John VITKOVICS (23 Dec 1926 -17 Jan 2003) Johnは当時18歳
Julius VITKOVICS (23 Apr 1920- Dec 1977)
 | nov.1, 1945 Dear Family Im writing this letter on the boat. We land at Nagasaki (the place where the 2nd atomic bomb exploded) tomorrow morning, I don't think we will stay at Nagasaki long. It's probably a replacement depot, I'm sending this letter airmail so it will reach you sooner. The boat we are on is the U.S.S General S D Sturgis. It weights 17,500 tons & is almost 550 ft long. It has a "ship's |
 | store"
where we can get candy cookies etc. Our drinking water is purefied sea
water. On deck they have a record player and special records for
servicemen overseas. The ship has three 5 inch guns 8 or 10 20mm guns
and 2 sets of 40mm guns like the one they had at the Warner & Swasey show several years ago. We
also have a radar screen on the foremast. I took 2 pictures while on the
boat. One shows the radar screens. In order to get to the boat, we were drivers though Seattle on army trucks. Before we |
 | 2 got on the boat, we were given coffee and doughnuts by the Red cross. It took all morning to get the troops on board. We left 100PM. It took 14 hours to go through the general. However after about 5 hours we lost sight of land. While going though the harbour we saw 3 battleships. We also saw a lot of merchant ships in the harbour and in the distance we could see the shipyards where they were building new ships. I would have taken some pictures but it was |
 | cloudy. By the way, did you get some new films yet? Perhaps It woulden't be a bad I deal to send me some more if you could. After the boat started rocking the first night out.A lot of the men were seasick including me. However I never did throw up, and, after a few days I got used of it. Some of the meals were good, most of them fair and a few were terrible. We eat by compartments they call the name of a compartment over the loudspeaker and the |
 | 3 occupants of that compartment go to the messhall. Each of us has a ticket with the menbers of the compartment we sleep in on it. We have to show it some guards before we are admitted into the messhall. Thus we have to wait before each meal until the name of our compartment is called. However I was lucky. Two of my friends were guards so I could eat when I wanted to and I diden't have to wait in line. By the way, I hope you diden't address me as corporal when you write me after |
 | I said I was made on "acting" corporal . If you did, don't anymore. As I said before, there is a ghest deal of difference between a corporal and a "acting " corporal. Life on this boat has been easy. About all I did was eat sleep and read. After we got on the boat, each of us got a bag from the Red Cross. In it was a serving kit, envelops, pencil, paper, shoestings, soap, a set of checkerds, shoeshine cloth, razor blades etc. |
 | about half an hour ago we first saw land. Now we going past a mountain.
It is rather long and there are clouds at the top. I would have taken a
picture of it but I don't think it would have any good. Perhaps some
time in the future, you can send me a better camera. One that will take
pictures with little or no sunligt. John |
