Letter written to his father by Cpl Robert W. Letson 33rd Armored Regt.

Published in The Jackson progress-argus newspaper Oct. 5 1944

The following letter was written by Cpl. Robert W. Letson (serial # 34196791), serving in France, to his father, Paul Letson:


Europe, September, 1944.
Dear Dad: This ole-war really keeps me mixed up. If my life depended I couldn’t tell you the day of the week or month.

I’m having a few hours off now. We broke a propeller shaft, drive shaft in a car, so we are idle until it’s repaired.
But for several weeks we’ve not had time to do anything. I think we were even moving too fast to fight. And frankly speaking I have had plenty scarry minutes since I’ve been here.

We gave out of gas one night in a town so we had to stay there and the rest of the unit went ahead. We were parked on the right side of the street, so about four o’clock in the morning a gang of Germans marched by us on the left side of the street. There we were and we couldn’t move. I knew better than to start a battle with them, as I was the only one awake. It happened while my time on guard.' So I kept quiet. They were talking and laughing so I guess they thought our tank had been knocked out. Anyway they kept going and never stopped to investigate. I judged about forty of them. A person can find any kind of excitement he wishes. One minute we don’t dare get out of the tank and the next we are making coffee.

Since I’ve been here I’ve not seen but two German tanks that weren’t knocked out. The first saw me the same time I saw him, so we had a duel. It was just like someone dropping a handkerchief and saying “fire”. We both fired at the same time and both hit each other. We both burned but all our crew got out, however, I didn’t wait around to see about theirs.

The other one we got about five-thirty one morning. We were advancing one night and got lost so we pulled into a small town and found out it was still in German hands. Well, there we were, two tanks and crew, not knowing how many German tanks or antitank guns there were in the town so we decided to stay until it got light enough to see. We backed our tank against a building and I put my gun down the street. Finally it got light so the fellows begin looking around. About every place they looked they found Germans asleep. They would punch them with their rifles and wake them up and bring them to the tank. I missed all that fun as l am the gunner so I had to stay there in case a tank showed and sure enough one came out from behind a building just where I was pointing. I saw him first so I just waited until he came out. It was just like shooting a rabbit in the head. The bullet went through both sides of his tank. I wasn’t satisfied so I put three more in there to be sure. The third shot set it on fire so I was satisfied.

And as far as shooting the German Infantry I’ve not killed but seven to know of. They had a machine gun nest behind a rock wall and were shooting our infantry so I fired my tank gun into the wall and got seven. I haven’t fired my pistol at one yet. Yes, I did get one more. This German was in the clock in a town firing a machine pistol. So I shot German, clock and all. right off the tower.

We captured a German warehouse a few days ago that was filled with supplies. They hauled several loads of nothing but cigars. Now about everyone you see is smoking cigars.

This country here is really beautiful. And very much like Georgia. The towns are quite modern, we even see street cars. Most of the cars are Fords and Chevrolets. Plenty of the German trucks are Fords & General Motors products. One of our infantry boys captured a 1941 Mercury convertible coupe and he really had fun with it.

Dad this is about all I have time for just now. One more thing I bet you’d never guess how much money I’ve spent
since I’ve been here. Exactly $2.00.

He was killed in action on March 2nd 1945 in Germany.

 

The location where he was KIA was, I believe, Wiedenfeld (not Wiedenfield), which was in the vicinity of Cologne, Germany. The 3rd AD was just beginning it's assault on Cologne. I really like these personal accounts. Thanks for sharing it.