This is the second page of a collection consists of 86 letters written by Ellsberg to his wife, Lucy, from February 26, 1942-November 24, 1942.

List of Massawa Letters

February 26, 1942 - July 18, 1942 (Page One)

July 27, 1942 - Sept. 23, 1942 (Page Two) you are here

Sept. 27, 1942 - November 24, 1942 (Page Three)

Letter #31

As usual

July 27, 1942

Lucy dearest:

I was overjoyed to receive 6 letters from you today and one from Mary!

Your letters were #25 of May 27, #26, 27, 32, 33, and 34, the last dated June 16. Mary’s was May 26.

So far I’ve received nine of your letters before numbering began, dated Feb. 21, 24, 26, 28, Mar. 4, 7, 10, 13, and 26. The first numbered letter is #3 of Apr. 10. You state you sent about 17 letters before numbering began. You will note quite a gap between Mar. 13 and 26, and between Mar. 26 and Apr. 10. I suppose the missing nine letters fell into those two spots. What happened to them? Ships sunk? Or just delayed? I don’t know, but the letters may yet turn up.

Of your numbered letters, the following have so far been received (including those mentioned above: #3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 (of June 1), 29 (of June 2), 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38 (only one) and 40. It may be there was no #28, and no #39, but of the two numbered 38 only one has yet arrived. Your #40, the latest I have, was dated June 28 and received July 22. The numbers underlined were all received today.

I admire your pertinacity in sticking it out at Brooks Uniform till they produced the right kind of ribbons for my ribbon bars, and I’m much obliged to you for all the things you ordered sent from Lewis & Conger. Also for the various articles of clothing I asked you to get. But when they may arrive here, I have no idea. It took 110 days en route for my second trunk. And I judge those packages may take as long, though perhaps what goes with Captain Whiteside may come sooner.

My ring came very quickly some weeks ago, apparently by direct air messenger.

I note from your letters of late May that you visited the Navy Yard for data on a story. Good luck to you with it. But I believe the conditions they imposed are rather foolish, but there is unlikely to be the slightest difficulty over it. But I think you should get D.M.’s (Ed: Dodd, Mead) acceptance of your MS before you ever submit it for the Commandant’s O.K.

I shall be anxious to hear what Dr. Salvati has to say about Mary’s throat. I hope now she’s home and resting (?), it may have improved.

Please let me know by date & number (if any) of every letter you have ever received since I first reached this station. Also generally how they have been maltreated in transit, and which one’s worst. Also be specific as to checks received in these letters (all checks).

As regards the strange delays in transit, the long interval between my first letter from here (received by you May 15) and the next one to arrive it wasn’t due to the fact that frequent letters weren’t written. What held them all up so long, I don’t know. Perhaps you know now. And it wasn’t the airmail stamps or lack of them.  All mail goes out of here by air, regardless of stamps or lack of them. The delays must have occurred in the U.S. due to mail piling up before an inadequate staff of censors to look them over promptly. And it is wholly useless to put airmail stamps on letters coming out here. They all come the same way, regardless. An Army captain showed me two letters he got today, one with 56 cents in airmail stamps on it and the other with a 3 cent stamp. Both left the U.S. together and arrived here in the same delivery, about four weeks en route. The airmail stamp counts for nothing except inside the U.S., and there it is worthless for letters coming here.

Your concern over the gas hot water heater in a way amuses me. Out here we don’t have Hot and Cold water faucets. There is only one faucet over every washbowl, and only one valve for a shower bath. It doesn’t make any difference what kind of water you want, you always get the same kind – HOT. And that without any heater on the line at all. Right now the water runs so hot out of the shower bath that it is just about all the body can bear to stand under it. It’s all done with the sun beating down on the ground outside where the water pipes are buried. Quite economical, really. Out here it would cost money to get cold, not hot, water.

Seriously, however, though this will get to you too late for any value this summer, if the oil problem is a major one for next year, there is still that instantaneous gas heater in our basement which might be hooked up again by the plumber. It requires, however, a separate gas meter from the gas stove. This is imperative for safety reasons.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, your cable of congratulations on my promotion got here July 22 (by mail from Khartoum). I enclose is as a curiosity. (Ed: cable was enclosed).

I may say here that I am still well. Nothing physical bothers me as a result of this hot climate, except the prickly heat we all suffer from, and that is a mess. My back, and parts of my legs and arms look like Scotch grain leather, and the damned things feel as if you were stuck full of fine prickles from prickly pears or some kind of nettles. My case is not so bad as most out here, for in spite of a constant bath in sweat all day, I can at least in the evening retire to a cool room, air-conditioned (temperature from 86° F. to 90° F.) where the prickling subsides and nearly disappears by morning while I sleep. So that each day I can start fresh to acquire a new case of prickly heat.

But up to this week we have only had a total of 15 air conditioners, which went round only to a few rooms for officers and part of the supervisors. The others for the working force never arrived till this week (they are not installed yet). The result was that those poor devils got no relief at night when it was just as hot in their quarters as in the day, and each day’s prickly heat was added on top of what each man already had, so that many finally burst out all over in infected boils which have sent them to the hospital. I haven’t lost a single man yet from any of the terrible tropical diseases which were going to lay us out here (they don’t seem to exist in this vicinity) but I do have a heavy casualty list from prickly heat. Air conditioning seems to be the only palliative.

There are few mosquitoes, few flies, and no moths in our area. I’m told they can’t stand the heat, which may be so. We are supposed to have more flies in the wintertime when things cool down a bit, but I’m skeptical.

Meanwhile, I waiting with interest for August 12 when the sun should be directly overhead here, and the hottest weather should result. I’m dubious that it can get any worse, for frankly, it isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity and I can’t quite see how that can increase regardless of the sun. It is the damned humidity which keeps us all bathed in sweat that causes all this prickly heat.

I note the Coast Pilot, describing the sea we face, denominates it the hottest body of water on earth. I shouldn’t wonder but they’re right.

I never go to the hills daily, for week-ends, for rest periods, or for anything else except brief trips of a few hours when I can’t avoid it to fight out face to face some problems with the damned fools who inhibit that region and think that from long range they can control the work here when they don’t even know what’s going on here, and care less about coming down to find out. I haven’t been out of this port three nights since I got here in March.

The rest camp in the hills is a fraud and utterly useless to us. The millions spent in building it is a total loss so far as use to the men here is concerned, and is worse than that as it has taken the labor of many men who might have been doing something useful to the war effort in this port.

The trouble is that it lies 40 miles away over a twisting mountain road on which any attempt to move large bodies of men morning and evening would inevitably result in a daily fatal accident. And secondly the fifteen or twenty mile stretch just after you leave this port to cross the desert (before you start the hill ascent) is the hottest place this side of hell itself. 160° F is quite normal there in the late afternoon. To take men who have worked all day in the heat here, park them in trucks or buses, and ride them an hour through that infernal heat, would in a few days lay them all away if accidents didn’t.

So we don’t even try it. We’d all rather sweat in comfort and safety here, and pray for the day when all the quarters can be air-conditioned. (Soon now, I hope).

The rest camp was a beautiful dream from 12000 miles away, but against the realities of transport here in the summertime, it has faded completely out. Some other use may eventually be made of all the buildings, but nothing that makes any difference to us here on the shore. My cottage on the Maine coast is of quite as much practical value to me right now.

I may mention in closing that a few days ago I was host here to the gentleman who is a younger brother-in-law to a well known lady who lives now at the spot (somewhat tropical) where Rose Ackerson went to recuperate a few years ago. I had quite an interesting day showing him around our plant and our salvaged craft, riding up in his plane with him back to the high hills, and attending his dinner party there in the evening. In a way, his name reminds me of a certain seagoing village where years ago we spent our vacation (you mostly alone with Mary) and it rained like the devil practically all the time, and water never ran hot in the cottage you had.

With love, Ned

Letter #32

As usual

July 28, 1942

Lucy darling:

The last two days have been quite red letter here – yesterday I received six letters from you and one from Mary, and today I got three more from you - #28, 42 & 43.

The last two were sent %APO 617, which must be giving fast service, as they came through in 25 days.

I wrote you a long letter which went from here this morning giving you the status of your letters received here to date. The numbered series is complete from #3 to #43, except for #31, 36, 37, 39 and 41, which I expect will shortly be along. There may be no #39, as you say two were numbered 38, of which only one has yet arrived.

I don’t know what to make out of Mary’s low metabolism and low blood pressure. My blood pressure is never much either, being about 105 now. As I recollect it, they gave me a metabolism test just after the S-51 job at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital. I suppose that was low too, but a rest fixed me up. However, Mary had better follow strictly the doctor’s advice, especially about work. I spoke to Captain Plummer of the Army Medical Corps, who is our doctor here, of Mary’s case as you reported it, and he said that he agreed that the thyroid tablets seem indicated as the treatment. Dr. Plummer by the way is from Virginia, went to the Univ. of Virginia Medical School, and I may say in many ways reminds me of Dr. Ambler (also from Virginia) who went with DeLong in the Jeannette. I have a lot of confidence in Captain Plummer who has shown the deepest interest as well as medical skill in looking after the men here. He tells me he knows most of the doctors in Roanoke, and went to school with several of them.

I’m glad you were able to get a bicycle for Mary, so she won’t be reduced to the roller skates she spoke of jokingly some months ago. Speaking of getting about, I don’t know what the gasoline rationing rules are, but I see no reason why I shouldn’t have a ration card for my car (which I’m willing to lend to Mary) so that you should not be reduce to one ration for your car as well as for mine. That solution should help the situation a bit.

Just to clarify the situation on reading matter, I have never yet received a single copy of Life, of the Reader’s Digest, nor of any book ever sent me by anybody, except the copy of Capt. Paul, Jr., which I told you of.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of acting as host to Lieut. General________, who came here to look over what we are doing. The gentleman is a younger brother of the chap you and I and Mary and Len and Lillian once turned out rather early in the morning to observe taking a ride in a rather ornate carriage, and bears quite a striking resemblance to him. (Ed: I wonder if he is referring to the Coronation that he attended in 1936 and the sister-in-law is Wally Simpson?)

So I showed him over our shops and our salvaged fleet and what we were doing to them, and he answered “Oh, yes,” to my every remark, though he really was much interested. Then I had lunch with him, rode with him in his plane in the afternoon up to the high hills, sat across the table from him at a small private dinner, went to a tea with him a little earlier, and to a reception with him after dinner and got to know him quite well. As the day drew on, the “Oh, yes” formula faded out and he turned out to have quite a sense of humor. He has a tough life, I’m afraid, being dragged around to see things. I had quite an enjoyable day, anyway, and I think he did also. He did not tell me, however, of what he thought of having an American for a sister-in-law, and I deemed it unwise to quiz him on it, so our evening’s conversation was on a more prosaic plane. He wanted to know what he could do to help along our work here, and I told him. I trust he can say a word for us where it will do some good, for we certainly need it. And so at 11 PM, we parted. Some day when this is all over, and I get back to a little town north of Boston where you and I and little Mary once spent quite a rainy vacation, the name of the place will have a special significance in recalling to me my guest of last Friday. And on his part, I’ll bet he’ll remember for a long time the damned hot day he spent in ------ (name omitted for censorship reasons), and the peculiar American he met there who enjoyed fishing up ships rather than the mackerel for which his namesake town is noted.

Wit love, Ned

Letter #33

About 8000 feet higher

than my usual position

August 2, 1942

Lucy darling:

Your July 4 letter (#44) arrived a couple of days ago. Somehow your thoughts on the Fourth of July strike deeply into my own heart as I contemplate out here what liberty really means and how precious a thing it is. And here, not so far from the fronts on sea and land in every direction, we can see and feel and hear what danger we are in of losing it. How great the danger is once more of “Too little and too late” I fear is not really realized at home, or we should not be left here to struggle without the means promised us months ago. Here is an opportunity to do something on a scale I never realized at home, in a naval way that can bolster up a vital war area. The probability over these past few weeks that we shall kick it away for want of a few hundred men and a moderate supply of materials, has grown. In every way I know out here, I have fought against that outcome, against lack of understanding, ignorance, pettiness of mind, jealousy, and damnable inefficiency as well as indifference on the part of highly paid so called “executives” who can see only a contract and completely ignore the fact that we are in a war.

They don’t like me for it and I’m not very popular up here in the high hills with our civilian executives, but down on the coast where the work has to be done, I’m glad to say I can command the wholesouled cooperation of the men who have to struggle with the sea and the muck and the heat as well as ever I was able to do in the freezing waters of the cold Atlantic. And they’re doing their job, as fine a crew of salvage men as I ever hope to see. Only out here we don’t have an Admiral Plunkett to back us up in getting us what we need to work with, and of late that has been making me almost heartsick.

At the moment, things are looking a little brighter. The British have promised me the temporary loan of several hundred mechanics to work on the repairs of our salvaged vessels and perhaps before I have to give them back, something may happen to waken some minds along the Potomac to an understanding that a few hundred mechanics can do more out here to help America win the war than ten times that number can possibly do at home. But I wish to Heaven that Admiral Plunkett were alive now to tell certain people in sulphurous language what the situation requires.

There is one other ray of hope. A few weeks ago, I’d had a belly full of dilly-dallying and I took my pen in hand to tell in no uncertain terms what must be done – both sides got it, ours and our English friends – as strongly as the English language as I know it can set things out. And yesterday it looked as if at least I had cracked the situation – I got a radio to proceed to our old haunt (the recommended Mecca for honeymooners) for a week for a conference. What may come out of that conference I don’t know, but there may be action. At any rate, here I am up in the hills, waiting to catch a plane Monday (tomorrow) morning for the 1000 mile hop to headquarters – and, I suppose, my old room at the Hotel Continental.

As you know, if some of my precious letters have arrived, we celebrated the Fourth of July out here by deeds, not fireworks. I was never so proud of our flag before as on that day when I saw it floating at the masthead over the Nazi ensign on a German ship we were towing round from its old berth on the bottom of the sea to our drydock.

With much love, Ned

Letter #34

Still high in the hills

August 2, 1942

Lucy sweetheart:

I received three more letters from you today while here, #38 of 6/25/42, #49 of 7/11/42, and #53 of 7/15/42, the last one only 16 days from home. All were via APO 617, which seems to be doing a fine job, though a little spotty as the above dates show, as I have received other letters dated later than #38 before it arrived. I may say that while practically all your letters bear the censor’s stamp, nothing has ever been cut from any of your letters (or Mary’s) except in one of your letters which evidently mentioned the name of the port I bought you some souvenirs, in which that name was cut out, a rather ridiculous censor’s performance, I thought.

I’m sorry those souvenirs have never arrived. Since that was early in March, I guess they never will now, though I personally mailed them in the post office ashore, saw sufficient postage on them, and see no reason why they never reached you unless the ship they went on was sunk. The souvenirs consisted of a fairly expensive little silver table bell for you, made in the form of a Brazilian maiden, and a filigree silver butterfly brooch for Mary.

One copy of Reader’s Digest (May) has finally arrived, and two copies of Life, dated some time in April. Don’t subscribe for me for any more magazines. It isn’t worth it. If you have already cancelled the two subscriptions above, that’s all right. If you haven’t, don’t bother to. The other copies may come some day.

Just to reiterate, all my baggage got here safely, though the second trunk was 110 days on the way. The first shipment was here before I was. Also my class ring arrived with amazing speed.

I have mentioned finances at some length before. I advise against selling any stocks to get funds, and I have a great antipathy toward borrowing for any purpose except health reasons. If you need money, sell off our government bonds. If the need can be anticipated, quit buying any more and put the money in the savings bank instead.

I have just requested the paymaster here to increase my allotment to $590 per month. That should be effective about October 1. And when the official news of what we hear unofficially about some changes in the new pay bill gets here, I may be able to increase that allotment to about $610. This should result from lifting the limitation of pay of a captain, on which subject John Hale can no doubt inform you.

In addition, I should be able to send you some checks from here, covering part of my per diem allowance, since I don’t need it all for my current expenses. I’ve sent you already checks covering everything due me up to July 1, these being one check for $600 sent about June 28, and another letter containing two checks totaling around $200, which went around July 10 to 15. So far I have no word from you of their receipt, but I suppose even the first one (supposedly sent very special by air mail) could not have reached you by July 15 (your last letter so far here).

So far as I can judge (not knowing anything about the new tax bill save that I can fear the worst) I believe this should give you money enough to pay all Mary’s expenses. I should be able to send you about $1000 between now and next January out of my per diem allowance (though you may not get it all by January).

From your letters of July 11 and 15, I am glad to note that apparently you were shoving off for Southwest Harbor about July 17. I am happy to know that you were able to arrange it and also to see that somehow you could get gasoline enough to make the trip in the station wagon.

I shall be interested to learn how good a substitute Gilley and Norood made for me in getting the cottage useable and in getting our various hot water systems in working order. Presumably long before this letter gets to you, you will be back in Westfield again, since you say you are going for a month only. Did you get the Argo in the water?

I rather imagine Southwest Harbor was emptier of men than ever. It was good judgment on your part to have Mary invite her friends up and I hope all hands had a pleasant time. Meanwhile, there is nothing you could have done to make me feel better than to know you both had some time in Maine with a chance to cool off. Write me fully about it. (Maybe you already have).

I trust also you were able to get Mrs. Rice to help you, so that (foolish hope?) you got a rest yourself as well as a change. How much I wish I might have been with you, words cannot express.

So far as sailing goes around here, we are farther away from it than when I came. So badly are our work boats in need of constant repair, that I have never been able to put a single boatbuilder on refitting the two star boat hulls we found here. And today I learned that the masts and sails I ordered for those boats in New York were on a ship that was sunk on its way here (together with a whole cargo of other things for us) so that I guess our sailing is definitely off for this year and probably for good. That was a blow, for sailing seems to be the one possible recreation available to us here.

So that’s that.

Tomorrow morning I shove off for a week close up under the guns for a conference. The plane leaves about 9AM. I’ll probably stay at the Hotel Continental and will write from there.

With much love, Ned

Letter #35

In the air, bound

generally northwest

Aug. 3, 1942

Lucy darling:

Half an hour ago we took off, heading at first almost due west for a city in the adjoining ancient country, from whence we shall go due north along a very famous river. We’re flying at about 12000 feet, I judge.

I left one letter to be mailed where we took off, and another one and this will be mailed at our destination.

Just before plane departure, I was handed two letters, one from Mr. E telling me of his efforts in Washington (up to then without result, though offering a slim hope) and the second your letter #41 of June 30. In that you relate your struggles to get white shorts and socks (so far fruitless) and a later letter from you mentions that Captain Broshek was also unable to get any in Washington. Let the matter drop. The city I am going to now for a conference should be the best place in the world to get them, and I shall try there. If I can’t get anything there except scarabs and “guaranteed” relics from King Tut’s tomb, I’ll give the problem up and wear khaki for the rest of the war. I only want the white shorts for dress occasions only, such as when I entertained the Duke of Gloucester some time back (I wore a borrowed pair then) and dukes don’t visit our way very often. Unless I can get some white shorts where I’m going, the next member of the royal family who drops in will have to be received in khaki.

I note that various other articles of clothing are on their way via J D & P, plus the various articles for household use I first asked for. With a little luck, I should have them by Christmas.

No, I do not have a house and there isn’t any prospect of any. I might have had a cottage supposedly reserved for me by the British by throwing out some other officers who were in it when I arrived, but after I looked it over, I passed up my privilege of rank. The cottage wasn’t worth it. Then I decided to occupy a single room in an abandoned Italian officers’ building till all the swarms of workmen arrived, when along with barracks for them, a proper single house for the commanding officer could be built. A little experience with our contractor on the ground here, however, cured me of all my illusions about swarms of workmen (plus a lot of other things about him) and since then I have been struggling only to keep what workmen there are, on essential and desperately needed naval projects (and you would be surprised to find how tough a task that is). No house for me – it isn’t important enough to waste men on. So in an office building we converted into officers’ quarters I have a large room, a private bath, and a kitchenette. (That is, in the kitchenette I have an electric refrigerator (Hotpoint) and when the other things arrive, I’ll be in a position to do a little light housekeeping on my own hook).

I have been presented with a complete set of dishes for service for three (plus table silver) by Captain Madden of an American ship which sailed from our port last week. It seems that two days before his sailing date, he was on the verge of heat prostration and the doctor ordered him to the hospital. But he wouldn’t leave his ship, fearing if they ever got him into the hospital, he might not be released in time to catch his ship, which would sail without him. I happened to come aboard then, and getting the situation from the First Officer, I solved it by inviting Captain Madden over to my quarters for a brief visit to cool off under my air conditioners. That he gladly accepted. So I drove him over, had an extra bed put in the room, then invited him to spend the night with me and so on stretched that few hours visit into two whole days and nights till I had him well cooled off. (Of course, I had to go to work, but he never left the room, even for meals). I got him back aboard his ship an hour before she sailed, and he was so grateful, he gave me eight cartons of cigarettes, ten pounds of coffee, the dishes I’ve mentioned, ten pounds of sugar, three pounds of butter, a dozen cans of evaporated milk, four books, and – a coffee percolator! Unfortunately the last item, though the smallest he had, is an eight cup affair, so I can’t use it often without wasting coffee as it won’t perk properly on less than three to four cups of water. And Captain Madden would have given me the rest of his ship almost, if I’d only take it, as an expression of his gratitude. If his ship gets to New York on its return (he doesn’t know his destination) he’ll call you up. But as it will be months yet before he gets there, I sent no letters via his ship, as the regular mail should beat him home.

I have an idea that while I have repeatedly been informed that all the mail from out here, regardless of stamps or lack of them, goes home by air, the service is much less frequent than it is coming this way. Bound out from the U.S. are probably numerous planes of types you can guess, all of which may carry some mail. Bound back are probably only the minimum number of planes to return the ferry pilots, so the homeward bound mail stacks up and is probably further delayed by inadequate censorship forces at home to expedite its delivery.

Now one letter to you, containing a check for $600, got the most specialist, fastest, most privileged air mail service there is. It was mailed from the city to which I am now bound, on June 27. When did you get it, if you ever got it? If it arrived any faster than any of the others, let me know, as occasionally I may be able to repeat the performance.

Later

A couple of days ago, I received wireless orders to proceed to headquarters for about a week for a conference, subject not stated. So I turned over my job temporarily to my second in command (an army officer), told him everything I could think of to keep him out of trouble during my absence, and I’m now on my way.

We are now on the ground again after a few hours flight over country that would have taken a week to traverse otherwise. I’ve been here twice before this year, this being the spot from which I started north by air over the most dismal stretch of desert imaginable of which journey I wrote you at some length last March while I was in the air. We change planes here and continue on in the morning, going due north for our headquarters city.

When I was here before (both times last March about a week apart) I thought this was the hottest place on earth. Knowing I was coming back this way to face the August weather, I looked on our brief stay with some dread, but to my surprise, on disembarking here, it felt not unusually warm. I suppose it’s because it’s dry here, and my four months on my station have rather changed my body’s ideas of what heat is.

So here I am, at the moment parked in the hotel (the Grand Hotel, of course) waiting till the later afternoon when the town shall unlock itself at 4:30 PM after the midday heat (?). We (that is, an army colonel also going on duty to the same city as I’m bound for) shall then go out and I’ll see if I can pick up a few things not available in my hick town, and perhaps we shall have a look at Chinese Gordon astride his bronze camel, looking down the river a bit at the place he lost his head.

I have written Mary a birthday letter while in the air, en route here. I’ll try to get it off tomorrow by special air service, in the hope that she may get it by August 29. And, meantime, darling, for Mary’s birthday, her twenty-first, and except for her birthday twenty-one years ago, her most important, I want to tell you how I love you and how much this absence causes my heart to ache. What longing I have on that day to hold you again in my arms and look into your glowing brown eyes, I cannot express in words. From the day your eyes first smiled on me I have always loved you, and since the day you first kissed me, I have always thirsted for your caresses, but never so much, after all these years, as now. My prayer for Mary’s birthday is, may God bless both you and her, and may He soon reunite us all.

Ned

Letter #36

In the air, second

leg, going north

August 4, 1942

Lucy darling:

Yesterday I shoved off by air for a trip to headquarters for a conference. We landed for an intermediate stop due west of my departure point and stayed over night at Khartoum. This morning we took off in another plane, going due north now.

Below us the river is in full flood here high up its course, as in ancient times.

I had several letters written, two for you and one for Mary’s birthday, which I had intended when we got to our destination (Cairo) to try to forward for quick delivery by preferential treatment mail pouch when I got to the legation. But I found our landing place last night was almost like the air crossways of the world – officers were there going in every direction. So I found one bound home by air this morning and gave him the letters which he promised personally to see mailed when he landed. So it may be that Mary will get her birthday letter somewhat early.

All the smears at the head of this page are due to the ink pouring out of my pen when I took it out high up in the air (expansion due to decreased pressure). Sorry.

I got around to see Chinese Gordon’s statue again yesterday afternoon, and to go through the native city nearby where he met his death only a few days before Kitchener arrived with a belated relief expedition three-quarters of a century ago.

Cairo

Aug. 6, 1942

I went up from Khartoum to Cairo in a flying boat, getting here Tuesday afternoon. The reason for the conference seems to be a discussion about the operating personnel for our base. Before I leave here, I’m to go up (Friday) for a discussion at Port Said with the British naval officials and then back to my station.

I’m staying here at some Army billets in Helipolis, a few hundred yards from the air field. The Germans have bombed it several times and last Friday raided it heavily, smashing a few planes and losing one of their Stukas right on the field and another nearby. We had an air raid alarm last night also, but guess the Germans were turned back. No bombs. The moon is not favorable now, so the attacks may cease. Except for the airfields, Cairo itself shows no signs of bombing whatever. It’s all heavily blacked out however.

This letter should go back with an Army colonel leaving here tomorrow morning who promises to mail it at home. So it should get quick delivery.

We are having a hell of a time at my station. It’s hot, it’s humid, and the prickly heat is bad. But none of that really bothers me. I’m well, have been, and expect to remain so physically. And my salvage forces so far here (two small groups) have done beautifully. In addition to the drydock, we have now salvaged the Liebenfels (picture enclosed of her bow coming up) and are working on her larger sister, the Frauenfels, of which you’ll hear later. The rest of our salvage forces (except Whiteside’s ship) and most of our equipment should be here in a couple of weeks now and we should really begin to go to town on salvage.

But we have had a terrible shock on our naval base operations. We are told at home we can get no materials and no men for shipyard repair work from home – the British must furnish them. And the British say they can’t. So I am left without any men from either source, and with a fine base all ready to operate and desperately needed. It nearly drives me wild.

We had the Liebenfels on the dock three and a half weeks repairing the huge hole blasted in her port bow, when we should have done it in a week. And even to do that I had to beg, borrow and steal a few mechanics from the construction contractor who parted with them temporarily with such bad grace I can hardly hope to get them again.

Meanwhile, half a dozen other ships we should have docked lay idly off the port two weeks, waiting for the Liebenfels to clear the dock so they could go in. And in the United States, they think they need ships!

The Liebenfels is afloat now, her hull fully repaired. We are now working on her machinery, and in a couple of months, she should go to sea again under her own power, with less than 1% of the material and labor used on her for salvage and repair that it would take to build a new ship of her size.

General Maxwell is doing his utmost to show Washington it is making a bad mistake, for he has great faith in this base. I hope he gets somewhere soon with it, or my few men will shortly be all knocked out and I can’t get any more. It makes me too dizzy to contemplate the spectacle soon of a harbor full of salvaged ships all waiting repairs and desperately needed at sea, and no men to put on the repair work. Such a spectacle I never hoped to confront outside a madhouse.

I may not soon get a chance to talk as freely to you again, but since this letter at least should be seen by no other eyes than yours, I want to tell you I love you to distraction, and dream nightly of the time I can crush you in my arms again and drink in caresses from your eyes, your lips, your breasts and your whole body. But most of all I long to bathe again in the lovely light you’ve always poured out on me from your intoxicating soft brown eyes.

I love you, I love you, I love you, and I shall love you forever.

Ned

Letter #37

Cairo

August 10, 1942

Lucy darling:

Your two letters, #55 & 56, of July 20 & 21 from Southwest Harbor have just been delivered to me here. (They came via the home office, and consequently took this routing on their way to my regular station).

I note you got news of my promotion by my letter of June 24. I cabled you that on June 26, which apparently never arrived. Six dollars wasted. Your cable of congratulations reached me about July 21.

I note you received the $600 check. You haven’t reported yet on the two checks for $200 (about) sent you several weeks later.

I’m now in the city where Mary is due to spend her honeymoon. I’ve been here about a week, trying to get help for my station. I’ve been turned down flat where ordinarily I should get it, as I’ve told you before. I’ve spent the last week traveling the triangle of which this is the apex and the sea is the flat side, trying to get it elsewhere. It looks now as if Nina’s compatriots will lend me a hand.

I’ve been along from the place east of which a man can raise a thirst (according to the poet) to the city where cousin Matt technically is domiciled in between trips around the world. In the latter spot, I met the chap who is Ernie King’s (Ed: Admiral Ernest J. King) counterpart out here, and spent last night as his guest at his home. He was quite extravagantly complimentary on what I’d been doing beneath and above the sea, and in particular very grateful for what I’d fished up as my first salvage success. He promised me seven officers and a couple of hundred men from his mechanical forces to come to my station and lend a hand, subject only to the approval of certain officials of a type similar to those made famous by Gilbert & Sullivan in one of their most popular operas. He’s cabling in his recommendations and I think the chances look fair for my getting a couple of limey three stripers and five juniors to lend me a hand, as well as the workmen. So at this moment, things are looking brighter.

I just got back here at noon, leaving him at 8:30 AM. I hear here the jerries came along and bombed the place just an hour after I cleared out. What they hit (if anything) I haven’t heard yet.

At one of my stops this last week, the A.A. guns opened up on a high flying German also and shooed him away. He dropped nothing.

I’m due to have a discussion later this afternoon with the mission command on these new developments, and then go back to my station.

I note you are sending me something for prickly heat. I know now none of those things do any good out here, so don’t bother any more.

Also by the way, in this city I’ve had some white shorts made to order and bought some white stockings, so I’m fixed up on those now. So far as your letters show up to now, you weren’t able to get any, and now you don’t have to bother.

To reiterate, both my trunks and the suitcase arrived, the original shipment before I got here. No other packages (except my ring) have yet arrived.

Yes, I’ve started smoking again. Too much of a nuisance to keep refusing cigarettes. But at present we get a package a day out here at ten cents (no tax) so I don’t need any from home. Thanks for the offer.

I don’t need any gold lace. One blue suit is fixed up at the expense of the other; so are my shoulder marks. I don’t need the other blue suit. I wore the one that’s been fixed up only once: the night I had dinner with the Duke of Gloucester some time back up in the hills where it was cool.

As regards the silver eagles for my shirt, a very thoughtful lieutenant who’d heard of my promotion in Washington brought me out a pair. So if you’ve already had John Hale send some, I’ll have two pairs; if nothing has been done about it, don’t bother now.

So far as anyone out my way has seen, there isn’t any V-mail. Also there don’t seem to be any cheap cables.

The mail via the home office seems to come through completely unmolested. The mail via the N.Y. post office always bears a neat little paster along the edge, but has been only cut to a trifling extent once. At present both seem to get the same speed. The letters via Dixon come through fastest and unopened, but not if they are addressed %APO (which is useless on such a letter), for then Dixon never sees them and they might as well be addressed straight APO, as both ways.

Rather odd, in Matt’s city I met the captain of a battleship which Capt. B. had overhauled at Brooklyn. He spoke most glowingly of the remarkable efficiency with which Capt. B. had repaired his torpedo damages, and asked me if I knew him. I said yes, by last accounts from you, you had Capt. B. chasing around Washington trying to get me some white shorts – we knew him that well. You might write Capt. B. and tell him that even after a year, that limey captain was still bubbling over with enthusiasm over Capt. B’s work. And on my own account, remember me to him.

It’s a little late to give you any advice on the matter, but if you leave your Chevrolet in S.W. Harbor, be sure to note the mileage, take a careful look at each tire and its condition and note them down carefully, and then take the keys home with you. I wouldn’t trust any garage nowadays, especially with the owner far away, not to use a stored car rather than wearing out tires on their own.

I’m still puzzled as to how you got the gasoline to get to S.W. Harbor. If this gets to you before you leave S.W., and you can get the gasoline, take my advice and drive the car home with you. But except for the danger of having the car used during your absence, I see no great objection to leaving it in Maine.

Glad to note you’re getting some returns from Kandel (Ed: Craftsweld, the manufacturer of Ellsberg’s underwater torch). Every dollar is certainly useful now.

I sent you a letter a few days ago via an army colonel flying home. Let me know whether it reached you unmolested and when.

I’m sending you enclosed a picture (enlarged) taken with my own camera about the middle of last June, with our own ocean for a background. The lighting isn’t quite right on this one, but all the pictures I took myself on that strip came out well.

I understand the British Broadcasting Co. gave me attention on one of their broadcasts last Friday. I was at Port Said then and didn’t hear it. I’m only told a news story got cabled to the U.S. at about the same time, I haven’t seen that either. If you run across it, you might send me a N.Y. clipping.

This letter goes (I hope) via the naval attache’s bag. It may get better delivery that way.

By the time you get this, I suppose you’ll be back in Westfield, but on a chance, I’m sending it to S.W. Harbor in case it gets marvelous delivery and you stay through August.

Right now, I’m still well (steady at about 149 lbs.) and feeling somewhat more cheered up at the prospects of getting some men to work with. We can do things in a big way if only we’re given half a chance. The trouble has always been we’re so damned far from everybody, they can’t believe the place exists till they see the results.

Since this letter will probably get read by other eyes, I can only say here, very soberly, I love you.

Ned

P.S. By the time I get back on my station, I’ll have been gone over ten days and there may be other letters waiting me there.

Letter #38

August 10, 1942

Lucy darling:

I’m shoving off from here by plane tomorrow morning to go back to my station, and should be there tomorrow night.

I’ve spent the week traveling in this area from the point east of which there “ain’t no ten commandments” to the point of Matt’s residence, and down here where we all once stayed some three days. The funny thing is that this city, which we all thought quite hot, seems cool to me now – quite a pleasant summer resort.

I didn’t manage to get my problems wholly settled, but it does look as if I’ll get aid from the British, and that is something.

There was a story in the local paper today, cabled here from N.Y. as an Associated Press dispatch, about my raising the drydock. That’s humorous, seeing that the interview on which that story is based, was given right here in this town a few days ago by orders of the general commanding. So to get published here, it had to go all the way to New York and back by cable.

Well, now I hope we’ll get men enough to work with, and really start to clean up this business.

With love, Ned

Letter #39

Once more in flight

over the desert

Aug. 11, 1942

Lucy darling:

I took off in an army plane from headquarters this morning and at present, about an hour out, we are flying over the desert. The same scenery as usual – sand, rock plateaus badly cut by erosion, no vegetation and no life, except once in a while when we get a distant view of the river with its thin thread of green standing sharply out against the desert sand. That river is certainly the most marvelous in the world when one considers how down through the ages a whole civilization has been built wholly on its waters and would vanish completely should anything stop its flow. This was the one never failing granary for ancient Rome, and it does quite as well now. Too bad it is in the hands of a bad gang of parasites as curse the earth, for never have I seen the common laborer used literally so much as an ox and get so little out of his labor. Here at least the land produces marvelously, so there should be no dearth, but the poor devil harnessed to a rope dragging a heavy scow along the banks of the Nile seems to me as badly off as when his remote ancestors were hauling stone for the Pyramids.

Just before I left for the airfield this morning, I had a telephone call from the head of NBC here who wanted to know if I would broadcast to the U.S. tonight, stating he had permission from our headquarters and had already wired New York to arrange the program. I said I was willing enough but – did he have any broadcasting facilities in Massawa (all the enemy must know I’m there since the British Broadcasting Co. made it the subject of a broadcast last Friday night) and he said (as I guessed) unfortunately no. Since I couldn’t defer my departure and he couldn’t move his equipment, my chance to say a word that you might have heard, went glimmering.

I suppose long before you get this, you’ll be back from Maine and Mary will be preparing to go back to college. I certainly hope both of you got a rest there – I long myself again to roam around the pines and spruces of the Anchorage and sail the cold waters of our bays. The more I see of the world, the happier I am of our choice for our summer cottage and if I could only be there again with you and Mary, I’d want nothing more. I only hope when I’ve done my bit here to help roll Hitler in the mud, I can go back to it. But here I am instead with the desert below and my hot station ahead. However, I don’t really mind the infernal conditions we must work under as long as I can see we are really doing something effective there that can’t be done anywhere else – and I doubt can be done by anyone else as well.

Later

We’ve run across the desert and now are skirting the southerly bank of the Red Sea. The ocean always looks cool, though I know this one is not – it’s the hottest ocean in the world and the saltiest. But it’s lovely to look at with its colors running from light greens around the reefs and shoals near shore, to a gorgeous blue in deeper water -  a blue that puts the Mediterranean azure quite to shame. How it ever came to be called the red sea I can’t make out. It is the bluest water on the earth, and particularly lovely looking out from the scene of our labors among the wrecks our German and Italian friends have left us with..

I sent you a snapshot taken with my camera, in a letter yesterday. In case that letter goes astray, I enclose another. It’s fair, but I hope when I get back to get some better ones.

I suppose the new tax bill has been passed by now. If you can get from any source (a newspaper report, from Ed Smith, or elsewhere) a table of what the rates are, I’d be glad to have it so I can put a little study on my problem, and perhaps some on yours. And I’d like an answer to my question of a previous letter as to where I stand as an American citizen domiciled in a foreign city as a permanent resident there for over six months a year, on my salary earned there. My understanding, obtained when I was considering that job in England, was that under such circumstances income earned abroad is not taxable in the U.S., though income like royalties or dividends received in America, is.

As soon this fall as you can make any reasonable estimate of what you have received from dividends, royalties or similar sources, please make up a rough table of it and send it out here, stating sources and amounts received. I’d like to check it over  myself and advise you, before you have to submit your income tax return next March. Send me the same data relating to my income from similar sources or from any sources, starting with last January 1^st. As regards my return, I believe I’m allowed six months after the year ends to make my return. As soon as you can get your hands on any of the new forms to be used, send me at least one as a sample and more if you can get them. And just as a reminder, in case you don’t know it, nothing whatever that you receive as allotments of my pay or as checks sent you by me, constitutes any part of your income and none of that is to be reported by you in any form whatever.

As regards Mary’s income, I’m somewhat dubious as to whether she’ll have to make any return, seeing that her dividends have been badly cut but that I can tell as soon as I see the new rules and I’ll advise you. Don’t go anywhere else or to any one else on that matter.

Speaking of financial matters, the Navy pay officer out here says he is quite sure that the new pay bill removed the limitation of $7200 in pay of a naval reserve captain on pay and allowances, but he does not yet have official notice of it and consequently is not yet paying on that basis. On the old basis, I’m being paid now a total of $7200 against pay and allowances plus $400 for foreign duty. (The foreign duty pay comes outside the limitation), or a grand total of $7600. On the new pay bill basis, this will be increased to about $8000 in my case, and I’ll get the retroactive differences when the news comes through officially. I’ve already changed my monthly allotment to you to $590 (which with my insurance allotments takes up nearly all the $7600) and when I can, I’ll change the allotment again to about $620 when if and as the news of the new pay bill reaches here officially.

Aside from all the above, as I’ve said before, I receive from the Army a certain allowance which I collect here somewhat irregularly, but from which I think I can send you at least $1000 more before this year is out. I’ll know more definitely about that shortly.

(My pen ran dry soon after I started this letter, and now my mechanical pencil is running dry too and I have no replacement leads with me in the air, so this letter may have to terminate rather abruptly).

I have every reason to believe that with this we should be able to take care of Mary’s senior year without her having to skimp unduly and still allow you also to get along in some comfort. I don’t think with the clothes I now have on the way, I’ll need anything more for quite a while and I need very little otherwise.

Don’t stint yourself on food or clothes or anything like that just to try to save money for investment. Once we have some idea of our tax liability for next year and our this year’s (at this point the lead went out but I’ve borrowed another pencil from a British flying officer aboard, so I can continue) income, I (or you) can figure out what if anything may be available for that. I know taxes will take a husky bite, insurance will take a couple of thousand more, and no doubt everything in the way of food and clothes is already mounting in cost. I would be interested to see what your budget is, if you have any. Meanwhile, of course, next year’s book royalties will be considerably less, for which reason if you can arrange with D.M. to pay all the royalties on John Paul, Jr. next year and not this, it should be a help. And without doubt dividends next year will be cut even more, since the poor old corporations will catch it between taxes and labor costs even more than their stockholders. Meanwhile, what, if anything, is being done to tax the mechanics who are really the profiteers in this war?

If there is anything left for investment, I would suggest it be divided about evenly between stocks and the government victory bonds, with perhaps even much more than half going into industrials. Inasmuch as I’m already kicking away two or three times as much as my entire service pay by struggling out here instead of cashing in on an executive’s job in some shipyard or with my pen or my voice as a naval expert telling our fellow countrymen how to win the war by every method except getting out on the fighting line, I don’t feel we need to go any farther than that as our financial contribution. So if you have any money left after settling with the tax collector, see Ed Smith about putting it into industrials. We won’t get trimmed any worse there than we will in government bonds, and we may make out better. The cost of the war is going to come out of our hides anyway, and inasmuch as I can expect nothing in the way of retired pay or social insurance or anything whatever except what we can do for ourselves, I can’t help but devote a little selfish attention to that problem. I know Uncle Sam won’t give me another thought when this is all over.

We’re starting to bump around a bit now as the plane is going lower to make an intermediate stop at the one port on this sea between our start and our destination. We’ve been about four hours in the air on this leg.

Still later

We were an hour and a half on the ground, and are now off again. Quite hot in that place. It vies with my own port for the honor of being the hottest spot around here, but this one can have the honor. We are more humid and they are more dusty, as they have the desert sands right in their back yards and, thank goodness, that at least we are spared. We are flying down the coast again, with the myriad reefs looking like bits of turquoise in the bluer sea.

To reiterate on V-mail, while I have heard of such a thing from English officers and seen one or two of theirs, no American service of that kind has shown up around here. And when it does, I believe it will be much slower than letters any way. So don’t rely on it now for anything you want delivered.

I notice in your #56 letter of July 21, you mention you received one of mine finished July 8, which certainly reached you in jig time. That letter was started just before we began lifting a ship, and was finished a couple of days after the lift was completed and we had her in dock, at which time I think I was a little tired and perhaps to some degree bitter also at having to work with so few men and with borrowed equipment that was next to worthless and nearly killed us all trying to keep it operating. We should have some more salvage men and equipment by the time I get back so next time I hope for a more normal performance. But of course I’m far better off with my salvage crews than so far I have been with my repair gang, where I’ve been left absolutely flat except for such men as I could steal. But the British have now practically promised to give me a few hundred and that should help.

While in Matt’s home town I was the guest over night of the gentleman who was the main character in the article I wrote for the Sperry Co. early in this war (Ed: Commodore Sir Henry Harwood), and for which purpose I went to Washington to gather data. For his very unconventional brilliance on the occasion described in that article, I have always admired him and I found him a very human and a very unaffected person. He was very generous in his praise of what I had done, and I may say very deeply interested in what more I could do for him, for which reason he is personally putting all the pressure he can on back in his home town to have me given the aid I need.

If you check back on what that article was about and its leading character, you will soon be able by asking John Hale to identify his present position. And I see that On the Bottom has never hurt me, for Rear Admiral--------, one of his aides, assured his chief that On the Bottom was far and away the most thrilling book he’d ever read himself and advised his chief that if he wanted to read a real classic of the sea, he must read that. After which we talked far into the night on that and similar matters and so to bed. That night I slept in a bed (in what had been one of the major mansions of that town) that I swear was at least eight feet wide with furniture to match. It does seem that (as I’ve seen stated in an official British letter) I have an international reputation for salvage, which our performances so far out here have done nothing to hurt. It’s almost humorous to see how much our performance in lifting that dock has dazzled them from top to bottom. I really ought to get out of here while the shine is still on my reputation, but that wouldn’t help win the war nor keep the ships moving.

Well, now my vacation (?) is about over. It has been cooler for me everywhere I’ve been, and that is something. And I have certainly gained something from meeting all the top brass hats in the British navy in this part of the world, and perhaps they have gained something too, for I’ve promised to do something for them in docking a badly needed damaged cruiser for them when they couldn’t figure out a way to do it themselves in a dock that is smaller than the ship. But we’ll do it.

Right now we are flying over my station and I can look down on my docks, but we are not landing. We are going back into the hills, about a twenty minute ride (by air) to the airfield there and from there I’ll come down by car, about a three hour trip back over a beautiful mountain road that I’ve always enjoyed riding over. And so, sweetheart, that ends this letter, which started about eight hours ago in the shadow of the pyramids.

With much love, Ned

Letter #40

Aug. 13, 1942

Lucy darling:

I am back at my regular station after a ten day trip covering pretty well the northern part of the country to the westward of us. I’m waiting now to see whether I achieved any results in getting men.

On my return, I found that our largest salvage ship with our equipment has just arrived. She’ll be a big help.

I also found on my return that a very ingenious scheme on the part of J D & P to run my salvage work for me in a palace politics sort of way had been undertaken as soon as my back was turned. That I think I squelched yesterday. The fifth columnists are not all resident at home. It would be a great help out here if we could only devote our energies to fighting our official enemies.

I am enclosing a treasury check for $186 endorsed for deposit only. Let me know when you get it.

Meanwhile I have a lot to do today, including chasing a number of rats back into their holes, so this must be brief.

With love, Ned

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