Back to December 1944

Accommodations were somewhat better in Oahu, Hawaii, on New Years Day 1945, than they had been in Washington DC in 1944…

The first PDF you see here shows the censor’s tape over the names of Japanese islands on which actual battles were planned, and fought.

dated January 1, 1945, handwritten, 3 pages

V-Mail was a fast method of getting mail to its destination.  The letter was a single page.  It was designed to be folded, and form the envelope for the letter after folding.  The source and destination (“from” and “to”) addresses were located in the correct place for a letter, after it was folded.  At the source post-office it was opened by post-office workers, and the contents of both sides photographed on 16mm microfilm.  The original was discarded, and the film was then sent to the destination post office.

That routing meant that microfilms had to wait for completion and travel, until a whole roll’s worth of mail for the same destination post office was to be sent.  There was probably a time-out for reels of film, so that if not enough letters had to be sent, to fill the reel, within a maximum of time, it could be cut off and sent anyway.

When the film reached the destination the letters were printed on paper and waited to be sorted and delivered.

If these reels had been kept, after the mail was received, a record of every letter sent during the war would be available, but probably due to privacy it is doubtful that they were.  Likely only the paper copies had a chance of surviving, if they were kept.

January 2, 1945, 2 pages, originally “V-mail”

This next contains a very thorough description of what Oahu, Hawaii was like at the beginning of 1945, and a couple of good stories.

January 4, 1945, 5 pages

“We also have Superman’s papa Jerry Siegel here at 957..be sure and tell Henry Kaye about that one.  Have not met Siegel yet, but hope to soon.”

January 9, 1945, 4 pages

Originally “V-mail”  This one is actually to Great Grandpa Knowlton, not to Grandma Knowlton

January 10, 1945, 2 pages

“Yesterday my left boot and peanut brittle arrived from Jeannette Dow – hope the right one comes along soon. Peanut brittle was awful good, tho a bit sticky in this climate, where RH stays around 70-80%.”

January 14 1945, 3 pages, handwritten

January 18 1945, 4 pages

January 24, 1945, 5 pages

January 25, 1945, 2 pages

“Did I tell you.. my other boot came in from Jeanette Dow.. also two rolls of film, name tapes…  and of all things, a fruit cake… we have had tons of fruit cake around here over Christmas, as the post office would not let any packages containing food go forward from here, and delivered all of them to our office… the chaplains all eat them, and get fat as pigs… you should see our fat chaplains.”

January 30, 1945, 5 pages

Forward to February 1945