tanks  that were making a fortune for Germany DuPont. To sum it up  - it wasn't  a very healthy place to be. But in a photograph  it looks like a quiet landscape.

 

#2   line up the x' s on 2 & 3  on the edge  of the prints and this is the story. One day I was up in this church steeple trying to get a couple of long shots of Brest, when the Germans started shelling the town, so after making a couple of shots i left and do i mean fast!  I heard a couple more shells coming so  "I hit the ground" and after sliding for about 20 feet on nice soft concrete i ended up behind one of the tombstones. Now, I'm not a superstitious person, but, gosh,  what a place to be hiding when shells are coming in your direction.

 

( see photos 4 and 4 a)

 


August 11, 1944


Dear Miss B,

                                                                                     

I won't be able to mail this for a few days or weeks, but i'm just in the mood and mental condition  to write  to some understanding person. This is why:  I've just come back from an assignment  and when they say assignment here they aren't kidding. I'm sitting on my camera case, right next to a fox-hole. Foxholes are the darnedest things to dig, but, honey, they sure are wonderful things to dive into. It doesn't take much practice to be able to dive into a foxhole from 10 yards away, and start digging before you hit bottom.

 

And to top it all off - i just got paid. Here i sit with a whole pocket full of  "cigar coupons" and i can't spend any of it. Now when Herold can't go out on a payday, that's pretty grim. In fact, that's  insulting!

 

I hope i get an assignment tomorrow. The reason for such  an ambitious attitude is this : the best assignment is to cover the capture of a town. As soon as we get into the town we start trading our  k rations for liquor and wine. The other day i got two quarts of red wine for two packs  of cigarettes. We can get anything for cigarettes,  but there is nothing much that they have that we want. Another reason for getting into town first is as soon as the first wave of infantry  hit the town so do the M.P. as soon as they get into town they start nailing up  "off limits" signs  so the idea is to get into town before the m.p. s and that is a major problem. But,  the m.p.  s  are doing a superb job ovr here. 

 

If i do much more writing i'll have to use a paper towel to write on as I haven't anymore paper. I hope you are clipping those pictures for me. Incidentally. My mother thinks I'm still in England and i intend  to keep her thinking that, so please cooperate with me, please.

 


Dear F,

 

I haven't much time to write, but here is a note of explanation for the enclosed package. Those gloves are hand-made by the peasants around here. These women bring them into town and sell them in the market place. They wear their native costumes which are long black dresses with brilliant colored  vests and with white lace collars and the most fantastic looking hats  I've ever seen, they are about two feet hight and are shaped like a  pyramid. I don't know a darn thing about these things  so I hope  they are alright.  I'll write you more later.



Dear Miss B,

 

I never write to you unless i'm inspired by some ulterior motive, and honey, right now i have one here's the set: it's raining - in fact, Noah just went by here with a hammer and saw. I'm hungry, I'm thirsty. There is a wind blowing. In some circles it's known as a  hurricane. I want to go to bed but where?  My foxhole?  No. I haven't a life preserver. In the Jeep?  Too small. Under the jeep?  No. The mud is too deep. So where do i sleep?  In a french farmer's rabbit shed! I'm sleeping with, not one, but 4 bunnies!


The fellow here with me has been looking at that 11 x 14 print, yes, that one! Incidentally, that print is getting a bit beat up. Send me a couple more. I'll write  more tomorrow. Even this roof is leaking now and it's too dark to see. Mais c'est le guerre.  I'm learning French but I'm having a helluva time developing a line.                                                                                     3


Note: a few days have passed.


I have just come back from an assignment. It was a beautiful assignment with two exceptions. There was plenty of stuff to shoot but only one angle to compose the picture from. That was the position a gopher usually looks from. If i had gotten in any other  position you would have to start looking for another GI. I'm not kidding, honey, if you know anyone in the infantry, be nice to him. Those poor boys take a beating. There  are two groups of men fighting this war: the infantry and the stretcher carriers. You can listen to all the publicity you want about the air corps, the tank drivers, the pole climbers or anyone else, but i consider the infantry boys as the fighting man. My first day with them i learned more than I had since I've been in the army.


This is German paper I'm using for this letter so would you please send me some writing paper. I'll send you some German medals and insignia in trade for the paper. I sure would like to see that friend of yours over here. I've photographed a lot of psychosomatic cases here, but there is a slight difference between them.


Tell Danny that he'd better write to me or else I'm going to write to his draft board. I don't know if anyone has written to me. I've been moving around so much lately that i haven't received any mail  for more than a month. 

Be a good little girl, but you know how good i mean and don't forget, I'm still in England if my mother get's curious.

 

                                                                                     


November 28, 1944


Dear Miss B,


I will briefly explain the local atmosphere and living conditions. It's raining as usual and it is cold. I am sitting in a  cellar somewhere in Germany. The time is about 8 pm. I am holding a pencil in one hand; a cigarette in the other; a flashlight in the other. Now that i think about it - where did i get 3 hands? I am spending the night with the crew of a cannon, this is a very nice place to spend the night. The conversation is as usual. But before i begin to think about such things, I'll change the subject.


I'll try to explain how these guys work. Their job is to fire these big guns. It is a rather safe job, but it sometimes gets hot. It is a 24- hour-a-day job. Right now we are just sitting here. A couple of them are sleeping; the rest are just sitting here doing nothing. They will continue to so until the man on the telephone screams "fire mission!" Then all hell breaks loose, everyone will go running out to the gun, load it and wait for the  “fire directions”. After the gun is adjusted and fired they will come back here and take up the conversation where they dropped it. Most of the time they never know

                                                                                                                  

What they are shooting at as the target is a few miles away. The target may be a bridge, a troop concentration or a counter attack. Some days they may fire all day or other times they may not fire a shot. Everyone is praying that there won't be any fire missions tonight. They have been very busy today and everyone wants some sleep tonight. But just about the time we get to sleep, we'll have to run out and do a little shooting, then rush back and try to get some more sleep. This is the routine they have 24 hours a day. The amount of shooting they do depends on the "forward observer". The "forward observer" is as close to the front line as possible . His job is to destroy as many Germans or German equipment as he can. As soon as he spots something he wants to shoot at  he calls the "fire control center" where they determine the range, altitude, wind and type of shell to use. If the forward observer is a good man he will keep these guys shooting all day and all night. I think i will do like everyone else is doing - get some sleep- more tomorrow.

 


Dear Miss B,


I received some mail today and this is the first mail I've gotten in about two months. I received two sweet letters from you which i read with much glee and merriment. I have been getting some good shots lately. We have been doing more street fighting and that makes better pictures than hedgerow fighting.


Yesterday i was with a tank crew when we found three cases of German beer so we sat inside the tank behind a building while  the infantry went after a sniper who had been getting a little too personal. There were six of us inside  that tank  and we were all smoking cigars and drinking beer so it wasn't very long before there was a rather heavy atmosphere. Did you ever drink beer inside a tank!  You didn't!  My, honey, what you have missed! There was a cozy feeling surrounding the place  that reminded me so much of the elevator at 713 Penn Avenue. Can you imagine 6 GI's inside a tank blowing hot cigar smoke into each others faces. Well, mix that with the noise of a tank motor, add some gun smoke and you get the general idea. We were having a wonderful time while the poor infantry boys were getting shot at by a sniper. But, they got him. You should see my graphic. When i got it , it was a new camera, but since then i have either taken or broken off everything. I would like to sit here and write to you all night but i am so sleepy i can't keep my eyes open much longer. I am back at the rear area tonight which means i can sleep above ground which is an extreme luxury and since I intend to go to work tomorrow I have to get some sleep. I am so sleepy that even you couldn't tempt me tonight. What am I saying! I could.

                                                                                                                  

Never get that sleepy. I'll write you more as soon as I get the time. 


Dear Miss B,

I haven't anything to write but since it is Saturday night I feel it is my duty to write my American public - just to help the morale - my morale!


For the past few days i have been up at the front trying to get some pictures but the weather hasn't been very cooperative. Not only has it been uncooperative but at times it has been very rude. All day today i laid in a muddy  hole near some German fortifications waiting for a dive bombing raid which never came because the weather was so muddy the planes couldn't see the target. So after getting thoroughly  wet, muddy  and hungry i came back here to sleep under a roof. My how my standard of living has sunk! Here i am satisfied to sleep under a roof on a Saturday night. But then there just ain't nothin else to do. But today wasn't a complete failure. I at least managed to get a tommy gun. I've been trying to get one ever since i got here,  so to steal a phrase from a nigger gun crew, "Mister Hitler, count your children!" 

Here is another expression you may have heard, but i heard it for the first time one night when i was lying under a table in a french house, when some guy timely said, “praise the lord, the ammunition passed me!” And he wasn't kidding either. Some of the best spontaneous humor I've heard  has come when things were really hot. I member one day when we were lying in a ditch behind a wooden fence with machine guns making toothpicks  out of the fence  while an ammunition dump  was burning and exploding  on the other side of the ditch, some GI had the nerve to very calmly state, "you know, someone could get hurt around here."

 

<< 3264th Signal Service Company (Photographic)
All material not in the public domain © 2016 Leonard H. Cizewski
and Barbara Herold Marquet

Last Major Update:
Minor Revision:August 3, 2016
Posted: August 2, 2016
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