Wow, good stories! Flying jeep :) Hope he came back ok. My dad was
just a bit too young for WW2, so he was in the occupying forces in
Osaka. Although I heard a few stories about crowd problems which could
have escalated, luckily his biggest concerns were probably things like
where to get the best Tempura.
Edward Finnell wrote:
It's a holiday-Veteran's Day! Just going thru some old clippings found this
letter my dad wrote to the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club.
In a message dated 11/11/2016 6:43:40 A.M. Central Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
testing due low traffic since yesterday
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MAJ EDWARD J FINNELL JR
035456
1109th EEGR C GP
A P O 230 % PM, NYC
Dear STANLEY and MEMBERS OF TUSCALOOSA ROTARY CLUB
About three weeks ago I received a letter on which each one of you had
written a note of encouragement, a bit of news about friends, or a prayer for
victory and safe return to Tuscaloosa. This letter was read and appreciated by
me more than I am able to tell you. It brought back memories of the city of
Tuscaloosa and of the people there. I now have in my possession a sheet of
paper which has written on it the signatures of the members of the Tuscaloosa
Rotary Club,--a paper which I shall keep and reread from time to time.
As far as my work over here, about all I can say is that I am in the
Corps of Engineers. We are called on to do all kinds of work and some bit of
fighting as Infantry.
Perhaps you might be interested in a personal experience or two. Bear
in mind that we cannot mention any action of any type until after two weeks
have passed, and then no locations or specific dates.
One afternoon we had pulled into bivouac near a beautiful old French
Chateau. Up to this time we had seen very little of the German Air Force. We
heard the drone of engines overhead. Someone asked what kind of planes over us,
and received the assurance that they were P-47’s or 51’s. No sooner had he been
answered than the first plane turned a quarter and went into a dive to strafe
the area, and the first bomb hit the ground. For about five minutes, which
seemed more like five hours, they crisscrossed the roads close to us and our
area with machine guns and small bombs. Score—nothing to nothing. We missed
them and they didn’t shoot so well either. Since then the score is more in our
favor.
Another rather foolish incident might be related. Several times French
citizens have stopped out vehicles to warn us of the fact that German elements
control roads you are trying to use. One night there was a fair amount of
traffic on a road and the vehicle, a jeep, was stopped by a Frenchman. We were
told that there were some Germans just ahead.(we were travelling to the rear).
While we were stopped an armored vehicle of some kind passed. We decided it
would be better to get them to capture whoever was in front of us since we had
no protection on the jeep. Turning around we caught up with the car and driving
alongside tried to stop them. Much to our surprise it was a German vehicle.
Don’t know who was scared the most be we didn’t stay around to find out. A jeep
won’t fly very high, but it will fly.
Hope I haven’t bored you too much with a lot of words in which you are
not interested. Wish all of you the best of luck in everything.
Sincerely,
Edward J. Finnell Jr.
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