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)

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

Letter #55

Sept. 27, 1942

As usual

Lucy darling:

I have been lucky lately in having received two batches of about five letters each this last week, the first batch perhaps what piled up while I was away from here for four days at headquarters.

The highest numbered letter so far received is #90 of Sept. 5 which arrived here Sept. 25 via home office. The following are the only numbers now missing in your numbered series: 31, 45, and 78. Of these I now learn that 31 and 45 were sent via Captain W, who will not arrive, though the letters ultimately may when his ship gets here.

As regards package receipts, I also received the package containing my new glasses, the package containing the ointment from Jarvis plus the two cigarette lighters; the July issue of Reader’s Digest; the August issue, same; four more copies of Life, complete now from Apr. 13 to July 27, except for July 13 and 20; the silver eagles; and everything previously acknowledge. What is still to come is the book Clara sent, the larger package of clothing, the toastmaster and anything else you may have sent via Captain W or his ship.

I note you have received all checks sent up to $126 sent in letter #57 of Sept. 4 and $130 sent in letter #60 on Sept. 21.

I note also I am liable for income tax on my Navy pay, even here. As fortunately allowances are not included in taxable income, whether home or abroad, neither Army nor Navy, it appears that my taxable Navy income this year will be about $5600. To this will have to be added whatever royalties or dividends I have received in the United States, of which you can make a rough estimate. The dividends will probably not exceed $500 to $700. The royalties may run around $3000 to $4000, even if all fall payments are postponed (as I have an idea they should be). Better have them all postponed (including yours) and if later in the year it appears necessary or desirable to collect, you always can. Even if you do not yet have any idea of October dividends, I’d appreciate receiving immediately a statement of everything I’ve received at home in 1942 in the way of royalties, dividends, or otherwise (if anything). Totals by categories are sufficient; I don’t want a statement itemized by dividends from each company each quarter.

From the above you can also make up a rough check on what your income has been already as compared to mine, and we can see whether the $1500 deductible should be taken by whom or should be split. And this, I think, will do for finances for the present.

(Addenda: It seems to me some kind of tax bill already has been passed for this year. If so, and you can get the rates for individuals, either from the bank or from Ed, I’d appreciate knowing what the present prospect is, even if it’s likely to be changed again after election).

I’m returning Mr. Beard’s letter. It’s grand!

It appears that the British are bent on making me famous (or hated) even in the Axis countries. They gave me a worldwide shortwave broadcast account in English over BBC some six weeks ago. Last Tuesday, over BBC shortwave, they broadcast for ten minutes in German on my exploits here, so I guess Hitler’s Nazis know what at least one American is doing to them. The broadcast was heard here by one of my Swiss mechanics, who told me of it; I didn’t hear it. I suppose the same thing went out also in Italian.

What makes me grin about the whole thing is that after the American radio told the world, the BBC told the world over English shortwave, and then in a German propaganda broadcast made sure the Axis were told where I was and what I was doing, I can’t mention to you in a letter that I’m in Massawa without having some censor excise it as information of value (?) to the enemy. It may be information, but it won’t be of value, after all the U.S. and Great Britain have done to make sure he knows it. Let me know whether my domicile gets excised. (Ed: it wasn’t).

To get along: We had another one of those friendly non-merchant ships in our dock last week, this one named after a certain lady impersonated (when both were young) by Helen Hayes a long time ago, in a play by a certain modern but aged playwright dealing with an ancient theme in a flippant manner. We turned her out in jig time. But what’s interesting about her was that her executive officer, a commander, told me he had an American wife, and on my casually asking where from, it developed she was a Taylor of around Roanoke, Virginia, where she is now in some way connected with Hollins College, where her brother is to some degree a chaplain or a minister or something. She has her two children (boys about 3 and 5 or thereabouts) with her. Her married name is Hopkins. Perhaps Mary knows her.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to play with something else than merchantmen in our dock, and we certainly bolstered up the forces afloat against Mussolini this last month.

In case I failed to mention it before, we finished up the other scuttled Italian drydock about two weeks ago and now have it well up both fore and aft. It was a tougher job than the first one, but it will never create the sensation the first job did. The English here now expect miracles of us, and nothing we do surprises them any more. It will be a sizeable repair job, for five big bombs went off in it and they certainly blew some beautiful holes in its bottom.

As you may have known, a salvage contract was let to a British firm to raise three ships in the inner harbor here, the contract dating from last October. The limey outfit badly bungled their job by pretty well ruining a sunken floating crane they were supposed to raise, without yet lifting it. Then after about six months work on a sunken German ship, they finally floated it some three weeks ago, only to spend all the time since trying to keep it from capsizing on them the way the Normandie did in New York. Finally Friday night, with the ship listed 20º to port and in danger once more of capsizing, the British Admiralty decided it had enough of the contract and cancelled it. We took over at 7:30 PM and I threw a salvage crew aboard to save the ship. We worked all night Friday getting aboard new pumps where they would do the most good, and pumping out the still half flooded holds. By Saturday noon we had her pretty well pumped dry and fairly upright, so today (Sunday) we towed her out from where she had been sunk around to a berth off our naval base where we can repair her. The gang did a good job on pulling that ship out of danger in a hurry, and she makes the second German wreck scuttled here we now have afloat and under refit.

It wasn’t until 3:30 PM this afternoon we finally towed her safely up to her new berth and moored her, and I nearly had heart failure several times on the trip. The pilot (shades of the man on the S-51) hung the wreck up by fouling a mooring buoy cable on the way in, against a patch sealing up one of the holes blasted in the Gera’s side, and so badly did the patch catch on the anchor cable of that mooring buoy that it stopped the tow dead. I was badly afraid the patch would be torn off the hull, to sink the wreck right there in the channel, but with the aid of a couple of tugs pushing sideways, we finally shoved her clear of the buoy with the patch still in place and finished our journey. I’m not sure, before I get through with this business, it might be better for my piece of mind to pilot my own wrecks on their way to their navy yards.

I picked the enclosed pamphlet out of the pilot house of the ship today as we were towing her round. I judge by the pictures and what little I can make of the text, it shows what a Paradise Hitler has made out of Nazi Germany since he took over in 1932, the year when perfection was attained being apparently 1937. Perhaps your German may be good enough to get more real laughs out of it than I could. What tickled me most was the picture on the third page showing the increase in marriages in 1937 as compared with 1932. The joke as I saw it was that in 1932 a gentleman took his bride to the alter in a frock coat and a top hat, but in 1937 (still supposedly in time of peace) he took her there in a uniform. Even the late lamented Prime Minister Chamberlain might have got the significance of that!

Well, anyway, the Nazified skipper of the Gera who left in such a hurry when his ship was scuttled he forgot his propaganda pamphlet, has long since vanished from around here, but the ship is ours and will soon be carrying cargoes intended to help sink Hitler and all his pamphleteers. So I guess the joke is on them.

And now, it being 10 PM after a somewhat strenuous day, I think I’ll turn in, a little tired, a little elated, and a lot lonesome.

With love, Ned

Letter #56

Sept. 28, 1942

As usual

Lucy darling:

I have been rather busy the last four days since my return, and I’m not sure but that I sent a letter or so unnumbered. Maybe not. However, I note on my check sheet #61 was sent Sept. 23 and #62 Sept. 27, while I believe I wrote in between. Perhaps I didn’t. The last five days have been such a whirl, I can’t remember now. However, life is now more down to normal.

You see I got back from Cairo Thursday evening, to learn all the keel blocks on the dock had collapsed under the last cruiser we had on the dock the night before (Wednesday) just before she was undocked. Fortunately the cruiser wasn’t damaged particularly, but the keel blocks were all match sticks and the dock was out of commission with a string of ships in line outside the harbor waiting to be docked. My British dockmaster was running round tearing his hair, and advising the British authorities it would take four to six weeks to replace the blocks. That was the pleasant sight I caught on my return. Well, the dock went back in commission this morning with a new set of blocks I dug up somehow, only four days out of service and another ship was docked this morning. So that’s that.

Then Friday night the British cancelled the contract of a British outfit for salvage here, and an ex-German ship in danger of capsizing was thrown into my lap as a consequence. So on top of the repairs to the dock, I had her to take care of (as I’ve already written you). Today she is riding very nicely at her anchorage off our naval base, practically erect and nearly all freed of water. As I’ve said, the pilot took nearly a hundred years off my expectancy of life by nearly sinking her on me on the way round, but we fooled him and got her in safely. So the Gera added to the spice of life very much this last weekend.

Then of course there was the usual work on our recently salvaged drydock (the second one) to look after, plus the ordinary trials of listening to Americans who think they aren’t paid enough, of firing others who are completely worthless, and getting still others (who are good when they are sober) out of jail after weekend drunks.

However, it is Monday night now and all is calm and peaceful on the shores of the Red Sea. I went down to the waterfront in the night to look over my collection, and we had a most marvelous harbor scene – no moon, but the brilliant stars glowing over the dark water which was absolutely smooth and like a mirror in which was reflected the inverted image of the nearest ship, our first salvage prize, and farther off sparkled the lights of the drydocks, and our other ships. And across the water came in the quiet night the endless throb of the salvage air compressors, still hammering air into the second drydock pontoons. A lovely night – but utterly wasted here alone by your devoted

                                       Ned

PS          Thursday Sept. 29

About 2 AM our quiet night went all to hell. It started to rain (very unusual here) and blow like the devil. Our first ship dragged its anchor down the harbor about half a mile before we could get some tugs alongside and drag her back to a safe anchorage. And our second one parted her stern mooring and swung around on her head mooring till she grounded astern. We’ll have to pull her off at high tide tonight.

Quite an exciting life.

Letter #57

Sept. 30, 1942

Lucy darling:

Quite a dull day today – nothing went wrong anywhere – just routine salvage work afloat and a lot of letters to write recommending various salvage masters and foremen for well-deserved pay increases which I hope they get promptly.

I received several more letters from you today - #78, 91, and 93, and an unnumbered one of Sept. 4 containing only the News of the Week. Yesterday I received #94 and 97. I now have missing 31 and 45, both of which I note you have just remailed; 92, 95 and 96, which last three will shortly be along. While a little spotty, the mail deliveries lately have been excellent, particularly via APO (though the home office ones come through unopened).

I had also a letter from Howard Lewis yesterday in which he mentioned the Herald Trib photo of me, which today I received from you taken “somewhere in Egypt,” to be specific, in front of the gentleman’s headquarters whose picture appeared next to mine. Interestingly enough, Howard Lewis took note of the wrist watch showing in the picture, which except for his mention of it, I should never have noticed. Odd how you came first to see that picture. Even as a newspaper picture, it’s a better likeness than that retouched photo I got in the same city and sent you.

I received also today the new head for the electric razor, which has promptly gone into service. I’m very much obliged for its speedy delivery. I received also the package from Carroll’s in S. W. Harbor of the prickly heat ointment, which just now I don’t need (and I hope I never shall again). The one from Jarvis’ came a few days ago. I’ve given some of that to one of my salvage masters, Bill Reed, who still has a severe case under his armpits and on his sides. I hope it helps him.

I also received another copy of Life, which takes me through July 27. Also as previously mentioned, my glasses and the cigarette lighters have come. I note you have received all checks I sent through #48 enclosing a check for $186. Since then I have sent a check for $126 in #57 (which I note you have) of Sept. 4 and another for $130 in #60 of Sept. 20.

I was happy to know of your visit to the Hastings and I hope when next you write, you’ll give them both my love and my thanks for all they’ve done down through the years for you, for Mary, and for me.

Thanks for many clippings, particularly the ones on the Yorktown lost at Midway. Her captain, Elliot Buckmaster, was a classmate of mine (Ed: he was class of 1912, USNA, and survived). And the cartoon by Gluyas Williams of the exodus from the Navy Dept. Bldg. at quitting time is rich in its appreciation of the nuances of rank and manner of Army, Navy and civilian staffs. The three snooty ensigns in the middle foreground are particularly true to life.

Answering various questions, I have received several letters from mother (three, I think). One came a couple of days ago.

You mentioned in letter 81 that you had received the first sheet only of an unfinished letter I wrote on July 23, the letter numbered 48. I enclose the second sheet of that letter (which is also unfinished) which second sheet I found just now among my papers. It never was lost – I didn’t send it originally because I felt it was rather bitter. I can’t say the case is much different as regards these people, except that I believe I have forced them into more of a hands off attitude. You might try matching this second sheet up with what you have of the letter.

As regards what you ask on censorship, those via Mr. D or home office come through unopened; most of those via APO are opened but it has been a long time since anything was cut out (except in some newspaper clippings).

It’s nearly October now and that should be fall, but it’s still what elsewhere would be called hot around here. However, I’m glad to note that the British prophets who knew that September would fade us all away, were wrong as usual, as they were in May, June, July, and August. I think now they’ve given up expecting to see us fold up in the heat and retire to the bar to hoist in mixed drinks all day long instead of working, as seems to be the British custom “east of Suez.”

I certainly can raise a thirst around here, but lots of cold water and plenty of salt tablets seem to be the best quenchers.

With love, Ned

Letter #58

October 4, 1942

As usual

Sunday evening

Lucy dearest:

I am just in after four days in the south harbor, and have brought in with me another German ship with our flag flying once again over the Nazi ensign.

This vessel, a larger sister of the first German ship we raised, was a somewhat more difficult task than the first one as she lay in deeper water and had two more holes blasted in her side when she was scuttled. We have been working on her since July 16.

We went out Thursday morning to start pumping operations, and about midnight that day we had her off the bottom. Friday we had her fairly well afloat with some hopes of bringing her in Saturday morning, but we caught a storm Friday afternoon and had a devil of a time.

She had been scuttled fourth in a line of seven ships, so that when she came up, her bow was close aboard the wreck ahead, and her stern hardly came clear of the wreck astern by 10 feet. When the storm hit, her stern mooring lines (which had been submerged a year and a half and were much deteriorated in consequence) promptly broke and her stern went adrift. With some luck and hurried use of the salvage ships as tugs, we barely missed by inches crashing the wreck astern and then managed to maneuver her bow off the wreck ahead. About that time, the manila hawsers to the tugs broke and she drifted down wind toward a reef to leeward. We got new lines aboard just before she hit the reef and then with two tugs towing in tandem, I managed to hold her off till the storm eased off. Talk about Scylla and Charybdis! We had three instead of two to dodge and for two hours we were hanging on to the Frauenfels hardly getting clear of one danger before another loomed up under our prize.

But finally we got her free of all of them and into deeper water free of obstructions where we could safely moor, and there we lay the rest of Friday and all day Saturday while we finished pumping out our waterlogged wreck and straightening her up.

This morning (Sunday), a gorgeous day in the Red Sea, we got underway with her with three tugs towing. She was quite a sight, all barnacles and oyster shells from bridge to waterline, but she was ours, and we felt very proud of her as we dragged her home into the naval harbor with our flag streaming beautifully out at her masthead and the whistles of the other ships there blowing a welcome to their risen sister.

We have had a very profitable two weeks in the salvage fleet. Within that time we have finished diving operations and brought up the second Italian drydock, the ship we just brought in, and another ship we took over in dangerous condition from the British salvors (of which I have previously written). Now our naval harbor is getting so crowded with the results of our salvage work, I’ll have difficulty finding berths for more till some of those on hand are refitted and sent away.

My workmen haven’t come yet, but they are promised and should be here inside of another two weeks. Meanwhile we are hanging on by our eyebrows so far as repair work is concerned, struggling along with our scanty force of Americans, most of whom (in language which has no smile behind it) I am almost daily accused by the contractor of having stolen from his construction forces. God knows the symbol J D P means nothing happy in my life, but soon I hope I can be independent of them and their underhanded plotting every time my back is turned a few days.

Tonight I can crawl into a real bed and sleep after four days out on the wreck sleeping (occasionally) on a mattress spread on the bridge in the open beneath the tropic stars. However, the nights out there were wonderfully beautiful, the weather (except for one storm) was fine and pleasant at night and as I didn’t sleep much anyway, the mattress served all right. We worked, of course, stripped to the waist as usual, for maximum comfort, but the afternoon of the storm it rained hard, and for the first time since I’ve been in Massawa, I really felt cold. But on the whole, the weather now is definitely cooler than it has been and we are not continuously soaked in perspiration any more.

Tonight when I got in, I found two letters from you, #98 and 99, waiting for me, my most welcome greeting of any I got.

With much love, Ned

Letter #59

Oct. 6, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

I received your letter #92 today sent from Willimantic Sept. 8. This came via APO. Their service is rather erratic, inasmuch as 94, 97, 98 and 99, all sent the same way, arrived some days ago. The present missing list is 31 and 45 (both explained) and 95 and 96, which last two will no doubt soon arrive.

At the moment, affairs around here are rather quiet. Our newly salvaged wrecks are swinging gently to their moorings in our naval harbor, high out of water and looking quite imposing with their steep sides. The crews of the salvage ships which had them in hand are getting a rest before tackling the next job, which the British salvors here failed most miserably in lifting and recommended “demolition” as the only solution. I remember how the late lamented Tibbals voiced the same thought as the only method of ever lifting the S-51, but I intend to work now on this wreck with the identical method, pontoons, used to lift the S-51. We haven’t previously here tried that method, but it seems to fit this case, and perhaps we can give our British friends another lesson in how to lift a wreck when conventional methods seem impossible.

I’ve had several letters from Mary, but none written since she went back to college. The last one was after your return from Boston.

The enclosed came today from Dr. Salvati. Real humor, I think. But I can tell you decent tires are as scarce in this vicinity as they probably are at home. That beautiful spare he was eyeing enviously still reposes “somewhere in Egypt.” I wish I had it here myself.

However quiet it may get around here in a salvage way, there is nevertheless always plenty of personnel trouble to keep one on edge. Workmen getting rich hand over fist are forever grouching because they aren’t paid enough, and running an opera company loaded with prima donnas must be a simple task compared with dealing with my patriotic working force (not all of them, thank Heaven, but a large enough group to make me sick of the meanness of mankind). God only knows what they think this war is about.

With love, Ned

Letter #60

Oct. 8, 1942

As usual

Lucy sweetheart:

I am mailing my Christmas cards early this year, since there is no telling how long delivery may take. I had half a dozen of these taken when last I was “somewhere in Egypt” and they’ve just arrived here.

Darling, I hope this may be the last Christmas we’ll ever spend apart, as it is the first since we’ve been married. How much I’ll miss not being with you and Mary and helping decorate Mary’s tree, I can’t express.

The photographer wanted me to smile a bit, but I’m afraid I couldn’t. I’ll have nothing to smile over till I’m homeward bound.

Lovingly, Ned

PS I’m sending others to Mary, my mother, your family, and Clara.

Letter #61

October 12, 1942

As usual

Lucy darling:

Your long missing letters, #31 and 45, together with Nina’s letter of July 12, have arrived at last!

But all the fruit juices, etc., that were to have come along with Capt. Whiteside are still slowly somewhere poking along, and may get here by Christmas, I hope. And the same goes for the Toastmaster. Meanwhile, I am curious to know why Whiteside left his ship. What’s the reason?

At the present moment, the latest letter I have received is #100, which came three days ago. The only missing number now is #95. All the others from #1 to 100 are here. In #96, you sent the dividend records. I’ll study them. For the present, I agree with you it’s best to defer all the further royalty payments. In case the situation changes later in the year, you can still ask for them.

My per diem check for $180 for the month of September I am keeping here as a fund for current expenses and as a reserve in case I need some cash. Consequently, I shall not send any check this month from here.

As regards the junk in the garage of which you ask, the several long bent steel bars were part of the hammock swing which has long since vanished. They can go. The tire chains may be useful yet.

It will interest you to know the last dozen or so letters here via APO have arrived unopened – all of them, whether yours or Mary’s.

I enclose a copy of a letter just received here from the Commander in Chief, Mediterranean, via our own general. It is very gratifying to me to see that our work here is so much appreciated, and particularly that the C. in C. states specifically where he feels the credit belongs. This is one place in the Middle East where we have produced some very concrete results – a particularly outstanding achievement when one considers most of the work was done in summer weather that both the Italians and the British were accustomed to regard as unlivable. I’ll bet it cost me sweat enough to have floated one of those cruisers mentioned by the C. in C. But it was worth it – this station, half finished though it is, has already done its bit in the war.

With love, Ned

Here is the text of the letter:

Office of Commander-in-Chief,

Mediterranean Station

R. N. GHQ

M.E.F.

28^th September 1942

Dear General

It gives me great pleasure to forward to you the following message which has been received from the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean: -

For General Maxwell from C-in-C. Med.

          “Very many thanks for splendid work done recently

          at Massawa. Quick dockings of over 50 Merchant Ships,

          raising both Italian docks and emergency dockings of

          three cruisers were great achievements, and I know largely

          due to ELLSBERGS own great energy. Damage caused

          in last docking was a risk we accepted and I am glad it

          was not more serious. Please congratulate ELLSBERG and

          all his staff.”

                                                          Yours sincerely,

                                                          /sd. H. R. Norman

                                                          Commodore, R. N.

Major General Maxwell

U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East

Cairo.

Letter #62

October 16, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

I note by a birthday card and note (unnumbered), sent from South Hadley, Sept. 30, you are visiting Clara. Yesterday I received another (also not numbered) (rather a first) birthday card from Westfield dated Sept. 18; though both were addressed the same way exactly, they arrived practically together. Thanks for the cards. I hope when my birthday comes around, I’ll remember it myself.

Mary sent me a birthday gift the other day, marked not to open till my birthday. Since that’s over a month off yet, I trust I can restrain myself till then.

The present score on letters is that the latest one is still #100 of Sept. 22, with only #95 missing. (Two unnumbered birthday cards as above, in addition).

Sometimes I wish I had an artistic temperament (and license) like Greta Garbo’s, for then with her, I think I could say,

          “Ay tank ay go home now!”

when what was going on didn’t suit her.

I have written you occasionally of my difficulties, which unfortunately do not decrease. I have not yet received the promised help from the British, though all the time it dangles before me like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, just out of reach. I have promises, radios, contracts to sign, quarters to prepare for them and God knows how much work for them to do, but inertia and red tape have so far given me everything but the men. Now I have hopes that in perhaps two weeks more I shall have them, but hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and I have had endless deferment.

And then my few American workmen. A more undisciplined and mercenary lot (not all, but most of them) you never saw. My heart aches for the few supervisors, who like myself have their souls wrapped up in what they are trying to do for their country, who have to deal with that lot of overpaid, rapacious bandits who are forever demanding more money and at their own sweet wills jumping their jobs till their demands are met.

And finally the JDP crowd up the hill. What sins of my past life I must have committed to have that gang of conspirators inflicted on me, I cannot imagine!

Last Monday (in #67) (Ed: #61 above, due to error in numbering) I wrote you, enclosing a letter of commendation sent me by our general from the C. in C., Mediterranean, lauding my “great achievements” here, and specifically listing them and me as mostly responsible for the results obtained. That letter flamed through the dismal atmosphere round here like the rising sun, for there at least was concrete appreciation for what my struggles had done to help win the war.

Still treading a little on air from that, I came to my office Tuesday morning, and hardly had I seated myself at my desk, when one of my salvage captains rushed in, mad as a hornet, to tell me I’d better get down on the next floor to the JDP office at once where a scandalous trick was being perpetrated.

I went, to find there all my other salvage officers gathered before a JDP executive who was just passing round the letter I enclose.

I got a copy, read it and got the shock of my life. There in plain terms, was JDP’s order appointing one of my salvage captains, Edison Brown, to my job!

I immediately asked Brown if he was any party to that scheme, and he claimed no. (I don’t believe him). At any rate, I ordered him and every one of them back to their ships, with the flat statement that no man should pay the slightest attention to that order. They all went, though all the others told me if Brown was put in charge, they would all quit.

I told the JDP man the order was waste paper and would be obeyed by nobody, and any attempt on Brown’s part to take charge would promptly get him in serious trouble. And with that I left him, to take the so-called order up the hill to the military commander of this country.

He told me he had no knowledge of that order, and it was of course unauthorized and void.  What action he can or will take to bring JDP to heel for such a scandalous attempt I do not know. I don’t hope for much. But meanwhile the morale of my salvage force is once more all shot to hell. If Hitler or Mussolini were paying agents to cause trouble in Massawa, they could not have done a finer job of it than the highly paid (by the American taxpayer) JDP executives.

So there I am. Unlike Greta Garbo, I don’t think I’ll go home. I’m going to stay right here and do my job in spite of every underhanded trick that JDP can think of. I’ll beat them because my task requires it, and both hell and Massawa will freeze over before they get away with what they’re trying.

Ned

Here is the text of the letter:

October 10, 1942

To: The Area Engineer

      Eritrean Field Area

      Asmara, Eritrea

From: G. M. Gaussa, Foreign Manager

Subject: General Superintendent in Charge of Salvage Work

               Attention: Lt. Col. Ralph E. Knapp

1.      Effective Tuesday, October 13, 1942, Captain Eddison (sic) Brown

is appointed General Superintendent of Salvage Work under Directive #2.

2.      Captain Brown will be in charge of all personnel, and equipment engaged in the Salvage Work, and will be in complete charge and will direct Salvage Operations.

/sd G. M. Gaussa

Foreign Manager

cc: Captain Ellsberg,

      Lt. Gallagher,

      C.A. Nelson,

      P. Murphy

      Captain Brown

      William Reed

      Captain Hanson

      Captain Byglin

      Higgins

      Mahoney

      Gaussa

      Central File 

Letter #63

Oct. 18, 1942

Sunday afternoon

As usual

Lucy darling:

Usually I never get a chance to write except evenings, but this afternoon I have things well enough under control to take the afternoon off for that purpose. Not that Sunday is ever a day of rest here – today we’re docking a couple of ships and working on two other salvage jobs, but at any rate I have them all rolling well enough to leave both docks and wrecks a few hours.

I am enclosing some photographs of our latest ship salvage job (of which I wrote you before) taken by one of my men. We lifted this ship Oct. 1 and towed her into port Oct. 4, on which day these pictures were taken. I am enclosing seven snapshots, of which three are pictures of me taken on the bridge that day, and the other four are various shots of the ship or parts of it, including her mainmast redecorated according to the ideas of the salvage forces here as to how the Nazi banner should be displayed.

You’ll get a little better view of these snapshots if you look at them through a magnifying glass, and I think if you get Jarvis to make you enlargements of a couple of those of me, you’ll get a better idea of what I look like now, from salt-soaked shoes (they were once my most expensive pair of French-Shriner & Urner’s), thru Banded-Aided shins and that Camel cigarette with which I am steadying my nerves (Ed: EE smoked eight packs a day in Massawa, but told Lucy that he only smoked four so she wouldn’t worry!) (Camels can use this for an ad, it’s really so, provided they kick in with one thousand bucks for the privilege), to my four shilling sun helmet (regulation British army issue.)

If you look carefully, you’ll observe the absence of both double chin and bay window, which (together with the inner consciousness of a job well done) are the only compensations I’ve received for having to stand the strain of salvage work in this hell hole of creation.

Let me know how the pictures come thru, and what luck, if any you have with enlargements in showing up details.

Several more letters have lately arrived, #102, 103, 104, & 105 (the latest number now), with only #95 and 101 still missing. (This does not include two unnumbered birthday cards nor a round robin letter from the bridge club (also unnumbered).

To answer various queries:

I did send my mother myself one of those postcards, which she should certainly have by now. Consequently, if your sending her one leaves you short, you might ask her to return yours when she gets mine.

My birthday box from you arrived day before yesterday with letter #103, very quick delivery. Thank your family for the cigarette lighter, which is much better than what I had, and is already in use. I am also much obliged to you for the handkerchiefs, which give me now quite a stock, and I won’t need any more for a long time. (I hope I don’t stay here long enough ever to need any more). The book I think I’ll get to some day, God knows when, however. I now have The Moon is Down, which I haven’t looked at yet, The Unvanquished (same), and some day there may arrive a book you said Clara had sent me. These should last me for the rest of my stay here. Please don’t let anyone send me any more books. I’d rather have a box of cigars or a can of orange juice or just their good wishes on a postcard. Thank Bob and Gladys Palmer for the camera filter. I have one already (which came with the camera) so theirs is useless to me, only don’t tell them so. I can give it to some one else who may use it.

I’m sorry to say it, but there is very little any one can send me that’s worth to me the trouble they go to in sending it, and what I need is mostly very prosaic. I could use half a dozen khaki colored socks (knee length) for wear with shorts, size 10 ½, but they must be thin or they are no good to me. I can get thick ones here by the dozens, but all they do is squeeze my toes by making my shoes too small. I could use the Realsilk underwear I once wrote you of, both drawers and shirts. This climate is hell on underwear. If anyone feels so inclined, I could use a pair of captain’s shoulder marks (line) to replace the pair I lost when my shirt was torn off my back in that accident during the drydock salvage I wrote you of. As regards other clothes, I should have more than enough, when, if, and as the late lamented Whiteside tub ever arrives. I could use a good small magnifying glass, pocket size. I could use a decent metal wrist watch strap to fit my Movado watch, width of strap, 9/16 of an inch. It must be non-corrosive, chrome plated or something similar. A leather or canvas strap lasts me about three weeks before the sweat eats up the buckle and destroys both canvas or leather. I guess I’ve used up about eight such since I’ve been here, and I wouldn’t mind trying something more permanent. The circumference of my wrist is 71/8 inches.

I could use another pair of sunglasses. You know what happened to Carl Fuller’s Polaroids. (But I don’t want any more of those anyway, only don’t tell Carl). Then I used (and smashed) several pairs of very expensive other makes. Then Kandel sent me a pair of American Optical Co.’s Cool-Rays, which were grand, and I used them constantly, until about a month ago he sent me out another pair of the same for spares, after which within a week I lost the pair I had, and I had promptly to start using the last set, which are all I now have. Before I lose or smash them, I’d appreciate another pair for reserves. I enclose the circular on them. If anyone wants to send me a pair of them (no others wanted) they’ll be appreciated. (Tortoise shell or similar frame only, no metallic frame wanted). I could use a small six-inch, vest-pocket size, slide rule. I have one now, but if I should lose it, I can’t get another here, and I’m afraid I’d have to go out of the salvage business, since I’ve long since forgotten how to multiply or divide in my head. (A six inch slide rule means six inches in overall length – the scale is only about five inches long). Maybe most people don’t know it, but a slide rule is more important in raising a ship than pumps, air compressors, or pontoons.

I could use a decent mechanical pencil with plenty of leads for it. (Something substantial, nothing fancy). Next to a slide rule, a good mechanical pencil is the most important item of equipment in lifting a wreck. And include plenty of erasers to fit it, for even a real salvage expert occasionally makes mistakes! (I don’t dare make any just now, for the only eraser I ever had for my present ten cent pencil has long since worn out).

And that’s about all I can think of now. Anything which can possibly be sent first class (even in a small package in a large envelope) should go that way. Packages by parcel post in general will get here in time for the next war.

Meanwhile, everything I’ve ever received has been acknowledged. If something isn’t acknowledged, it hasn’t arrived.

As regards Mike, the sooner Mary crosses him off her list completely and never sees him again, the better I’ll like it and the better off she’ll be. But I hesitate to say anything whatever to her on that subject (and I haven’t) for fear it may work in reverse. You’re closer, and you use your own judgment. My own opinion is that of all the boys Mary knows, I have the lowest opinion of his ability and of his personality. When on top of that, he has a record of being inclined to drinking, it’s just too much.

I’m glad to know you had a visit from Tsuya. She is one of the grandest persons I’ve ever known, and I hope you are able to see her more than once a year.

Sorry to know you locked yourself out of the La Salle. There is a key hidden under the hood, and not hard to get at if you know where to look (or, better still, have some man do the looking and extracting). Lift the right side hood, but it is heavy and I don’t recommend your trying to unlatch and lift it. You will notice a tape of heavy canvas edging the after right side of the radiator casing where the front edge of the hood seats. Just about on the line where the horizontal hinge of the hood normally seats, the key is slipped under the canvas tape, giving a slight bulge there to the tape. The key is wrapped completely up in some black tire tape, so that it does not show up as a key, but simply as a flat black thin object tucked under the canvas tape on the radiator casing. Push this object out from under the canvas tape, unwrap the black tire tape, and there is your key, thus: (Ed: what follows is a diagram of the above with the quote: “Oh goodie, won’t have to walk home!” next to it).

Better look into this now, discover the key, PUT IT BACK, and then next time you need it, there it is.

I am glad you are having additional storm windows and doors put on the house. They always help. About the cannel coal and the grate, I’m dubious. Where heat is being supplied even partly by radiators, I suspect a fireplace draws more warm air out of a room and sends it up the chimney than it supplies from its own combustion. Especially is this true in the evening after the grate fire has been allowed to die down and you’ve gone to bed. The chimney damper cannot be closed, or you’d literally choke yourself to death with smoke and gas fumes even from a nearly out fire, so the heat of the room continues merrily to roll on up the chimney all night long. Now when a grate fire or a fireplace fire is used only as an ornament to more gracious living as in pre-Hitlerian days, all this is allowable – you merely make your furnace burn more oil early next morning to reheat the room. But if you are trying to save oil, I don’t think the fireplace is a help. I hate to throw cold water on your cannel coal, but I doubt if it’s a help. However, you can see.

A better answer might be to have gas installed in the furnace if you can. I’ve always felt it much more expensive than oil, but if you find you can’t keep warm on the oil you can get, never mind the expense – the gas is worth it. But lay off coal – I don’t want you firing any furnaces or shoveling ashes. However, don’t let them sell you a new gas furnace on the plea it’s more efficient; have a gas burner put in the present furnace. The added efficiency you’ll get out of a new furnace won’t pay for itself in the next ten years, and before then we’ll be swimming in oil.

I’ve got my salvage forces calmed down somewhat now and back at work in what looks like a proper state of subordination, but I’m afraid it’s only on the surface. The army officers in command in this area do not see the seriousness of the situation, probably because they do not appreciate fully what is involved, naval affairs being rather out of their sphere. Whether I’ll get complete support is dubious, so I’m uncertain that a decisive order that will stop this continual intriguing of JDP with one of my salvage masters will be issued. As regards our general, he’s so far away he might as well be home so much as my ability really to discuss the situation with him is concerned, and unfortunately the JDP crowd can take the time to fly there at their own sweet will to tell him what they please, while I’m restricted to official channels for letters (which are useless) and can’t very well leave here for a conference without trouble here while I’m gone. The first time I went to Cairo, JDP seized the occasion to spring their first attempt to supplant me. And the last time I went, I was unable to get transportation back for two days after my business was over, so I was unable to get back as I had intended in time to undock myself a British cruiser we had in the dock when I left, and one of my supposedly expert civilian associates dropped her off the keel blocks onto the floor of the dock, damaging her bottom. That’s what I came back to the night I returned from Cairo. It nearly broke my heart.

It is that accident the C in C Mediterranean referred to in his letter which I forwarded to you in #67 (if you ever got it unscathed). Fortunately the damage, which might have been terrific, turned out only to be trivial, as the C in C took occasion to inform me in another dispatch, but to have such a scandalous accident happen on the drydock still hurts me inwardly, even if the damage wasn’t anything much.

So there I am. I can’t leave here again to go to see the general or anything, for fear of what may happen in my absence. I’ve just got to stay here and fight it out, with only as Lincoln put it, “Faith in the right as God gives us to see the right,” and the belief I have as always, that the other man will crack before I do.

I am very concerned about your getting someone to live with you, now it is certain Catherine isn’t going to. It will be fine if Nina can, but I’m dubious about that even if she gets a government job in New York. I know Nina well enough to know she’ll spend every cent she makes (and Marty’s also) to live in New York the minute she gets her first salary check. So I would suggest you look around for someone else – perhaps some school teacher.

For all the reasons you mention, I should hate to have you close the house and go live elsewhere. There really is something very real in that song about keeping the home fires burning (even if it is only that cannel coal I’m dubious of), and the feeling that I have a home to come back to means something out here. The same, I’m sure, applies to Mary.

As regards Mr. Flanagan, I’m afraid he’s dreaming if he thinks any canned goods were ever placed by him on any ship especially for me. Be specific about the name of the ship – she arrived long ago and there can be no need of any secrecy about it any longer. If it’s the ship I think he means, on which one of the crew had an accident after it got here, I can only say that ship arrived all right, with thousands of cases of canned fruit juices and other canned goods, all consigned en toto to the army, and not a can for me, according to her purser. That’s the ship you went with me to San Diego to inspect. She’s still here, of course, and both her captain and her purser say Mr. Flanagan has mistaken his good intentions for his actual deeds. If it is any other ship, tell me her name and I’ll check up. If it is that ship from San Diego, let him say in whose care or how he consigned what he’s talking about.

As regards the accident he mentions, a diver (and a good one, I’m told) who came out on her stumbled across a high voltage wire in a power station ashore here, and was nearly electrocuted, burning one hand so badly it will probably never be useable. And that before he ever made a dive here, which of course, now he never will.

Respecting the food here, it’s safe enough. I get my own breakfast, all from the supplies showered on me by Captain Madden whom I once wrote you of, whom I rescued from the heat aboard his ship. It’s always the same – canned tomato juice, grapenuts, shredded wheat, or cornflakes with canned milk (detestable stuff) and coffee (yours) with no cream but plenty of sugar. Lunch and dinner (the latter at the fashionable hour of eight) I get at the Royal Navy Officer’s Mess here. They have a lovely verandah projecting out over the sea on which we dine (provided by the late Italians).

The arrangements here are quite ideal. We do all the work (I mean exactly that) and the Royal Navy (which has nothing to do here) is in possession of all the amenities. The British captain here lives in the ex-Italian admiral’s house on a lovely point surrounded by the sea; the British officers have the mess building formerly belonging to the Italians. Now I have a very comfortable room (in a building we converted from an office building) set safely back from the sea in the middle of a hot plain, and we have no mess or recreation facilities at all of our own, but we are guests in the British mess hall.

On one thing, however, we have the edge – we own all the air-conditioning equipment here and they get none of it. I don’t shed any tears at all if they swelter while I sleep in comfort.

About the water, that’s safe enough, too. We drink only bottled water from up in the hills, though frankly, the city water here is, I think, safe too. The whole town, including the English, mostly drink that and they have no troubles.

As a commentary on how busy I am between salvage and ship repairs, you may not believe this, but it’s true. Among my other acquisitions, I have a huge evaporating plant left by the Italians which is running under my command at this base, and on which I know I could do wonders in improving production over the Italian system, and I haven’t even spent 10 minutes in it yet to see what it needs to convert it to Evaporator Bills’s methods. And over in the town there’s another one, even bigger, which I could have if I wanted it, and I haven’t even been over to look at it! Some day, when I get a vacation, I’ll relax redesigning both of them. (Ed: Ellsberg developed, but did not patent, the submerged-coil type low-pressure evaporator system on the U.S.S. Raleigh and the U.S.S. Denver in 1923, and published an article about his method).

Yes, I got the last V-mail you sent - #70 of Aug. 9, mailed from Southwest Harbor. It came in an envelope something like what the telephone bills come in. I hope it is the last V-mail letter I’ll get so long as the regular mail goes through.

And now, it being about 11 PM, I’ll close this letter which I started about 2 PM (with time out for dinner). 16 pages is a fair days’ work for any author (better than my daily average of ten).

One last word about the bridge club letter. Give them all my thanks, and it was a pleasure to read their notes – even including Sid’s, where it took me ten minutes to decipher each word (twenty minutes on “apotheosis”). But your note ending it was best of all. I’m glad I married a girl who is unlucky at cards.

Lovingly, Ned

Letter #64

Oct. 19, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

Your letter #106 of Oct. 2 from Springfield arrived today, in which you said you had received nothing from here in two weeks. No period such as that has elapsed between letters sent. #58 of Sept. 9 you have mentioned receiving. #59 went Sept. 15; #60 Sept. 21; and with the exception of a gap of six days between #63 and #64, there has been no period exceeding four days between letters.

The trouble is probably the mail service, not the state of my health, which is excellent as usual. Now that the maximum summer heat is passed, I expect even less liability to illness. I haven’t had a sick day since I’ve been here, and since my habits are temperate, I suppose that will continue, especially since I never dine around in any public restaurants.

My last salvage ship was last heard from in the American port where Whiteside left her. She may be on her way, but I have no definite word that she has even left there nor when. I’ll expect her when I see her, and that goes also for the toaster and the rest of my clothes.

I notice your letter #106 was written the day after we lifted Frauenfels and were engaged in straightening her up in a storm. We had a devil of a time that day dodging wrecks and shoals with our waterlogged derelict. I sent you seven pictures yesterday dealing with that subject.

In #66 of Oct. 8 I sent you a Christmas card photograph of myself taken when I was last “somewhere in Egypt,” and in letter #60 of Sept. 21 I sent you a check for $130 from the same spot. That, I think, is the only check you have not yet acknowledged, but that letter couldn’t have reached you when your #106 was written.

I commented in my letter of yesterday about the improbability of Nina’s ever staying out of New York if she could ever earn, beg, or borrow the money to finance living there, so don’t count on her. I hope you can find someone else, but failing that I suggested you see if you couldn’t get one of the Westfield school teachers to move in.

I wrote you yesterday (#69 – Ed. #63) quite the longest letter I have ever sent from here, so this one must be brief to let me catch up on some other matters.

With love, Ned

Letter #65

Oct. 23, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

Two days ago, I received four letters from you - #95 of Sept. 14 via home office (probably your last that way); #108 of Oct. 7; 109 of Oct. 9; and a letter (unnumbered) of Oct. 10 containing a birthday card. All these came Oct. 21.

In #108, you asked to be informed as to whether the air mail stamp you put on it hurried delivery over regular mail. The answer is as always, no. Air mail stamps are just a waste of whatever the extra cost is. Here it was well illustrated by the fact that #108 & #109 which both bore air mail stamps were delivered at the same time as the unnumbered letter of Oct. 10 which bore only a regular stamp, but which was mailed 3 days after #108 and one day after #109.

At the present time, #109 is the highest number yet received. Those missing are #101 and 107.

About my being in better health than when I left home, I think it proves only that I’m getting a lot of outdoor exercise and have worked off a lot of excess weight, which is a benefit. I still weigh about 149 lbs., at which point I seem stabilized. It doesn’t prove home life didn’t agree with me, but only that a desk job didn’t and never has.

About the missing whisk broom in the Lewis & Conger package, it doesn’t make any difference. I have one, which must have come in my second trunk.

I note you are sending me another book, “West With the Night.” Thanks, but I mentioned the other day I read very little, and had enough on hand to last me the rest of my stay. Please don’t bother to send any more.

I did read “The Moon is Down” two nights ago, it being a rather short book. It interested me mainly because I’m sitting on the other side of the fence from Steinbeck’s hero – I’m the colonel, so to speak, in “Occupied Enemy Territory” who is sent into a conquered country with orders (figuratively) to get out the maximum amount of coal that can be obtained from the local mines, and to see that the conquered inhabitants (the Italians in this case) produce their quota.

So I read with some attention Steinbeck’s account of the colonel and his staff, from his major down thru the captains to the two young lieutenants, who gradually went all to hell from the animosity engendered by their efforts to force a conquered village to work.

I won’t agree, of course, that the two cases are wholly similar, but perhaps to some Italians they might seem so. I don’t go around armed, though some of my officers do. I’ve had to send some Italians to concentration camps for refusal to work and some for suspected sabotage, but nobody has been shot (yet) for anything and I don’t expect anybody is going to be.

Most of the Italians here aren’t fascists and have no heart for Mussolini’s schemes of conquest, so to them there isn’t anything really distressing in the present situation. But to the minority who are fascists (and still out of concentration camps) I suppose there seems little difference between me and the Colonel Lanser of whom Steinbeck writes. However, there is at least a wide difference between us in the methods we employ in obtaining our rather similar objectives – work from a conquered populace. And it might seem odd back home to some to know that I have far less trouble in getting cooperation from the conquered Italians than I do from the American company that is supposed to be the servant of our government in this undertaking.

I read also with close attention, Rear Admiral Rowcliff’s article on the Airplane and the Battleship, which you sent me. It is a clear enough presentation and an instructive one for those who want to be instructed (but they are few). I wonder who Rowcliff thought his readers would be? The average American has changed a lot if even now, he’ll spend the time really to study such an article.

I note you’ve fired up your cannel coal grate and have the living room up to 70º F. Such is life! At considerable expense, I manage to keep the temperature of my living room down to 80º F.

I suppose the grate is a good idea for cool days when you haven’t really to push the furnace. Well, it’s pleasant anyway to look at.

Sorry to hear of all your troubles over the thermostat clock. I hope ultimately you get ours back! If ever you do, (or a satisfactory substitute) be careful you get and keep it in the proper day and night cycle, and don’t imitate Rose Morgan in cooling her house in the daytime and heating it at night.

From the clippings you’ve sent me, the new tax bill does look as if it is going to be a crusher. It still annoys me lots to know however, that our nouveaux riche (correct?), the artisan who is patriotically doing his bit for fantastic wages plus overtime on Saturdays and Sundays, is going to let the rest of us hold up his end on the tax burden.

To get back to heat a moment, I notice you talk about setting the thermostat to 65º. I’m afraid that’s too cold for your health. Better try 68º, and with all the storm sash you are having, I should think you could maintain it without undue oil consumption.

I am very sorry for your father’s sake to learn he failed of reelection – a real hurt difficult to swallow when he knows he really did a wonderful job for the town (Ed: Willimantic, CT), and is so rewarded for it. As ever, I know he’ll take it without complaint or self-pity, but as you say, it puts your family in a tough spot. Without question, they’ll need help soon if they don’t right now. For your father’s self-respect, I do hope he finds something else to do, but as a practical matter, some dollars regularly every month are going to mean a whole lot more than oceans of sympathy, however real it may be. Will you please look into this to see what he needs, and so far as we are able, send it regularly.

Perhaps it may have been explained in one of the two yet missing letters, but I did not get the reference to “that picture of you which the United Campaign is using.” What picture of me? And I’m a little curious as to how they’re using it to persuade our fellow citizens to “give generously to the fund.”

With love, Ned

Letter #66

Oct. 24, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

The letter from Rose Ackerson (Ed: a neighbor in Westfield, NJ) which you mentioned as mailing Oct. 8 arrived today. It would have given the censor a laugh had he ever seen it, especially the P.S. addressed to him, but for some reason not a letter coming thru APO for several weeks has been opened by any censor. However, I laughed over it, especially over the sketch at the heading which is quite alluring. You just tell Rose I haven’t seen a pink cheeked girl since I left Westfield, let alone any pink cheeked mermaids. They do have some gorgeously colored fish tails that I’ve seen around here on my wanderings below, but unfortunately they weren’t topped by anything more seductive than goggle-eyed fish – one might as well stay on the surface.

I did gather from Rose’s letter some more detailed information about the war chest circular. However, I am curious to know just what picture of me was used to illustrate what a headache I was to the Axis.

You tell Rose that if she has started to write poetry, then she’s even more cracked than I had previously given her credit for being. Tell her to stick to kidding her friends – there’s more in it.

The rest of the day’s news wasn’t so intriguing as Rose’s letter. No letter from you – that always makes the day seem dark. Then a dispatch saying I could expect the ex-Whiteside tub about the middle of February! I could hardly believe my eyes, but they read aright. The middle of February! And I had thought I was being overly pessimistic when I had set Christmas as the probable date! She is to stay for repairs at the island to which John Paul (Ed: Jones) fled with Tom Folger’s aid (after he skipped the Betsey) until about Dec. 15, when she is expected to proceed again. What a crew, what a crew! Find out for me, if you can, from Mr. Dixon what the devil is and has been the matter with her from the start and write me fully about it. Don’t worry about the censor.

Meanwhile, if thru Mr. Dixon you can get my clothes and the rest of the things put aboard for me last June or July, taken off and put aboard anything else, I’ll appreciate it. Next February! And I sailed from home last February, to ask for those things almost as soon as I got here!

To put the situation quite baldly, the crew of the craft which sailed from the west coast (which we went to inspect) is a worthless lot of riffraff who have not in a month accomplished what any decent crew could have done in two days. And the trouble they’ve caused me here since they arrived in August has been beyond belief. For a fact, everything so far accomplished here in salvage has been done by the two little groups (totaling 27 men) who arrived here last May. And I’ve now practically given up hope that I’ll ever get any real help from any others.

But the big chief takes the cake. I tell you literally I could get from New York further in a rowboat in the same time. From July to mid-December to get beyond Trinidad will long stand as a record. And how long will it take them to get from there to here? Next February? Rot! I won’t see them till next July, if then!

Sunday evening

Oct. 25

Well, anyway, as Aunt Olive used to say, it’s a nice day. There’s a lovely moon shining over the Red Sea, shimmering in a marvelous silver radiance over the waves right to the shore – totally wasted. What good is the moon when I’m alone by the shores of the Red or any other sea? This night was made for lovers if ever one was – calm, glowing under the tropic stars, warm and fragrant with the waves breaking melodiously on the beach, and that glorious moon! And I’m 12,000 miles away from the smiling eyes, the burning lips, and the throbbing heart that alone can make that moon have any purpose for me! How much longer, Oh Lord? How much longer?

Ned

Letter #67

Oct. 27, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

Your letters 110, 111, & 112 arrived today, the last only 13 days en route. Still missing are only 101 & 107.

To answer a few questions. Gerald (Ed: Gerald Foster, who illustrated several of EE’s books) has not been subjected to any unpleasant experiences by Dodd, Mead and I hope you inform Eleanor of that before she goes off the deep end. Dodd, Mead were correct when they said the total number of copies sold being 3247, he was entitled to no royalties till they passed the 5000 mark (if they ever do). You are in error in adding 3247 on your royalty report and 3247 on mine and coming out with 6494 as the number sold. The total number shown by their royalty report is 3247, just as they say. They report that on each royalty report and pay you half the total royalty for each copy and me the other half, which is also the case on a number of other books where the royalties are split, as for instance, Captain Paul.

I am returning the royalty reports. I see that even the Dodd, Mead royalty clerk finally became disgusted with Spanish Ingots as a title and has now renamed it Spanish Ignots, which for all I know may be just as little intriguing to prospective readers as the original title.

Either the censors on letters coming this way have at last seen the light, or they’ve become disgusted and quit. The News of the Week comes through now uncut, and aside from that, no letter from you or from anybody has even been opened by a censor for weeks. They come thru as private as any letters in peace time.

If my letter #64 (Ed: actually #58 above) commenting on Frauenfels reached you by Oct. 12, it was really remarkable delivery – eight days. My check sheet shows it was mailed Oct. 4, though it may have been started Sept. 30. The intervening time was spent out with the salvage crew, and I don’t think that letter went until we came home with the bacon.

If Pat wrote me any letter last August, it hasn’t arrived yet. Usually letters addressed here by name of city and country go by ship and arrive in time for next Fourth of July. Don’t send any that way; stick to the key number given you.

I have an idea the Army are getting ready to give JDP a swift kick in the pants for their impudent attempts to take command of the salvage work. I’ll know soon, I guess. Meanwhile, I’m sitting on a seething volcano, ready to erupt if something isn’t soon done to cool it off.

I had a letter today from some company furnishing Army packages to Altman’s that they are sending me a package ordered. Some day I’ll see it, I suppose, together with the others you mention, though heaven alone knows when the things you sent via Whiteside’s spitkid will ever arrive now that it’s settled down for the winter season in the West Indies.

Thanks for getting me the rayon underwear. I’m down to about four shirts which I wash out myself every day or so – the rest are long since rags and even these four aren’t so hot. I don’t believe hot flat irons ruined them, it was just a case of their coming away in fistfuls when I tried to haul a soaked shirt off my back without any loving fingers around to lend a hand.

Thanks for sending me some shoulder marks. I hope they were sent first class by Rogers Peet.

As regards Mr. Settlemeyer and the overflow pipe from the humidifier, I long ago deduced that from pure mathematics, one was necessary, even if it didn’t come with the humidifying apparatus. So the humidifying pan which I had made to go over my study radiator had an overflow pipe built into it. I’m surprised Mr. Settlemeyer didn’t see it. It is in the middle of the pan, rather toward the back side, and is about half an inch or so below the level of the top of the pan, so that if the humidifier sticks and fails to shut off the water, it overflows down the pipe before it can overflow the pan. I am no dumber than the plumbers when it comes to such things, and that at least is one thing you won’t have to worry about, overflowing. However, as I said before, jiggle the float valve every week or so with a ruler so that it doesn’t stick shut and leave the pan dry.

Sorry Nina hasn’t landed a job yet. I hope she does soon, and I trust it’ll be around New York.

Now there’s lot more I’ve got to say but I’ve had a hectic day and I’m turning in early so I’ll save it for tomorrow.

With love, Ned

Letter #68

October 30, 1942

As usual

Lucy darling:

Your letter #114 arrived today enclosing the first undershirt, which I now have on, being about the only decent one in my possession. Many thanks, and I’ll be glad to see the rest of the first half dozen coming the same way. When those that come as a Christmas package will arrive, I don’t know, but frankly I don’t expect to see them till Easter. Packages come by ship, and ship deliveries take three months when all goes well, and how much more when it doesn’t, you already know. If anything can ever be sent in a letter or in the guise of one, always send it that way (not air mail, of course). Marking things “Christmas Package” doesn’t make the slightest difference on ship deliveries – the ship doesn’t go a bit faster, and I very much doubt that such marking will secure air delivery on packages sent as such and not first class.

At the present moment, the missing letters are 101, 107, and 113. I note that the home office service has been discontinued as of Sept. 12 but all letters sent that way have nevertheless already arrived. I would appreciate a list from you of my missing letters to date. I see you have received all the checks so far sent you.

I notice you say fall has arrived (Oct. 12) in Westfield, judging by all the falling leaves. Today it seemed to me that summer had returned here, the sun was so damned hot I felt it worse than in July.

Our salvage work is progressing. Tomorrow I hope to start lowering pontoons to salvage a sunken derrick the British spent six months on and then gave up as hopeless, recommending demolition. The pontoons are quite huge but impromptu – they are gasoline tanks I cabbaged from an Italian airport near here and have made into pontoons. They are somewhat bigger than any we have ever used on subs but unfortunately have none of the improvements I had built into our American pontoons after our S-51 experiences. These will, I think, be tough babies to handle. However, everything I know about handling pontoons goes into the handling of these, so I trust we’ll make out. My one worry is whether they’ll prove strong enough for the job – I had to take the tanks as they were or go without any pontoons at all, and nothing else will do this job. We’ll soon see what happens. Meanwhile, we are working two other ships. One of which I have some hopes of getting in a couple of weeks, but the other will take longer, and I’m afraid, prove quite a headache on the bottom before she comes up.

A few days ago we raised steam on the first ship we salvaged here, and today for the first time, we gave the main engines a trial after their overhaul after their long submergence of over a year. Everything worked all right, so all we need is a new crew and our first salvaged ship (the one we brought in on the Fourth of July) will be ready to steam away.

We drydocked one of our lately salvaged jobs yesterday for hull repairs – she has two big holes blasted in her sides. Quite a ticklish job dragging the hulk onto the dock (my English dockmaster balked at trying, but I told him I’d heave him overboard if he didn’t carry out orders) still we got her safely landed and out of the water. Now if I only had some workmen! Our first contingent of Britishers is promised in about ten days, but I’ve had promises enough already to sink the biggest freighter ever built. Meanwhile we’ll struggle along on the repairs with the handful of mechanics I have.

I was very much distressed to read of your physical troubles as indicated by Monty’s examination. I hope his treatment will do something to ameliorate the difficulty. God knows what the answer to all this is. I wish I could chuck this job into the Red Sea and come home to you! Before next summer, I can hope to get a relief and get out of here, but there is little chance of anything sooner than that. A year here is plenty for anybody and I have hopes that I can make the general commanding see that, and if necessary, the Navy Department too.

Those who have come back to tell you that I’m happy here are blind. I’m well, thank God; I’m proud of what I’ve achieved here with little to work with; I’m still completely undefeated by any obstacles, human or material, that have crossed my path – all this may seem to some complete happiness, but not to me. Until again I have the loving light of your glowing eyes shining into my soul and the warm caresses of your arms, your lips, your breasts, and your whole body making me one with you, I’ll not know happiness.

Ned

Letter #70

Nov. 3, 1942

As usual

Lucy dearest:

I had a letter from Mary today, dated (last part) Sunday afternoon, Oct. 18, which contained the best news I’ve heard from her in months – she and Mike have broken up! Now if there is any way you can get her not to see him again even casually, it will be perfect.

She mentions earlier in the letter, written a couple of days before the bust-up, that you are to visit Baltimore about Nov. 7. Of course, that will be long by when you get this, but I trust you were able to get in some effective advice.

I received two letters, #116 & #117 (both written Oct. 19, I note) from you today, together with another birthday card of Oct. 16 (unnumbered). That makes the missing list now 101, 107, 113, and 115.

You mention my enclosure about Dr. Salvati and something about shortly people will have to dispose of all tires, etc. I want to warn you that the tires you are referring to are not your tires, they are mine. I’m in the armed services and I’m saving those tires for military use when I get back to the United States and they are not to be surrendered on any pretext to anybody. Don’t let anybody wangle my tires out of my  possession when I’m not there to claim them.

The second shirt came today in #116. Thank heaven I now have two whole shirts to my back!

We’ve been working the last week with our pontoons on the salvage of the sunken derrick I mentioned. Everything is working out according to Hoyle. No pontoon salvage job is complete without having at least one pontoon standing on its nose on the bottom, and this job followed the rule. These pontoons, being the worst possible design for the job, tended to be completely unmanageable, but at least I knew enough about that to manage them and kept the first one reasonably level until we got it properly sunk in position and secured above the submerged derrick. But then we had a stiff blow on the surface which rocked the pontoon below enough to break a securing line, so that the damned pontoon stood on end with the lower end buried three feet in the mud. We had quite a time getting it free of the mud and up again but after four hours blowing on it, floated it up again to the surface, leaving us just where we were three days ago when we first started to sink it. At the moment, our main problem is still to get the last cradle sling in position under the derrick, and I trust we’ll get somewhere with it tomorrow. I once spent a week pulling one cable under the S-51 and practically tore one tug apart doing it. This wire sling seems stuck just as hard under the derrick, but we may have more luck in getting it through. Here at least we have been able to saw three cables under the derrick without any tunneling, and if we get the fourth one into position the same way we’ll be in a fairly good position. I hope three more weeks will see us through on this job, provided our ex-gasoline tank pontoons don’t collapse under the lifting load.

These pontoons are quite elephantine, being longer than our house from end to end and considerably greater in diameter than the height of our living room. It is quite a sight to see these huge cylinders bobbing about in the waves, and a real trick to juggle them around and keep them level while they are being sunk, which is the last thing the confounded things want to do. I’d give a lot to have my own design pontoons (which are as docile as poodles) on this job, but out here one takes what one can get and gives thanks that he can find anything which can possibly serve the end in view, however poorly. I smoked up two packages of Camels steadying my nerves sinking the first pontoon, and at that I think my nerves were much steadier than the pontoon at any time.

You ask what it means that we’ve taken over the salvage work the British failed on. Nothing much. We already have the major ship they bungled, on our drydock, under repair. So that’s over as a salvage task. The sunken derrick mentioned above was their biggest fiasco, but we’ll get that without too much delay. Aside from these two, it means only another wreck and that tossed into the general pot around here doesn’t amount to much. The addition of their wrecks to ours won’t prolong or shorten my stay, and the addition of their salvage gear, which we took over when we inherited their contract, in a way will help us somewhat.

As I see the situation, our British workmen (not here yet) when they arrive in a couple of weeks (I hope) can be organized enough in a few months to be quite a help. If I can get the base running with them in a reasonable manner in a few months, I intend to ask then to be relieved. There are wrecks enough left to keep the salvage crews going more than a year yet, but there is no good reason why I have to stay to see it out. Sometime in January I’m going to start my campaign to get a relief and get out of here, which I hope can be accomplished by next March. A year’s service in Massawa is punishment enough for any man and the Navy I think can be made to see it, though the Army may not be so keen about letting me out. But I’ve already had two months more service in this spot than any Army officer, and over twice as much as most of them. I’m quite willing to call this task a day now at any time and let someone else try his hand at it.

With love, Ned

P.S. Pat’s letter of last September, which you mentioned, arrived today.

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