5 February 1945

Somewhere in Italy

Mrs. Hubbard:

If you find any words messed up, it’s where I left off to ascertain where one of Jerry’s shells was going to fall. It has become an art. We used to watch Italians to be sure when to jump for the nearest hole, but so many more civilians were hit than soldiers that we figured we’d better use our own system. You would see an Italian going along a road, here a shell coming and the “Ity” wouldn’t jump and blam! There’d be a hole where the “Ity” was.

To say I’m lucky wouldn’t do credit to the prayers that are so evidently behind me. I’ve seen times when only prayer could save a man. One surely learns to believe in something other than his ability—confidences are shaken in lots of things but strengthened in God.

The headlines of the home papers are very funny here, especially race papers—and the white papers. Men who have seen war at its worse, and have seen men break and cry like small children, who have seen men die, who walk thru day and night with Death at their fingers and on their trigger are very apt to find things like the write-ups speak of childish, false or absurd. For instance, the headlines say we took a hill; that “hill” was probably a mountain! “Light casualties” probably took the life of your best friend. You can imagine a fella’s feeling. But you can’t expect people who have never seen these things to understand why men look with disgust on some things that are perfectly sensible to them. The “boys” of whom people speak are men, Mr. Hubbard, young in age, yes; but old in time. Old in the job of death they are in. They laugh, they talk in soft, subdued tones, they curse frequently and earnestly, they walk close to buildings, they move ever so slightly toward a hill at the first sound of any kind of explosion. We, the men who lead them, who take some mother’s only son into a Jerry machine gun nest, just lead and pray. It’s hard to see some youngster hurt and fighting his pain.

Negroes are doing their bit here, their supreme bit—not for glory, not for honor, but for I think the generation that will come. If the blood that flows here on Italy’s mountains will wash from some folks’ mind the stigma that has been bred there for years, then, I think that the men who have gone so bravely here will not have given their lives in vain. I think I shall see it thru, but I’m proud to be one of these few of men who are fighters. The American papers call us “Tan Yanks” and other fancy names, but we find right here they best of all—the Italians call us “Americans”—just plain “Americans.” That’s all we want to be—and one day, I hope we will, be just plain Americans.

Maybe I’ve strayed off, but just one of my moments.

Yours,

Joe Willie

17 February 1945

Somewhere in Italy

My dearest wife,

In so many days, I haven’t written you a letter. I realize your anxiety, to the utmost, but I’ve been busy—so very busy here in this place. I know you’re bound to worry, but please don’t attempt to imagine what is happening to me or what is going on here. It’s just torturous! (whew!) Boy, this war is strictly no good on my academic progress or upkeep even for that matter. Funny, this stuff, in a city—one sees not the materialism of progress but the ways and means of prosecuting a war in it. In a quiet hamlet one sees thick walls that would stop shrapnel, ground that would do for gun positions, a shaded, concealed way of approach, and getting supplies—instead of the well-kept home of some family, or ground that does for pretty gardens lush with flowers, vegetables, and tiny trees basking in the quiet summer’s sun, its tiny branches weighted by the winter’s snow. The twisting vias become shaded streets along which hurrying matrons scurry or young kids play.

Sorta funny, too, the attachment one develops here for the above-mentioned things. The sight of kids aged by the throes of war, as they not play, but go about their ways hunting food of whatever else they can find to enhance, no, not enhance, but provide a family larder; these sights sorta get a guy, dear, to see some little guy taking all the world has to throw and still on his feet, smiling. As for courage in Italy, honey, I saw the kids rank first and we as soldiers respect them for it. But the desire for home, for gardens, for flowers blooming where shells have never fallen, is still the strangest here—even more than self-preservation.

Tough on the little fellow from your class but others have come, and others will come. All those youngsters are Infantry bound. I hope they take their training seriously. If I, or any of the men here had to train them, their training would be one period of unadulterated hell. I say that frankly, dear. The Infantry soldier here has to be tough, alert, resourceful and meet any sort of irregular situation. One’s weapons are the only things by which any hope can be substantiated. A thorough and complete knowledge of all weapons—ours and Jerry’s is vitally necessary. No training at home fits men or officers for the job they have to do here. At home one is apt to not bear down but I’m inclined to think the training will improve as more combat veterans go home to train troops.

For now nite, dearest. I gotta go—got a job to do—and a war to win.

Forever yours,

Your husband,

Joe Willie

[April 1945]

You should see Italy now—a country that two great military powers have reduced to a mass of debris and rubble—both human and material, and yet war’s juggernaut rages on. One day maybe this will again be a great nation—a nation of singers and statesmen, but now a nation of distrust, hate and the tragic tragedy of war.

Time and time alone will unveil the damage that has been done here. Time will immortalize the men who now lie beneath the scarred hills, time will perhaps marvel at the quietness of some trail where once the dreaded song of guns raged; small children will play on piles of rock where once a nation hung in the balance. History will tell of Cassino, Hill 609 and other places. But all this cannot remove the stink war has carved on the tiny faces of orphans or the wizened visages of the old man who pulls a cart which once a horse pulled, piled high with his effects. Time may heal the scars now where cities stood, but nothing will heal the minds of people who have been subjected to war in its totalness.

You’d be surprised to know how many Italians are now in America. I’ve talked with people who have sons, daughters and all in America. They tell you this proudly. Some nearer the larger cities are veritable beggars but the total districts are proud, actually give you things—grapes, fruits, wine. You are shamed into giving them something in exchange. It is hard to think that these are the people who paraded through Ethiopia, who cheered at Il Duce. Now they’re all against fascism or at least so far as the face value is concerned. They take us as Americans, as only they can, but I’d like to know their true feeling about Negro soldiers especially combat soldiers—but I cannot think they’re too pleased about it. Generally we cultivate their friendship as a matter of sound politics. . . .

Saw some German propaganda the other day [see images below]. Churchill’s statement about the Russians which mean exactly nothing to the so-called foot slogger Infantrymen, either white or Negro, for there are no such—you’re an Infantry soldier and as such you are treated. I rather imagine the average guy would just look at the leaflet and say “so- what?” The average “Joe” here has long ceased to fight for some intangible ideology and flag waving only makes him mad. They mock Roosevelt’s “I will not send your sons off to war” and ape Churchill’s “on the beaches we will never give in” speech. They rag the chaplain and laugh at some piece of garrison soldiering that some people adhere to but they fight, and nothing Jerry can write can faze them. Pamphlets for us in the 92nd tell of Detroit riot, Beaumont and the South, of Saturday nites and “Jodie” and trumpets which all serve to make us quite mad at Jerry. He makes the stuff too elementary in that condescending manner some southern white use and some northern whites adopt—maddening as heck to us. After you finish reading how good Jerry treats Negro soldiers, some Jerry puts a shell right near you. On the other hand they tell their soldiers we’re savages, bloodthirsty! Ho hum! The variance of the ways of war are as varied as the ways of women!

I’ve been talking to some of the fellows about some guy who wrote to “Yank” saying he didn’t think it sportsmanlike to call the Germans “Jerry”; I wish he were over here, he’d see how sportsmanlike Jerry is. Some of the things folk do in the States really make the guys over here salty; like giving dances and dinners for the “poor” Jerry premiers and dressing up Italians in “GI” uniforms. I’d like for some of those folk to see what their sons, brothers, cousins and such are facing on all the war fronts. I can’t relate, rather find any relationship between their patriotism and this sort of attitude. And even as a soldier fighting for the very things by which these folks excuse their arts, I’m denied many of the privileges as a Negro, to which they guys who wear the swastika are welcomed. Beautiful post war plans they must have. Ho hum, we’ll see.

Ho hum! I’m a tired youngster and miss the darndest things like beds, flowers, books, biscuits, concrete walks, shows—yeah, I reckon all those things are worth fighting for. I’m okay and kicking here in Italy and strictly set on remaining in such a state.

So, the people play up some of our negative efforts. Oh well! The reverses in the Serchio were no different than those in the Ardennes only on a smaller scale. Since we’ve been here, no one has taken very much. Over half the P[O]W’s taken in November and December were taken by us. The Newsweek just wanted something to print. Freeman Gibson (civilian aide to the Secretary of War) listened at some gripes and made a lot of statements. White units suffer illiteracy, fire on their own patrols. I know because I’ve been where and with their “Name” Divisions here. As long as it’s dark and a war goes on, these things will happen. Some small units have failed, but that, too, is to be expected. But none of these people ever hit on the real reason for any setback, our deficiency here – replacements. They aren’t training Negro infantry soldiers at home, so when we lose an old trained “Buffalo,” we get a Quartermaster or Post Battalion “bad boy” or a replacement. Fighting is a trained man job and just doesn’t come naturally.

I’ve seen boys read, eat, as in one case write in a foxhole over which Jerry bullets were careening. Me? I joke and sing and together a group of us discuss food, politics and the respective merits of the Jerry to our front and others we’ve known. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it! But, honey, you’d be amazed how used to the sounds and reactions of combat one becomes; men have actually found it difficult to sleep when away temporarily from the area. Men sleep soundly through barrages or concentrations such as would awaken an entire city. And strange, the closer to the front one gets, the generally more careless I rather call it normal one gets.

Men generally realize their responsibilities to the group or team and shoulder them. I tell you these things for I know the exaggeration they’d undergo if you heard ’em through normal channels. Combat isn’t the hell for leather routine of the movies, battle every hour. Men have actually been in attacks and not fired their rifles; guns have sat on the front for weeks without firing a shot; men have been at the front and not seen a Jerry.

I read in “Stars and Stripes” where Marshall Kesselring, Jerry commander here in Italy, has been sent to the Western Front. Really wish they’d send forth a few of these other folk, then maybe it wouldn’t be so crowded here in Italy—why sometimes there aren’t even enough holes to go around and we either have to use some of Jerry’s or he uses some of ours. Very confusing, one can’t even ask for a lump of sugar from his neighbor unless he’s a linguist or something! If as great an effort was made on progress as has been made in this war, what miracles these fools would have wrought.

Source: S/Sgt. Joe Willie Johnson Jr. – 34324173, Co. “H” – 370th Infantry – APO-92 – 92nd Division – c/o P.M. New York, New York, to wife Mrs. Mary Alice Hubbard Johnson, Letters, 17 February 1945, located in Collection 0068, Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, Columbia, Missouri.