TWO

World War II
1943–1946

NINETY-THREE LETTERS, INCLUDING A FEW V-MAILS, POSTCARDS, and telegrams, survive from Anthony Hecht’s nearly three years in the army. These constitute a continuous and remarkable record of his activities during and immediately after the war. The only major gap in the epistolary record, from October 1943 through March 1944, roughly coincides with his time as an ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program) candidate at Carleton College. This lacuna notwithstanding, his correspondence can be usefully divided into three phases. About one-third, or thirty-four letters, were written between June 1943 and December 1944 while Hecht was undergoing basic training in the United States in preparation for deployment abroad—although whether to Japan or to Europe was shrouded in mystery and a matter of ongoing concern for Hecht as it was for others. Another seventeen letters survive from his brief time serving on the European front—in France, Czechoslovakia, and Germany, from early March to late June 1945. He participated in what turned out to be, in April, the final campaign by the Allied powers against the German forces along the Rhine and in the Ruhr Valley. The remaining forty-two letters, dating from roughly the end of August 1945 to late January 1946, cover his time in the United States, which included several furloughs, and his subsequent deployment to Japan. On March 12, 1946, having spent thirty-three months in the army, Hecht would be discharged as Private First-Class in the 3rd Platoon, C Company, 386 Regiment, 97th Division.

There has been much published correspondence by World War II veterans, including some by American poets, the most notable being those by Randall Jarrell and James Dickey. Most collections are fervently patriotic, involving the dangerous exploits of a celebrated fighting force or of a previously unrepresented group. More unusual are collections of letters that involve the reader in an extended personal saga, frequently given to matters of survival. While Hecht’s letters belong in this second category, their drama is of an altogether different kind, more reminiscent of Hamlet (an alter ego whom he frequently quotes) than Homer. These letters are, by turns, humorous, anecdotal, moody, given to self-analysis and abrupt turns of thought, laced with literary quotations and allusions, and yet often intimate and direct. By contrast, those written from Japan, when Hecht’s life was no longer in danger and he worked on stories for Stars and Stripes, are full of reportorial zeal.

Hecht’s audience (variously addressed as “Dear Kids,” “Dear Folks,” “Mes Chers”) was the Hecht household at 163 East 81st Street in Manhattan—his main link to the civilized world in those years. While these salutations referred specifically to his parents, he knew that his letters would be shared with his brother Roger, Paula, the cook, and occasionally others close to the “clan.” Most notable was Kathryn Swift, a family friend who knew German and with whom Hecht shared literary interests. As much as the letters recount the unfolding saga of Hecht’s life in a world over which (like Hamlet) he could exert little direct control, they also, by the very nature of their often fraught circumstances, insist on a significant role for the recipient; in this sense the letters are not so much about their author only as they are about the persons addressed and the needed circuit of exchange that accompanies extreme conditions. Along with epistolary flair was a palpable wish to receive in turn.

The pitch and timbre of the letters differ according to their underlying circumstances. Those written while Hecht was in basic training are often crafted out of a sense of boredom and ennui; those from the front, from a sense of purposeful activity; and those from the final phase of his service, though initially fraught with postwar depression and uncertainty over his future, are characterized by exhilaration over the favorable turn in occupation duties in Japan. Throughout his many moods, one quality is constant: Hecht’s concern for his immediate readers—the Hecht household. Letters were often written to spare anxiety, allay fears of his whereabouts, or apologize for occasional moodiness or depression. When he was at or near the front, his letters home did not dwell on the details of war or depict military actions.

In their reticence, an element of official wartime censorship is operating, as he sometimes reminds his readers. But while the letters of other World War II soldiers routinely allude to military maneuvers, gunfire, tanks, and the like, Hecht is conspicuously silent on these topics. “The exigencies of combat have made writing impossible for the last few days,” begins one letter, with characteristic reserve. We sense the proximity of danger only indirectly. In the immediate aftermath of one of his platoon’s most heated battles, for instance, the only sign Hecht gives of having endured action in the extreme is a reference to his “getting a short, much needed rest yesterday and today” and then manifesting an unusually keen sense of relief and joy in the most recent batch of mail: “Your letters, as always, are a blessing. Keep writing them just as you have been. Dad’s peerless Baedeker of Europe—(although you ought to shift the locale to Germany) and Roger’s fabulous discourses on sundry things, and mom’s reporting of the tastes, smells, fashions and talk of home. They do wonders for me.” He then follows this expression of gratitude with a characteristic expression of concern: “At the same time, do not be alarmed by the irregularity of mail from this end. I know that long periods of silence will not reassure you, but I’m sure you understand that I’m not always in a position to write letters” (April 20, 1945).

Along with this saga of survival, the letters reveal two further stories unfolding during this period of Hecht’s life. The more immediate one, beginning in basic training, was his ongoing search for intellectually stimulating employment. He feared the dulling reduction of his mental faculties more than body fatigue, injury, or perhaps even death from action on the front lines. Within the first year, in a letter of May 1944, he recognized that his initial plan to write something every day was futile, even though prompted to do so by William Shawn at The New Yorker. He enlisted the help of family friend Ted Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) for a transfer to work in the studios in Los Angeles on military and recruitment movies.1 Failing at that, Hecht repeatedly applied for transfer to the Counter Intelligence Corp (CIC). While in Germany, he eventually succeeded in this effort, though it was only a temporary assignment, announcing his good fortune through a cryptically resonant quotation from Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth tidings of great joy” (April 26, 1945). During this time, he met Robie Macauley, wonderfully described in his letter of May 24, 1945. In this new role, as his sobering letter of May 14, 1945, makes clear, his duties included interrogating Germans in the wake of his Division’s liberation of the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 23. But he was returned to his original outfit with “the cessation of hostilities,” a reference, presumably, to the German surrender on May 7.

Only after Hecht was sent to Japan, following a month-long furlough home and a further, hugely depressing month waiting to be shipped out, did he escape from the life of a foot soldier by assuming a position in the Public Relations Office (October 9, 1945). This quickly eventuated in sleuthing out stories to write for Stars and Stripes. He also produced several radio dramas to entertain the troops, and on one occasion, navigated the shady parts of Kumagaya, the town where he was stationed, in search of a piano for a concert. Not that these activities satisfactorily resolved the increasing anxieties he felt over a delayed literary career (January 16, 1946). Nor did he altogether forgo his wish to be transferred to CIC. But the relief, indeed exuberance, discovered in his newfound employment clearly distinguishes these later letters as a group from the earlier army letters, and the change produced some fascinating accounts of the immediate postwar political and cultural life in Japan: both its more insidious side, as a haven for Nazis (October 30, 1945), and its more cultivated side, as a refuge for Jewish musicians (November 7, 1945).

The other story is more complex and bears on Hecht’s development as a writer. For the most part, the letters are highly literate, indeed highly literary affairs. Hecht never assumed in them the masculine slang of a wartime demotic associated with soldiering. Often the letters are peppered with a significant range of quotations or utterances in French, German, and English, the first two being the languages that he was practicing. And they usually carry references to many books and authors—Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Bowen, William Wordsworth, Marianne Moore, and the odd allusion to his current reading, such as Jean Malaquais’s War Diary (September 18, 1944) and various literary journals and magazines. There are also significant stretches of parody, especially when writing to Roger, most often with echoes of James Joyce and Shakespeare. It is doubtful Hecht had a single epistolary model in mind. For all their allusiveness, the letters are characterized by spontaneity and improvisation, but he was happy to acknowledge (and often to follow) his own recognition that letters should carry “witty digressions, after the fashion of Byron” (March 5, 1945). So, too, the many different salutations and assumed names (often geographically appropriate) are part of their flair. They keep Hecht humming along seemingly slightly above, if not far from, the madding crowd of military life.

There’s humor here, of course, but also amplitude, the beginning orchestration of significant speech no longer constrained by classroom decorum and further fueled in Japan by a sense of journalistic immediacy. Letters written from Bard are one thing, but here was a special platform, unique with regard to his family (Roger went to summer camp and on to college, but never to war), and burgeoning with authorial potentiality. “This shall be the first of my letters to undergo the rigors of censorship—a fact which makes me feel as though I were addressing a vast ‘reading public’” (March 16, 1945). A joke to be sure, but one that also reminds us of the wider urgency forced on the author by the present occasion, who now feels “as if I’d added a millennium to my age” (June 12, 1944). Here is Hecht, in yet another mood, opening a letter in the manner of Hamlet in the fifth act: “Opportunities present themselves in droves, it seems, and my pen is equal to all of them” (August 23, 1944). This kind of brash self-assurance was unthinkable in the earlier letters from Bard, as are the often startling juxtapositions of incident and information: reporting in one sentence on reading King Lear, then telling his family that it is “a fine play by William Shakespeare” who “used to write sonnets for high school anthologies”; then writing a paragraph describing his depression, followed by an admission that he will not be reading his books “for quite a while,” but then concluding with the witty query, adapted from epic, “Seen any rosy-fingered dawns lately?” (March ?, 1944). These are vigorous letters, catching at many thoughts and portending in their reach and rhythms a writer to be.

For all Hecht’s later reluctance to speak about his wartime years, there can be little question that the experience, shaped and colored by much further reading, deeply affected his poetry. To name but a few poems, the list would include “Japan,” “A Deep Breath at Dawn,” “Behold, the Lilies of the Field,” “Rites and Ceremonies,” “‘More Light! More Light!’” “Apprehensions,” “The Feast of Stephen,” “The Deodand,” “The Venetian Vespers,” “Still Life,” “Persistences,” “The Book of Yolek,” and “Sacrifice.” The ample selections of letters from this period of Hecht’s life set a context for understanding these later acts of creativity. Given the centrality of Germany and the Holocaust in his poetry, I have included most of the letters written from his time in Europe and chosen significant samplings from the other phases. These are selected with an eye to their urgent variety and to tracing out the ongoing drama of one person’s wartime saga.

1943

June 22, 1943
[postcard: view of county buildings and business center,
Pittsburgh]

[To his parents]
Dear Kids:
En Route—
I don’t know where[.] Only God and the General Staff know that, and God isn’t too sure.

Will write[,]
T

[July 26, 1943, Fort McClellan, Alabama]

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

“Variations on a theme by
William Wordsworth”

“—And oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant, or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
That is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with rapture fills
And dances with the daffodils.”2
Also assorted garden weeds
Can make my ventricles rejoice.
The thought of cultivated seeds
May flash upon that inward voice
Which tells the sergeant that it’s dawn
And sends me out to cut the lawn.

I think an account of all my fabulous military experiences is about due. You’ve been wondering, I suppose, whether I’ve been made a sergeant yet, and just how many men I can order around. Well, the bald facts are these. After six days in the army I’m still a private. (Come now, don’t despair.)

I reported to the proper authorities at Penn. Station, and I was lined up with about six other Bard students and the group from Stevens Institute [of Technology in New Jersey]. We were then dismissed for half an hour—and a more unprofitable furlough, I hope I never have. I made a short phone call home, and then wandered around the station till it was time to leave. Poor Paula seemed quite broken up about the whole thing.

The train took us to Trenton. When we arrived, there was nobody around to meet us, and the suggestion was made that we were not expected—consequently not wanted. Somebody shouted (one of the Stevens boys) “All those desiring to return to civilian life, line up by the ticket booth and prepare to purchase tickets for New York.” This may give you a slight idea of what most people around here think of the army. Most of the people in my company are E.R.C. [Enlisted Reserve Corps] College Students so I don’t know if their attitude is typical of the average draftee, but they seem to feel this way. —It’s not so bad—so far; however they’d just as soon be back in civilian life. Getting up in the morning at 5:30 isn’t so bad. Neither is making your bed, or mopping the floor. Even drilling for hours on end out in the drill field, in the hot sun, isn’t as bad as it may sound. The most unpleasant thing I’ve encountered so far is standing endlessly at “Formations”—there are four each day—and not being able to take a crap whenever I want to; especially since there’s no time for it till about 4:30 PM. […]

(The above was written at Dix. I am continuing now after my first week at Fort McClellan)

At Dix we had a very remarkable sergeant. We were told that he served in the Polish Army in the last war, and also served in Spain and China “between wars.” He is not what you might call intelligent. One day when he was complaining that too many men were just sitting around when they should have been working, he issued the orders—“The benches are put there for your convenience, so don’t sit on them!” Sergeant Lidek had a definitely malevolent streak in him which he would display when picking K.P.’s for the following day. You see, you can’t do K.P. until you’ve been processed—that is, gotten your uniform, had your I.Q. test and seen the movie on the Articles on War. Lidek had the time of his life singling out the eligible men.

Well one night I was among the eligible men and was all set to go on K.P. when Lidek said “I want about 20 husky men to volunteer for about an hour or an hour and a half of work tonight—and you get tomorrow morning off.”

Now consider the situation—this would not only mean no K.P. but a free morning. On the other hand we were liberally warned upon our arrival at Dix not to volunteer for anything because its always much harder than they make it sound. And of course you must remember the qualifying adjective “husky.” I shall not drag it out any longer—I volunteered—and this was the beginning of my first “Commando Raid.”

Now I must return to Sergeant Lidek for a moment. The sergeant was in charge of Company C, and one of his many worries was to make sure the company area was kept neat and orderly. It was his special pride that almost all the sidewalks in the company area were made of cement instead of dirt, as was the case with every other company in the camp. The reason none of the other companies had cement sidewalks is because the government does not issue cement for that purpose. How did Company C get it? That’s where I come in.

There was a private civilian construction company off the post limits about a half mile away. The twenty volunteers went out to pilfer the stuff, with Lidek himself doing the reconnaissance work. We were instructed to meet the sergeant half an hour after “lights out.” When it was spread around what sort of work we were going to do, forty-three men showed up. We spent an exciting hour and a half swiping the stuff—throwing ourselves flat on the ground when the headlights of cars appeared.

Now I must tell you something about Camp McClellan. […] The indoctrination process is very thorough. We received our rifles the second day we arrived, and also our bayonets. We are always addressed as “soldier” unless it is a personal conversation, and there are an infinite number of little things that conspire to make us forget we were ever civilians. The most important one is—when you wake up in the morning it’s too early to think, during the day you’re too busy to think, and at night you’re too tired to think.

Yes, parts of this training have been pretty trying. The bayonet course which is almost finished now is very taxing at times. Also the “hand to hand fighting” more cheerfully called “dirty fighting.” That course comes to a grand finale tomorrow with a “free for all.”

The thing I most of all resent about the army is that you have no time to yourself. That’s why I haven’t written. In the evenings we have to take our rifles apart and clean them thoroughly, shave, shower, clean and polish our shoes. Then there is a good possibility that we will get some sort of detail like K.P. which keeps you working till 11:15 or Guard Duty—which lasts all night long. And then you must do regular duty the next day.

Right now we’re on the Rifle Range, firing for record. We leave the Company area at 3:30 in the morning, spend the whole day at the range and come back about 5:30 or six. I’m doing well so far. I’m in the sharpshooter class—and just one point below the expert class. But we’re only part way finished. We’ve only shot rapid fire so far. The day after tomorrow we short “slow fire,” so I may still qualify as expert. […]

All my love
Tony

1944

[late March / early April] 1944 Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

[To his parents]
Dear Family—

I made several desperate attempts to get in touch with you, both by phone and telegraph, but things are so arranged at this post, that it is almost impossible to get to the right place at the right time.

To allay all your worries right away—I am well and among friends. In the past week I have done what it took 3 weeks to accomplish at [Fort] McClellan. I learned how to operate, aim and fire the MI rifle, and I fired it for record on the range. It was all very well for me, since I’d had it all before, in profusion, so it was merely redundant. But there are others here who never even saw a rifle before, and it rather rushed them. Our “basic training” here is supposed to last six weeks, but we came here when a group was just half way through their cycle. The plan is to finish us both up together, which means that we will be doing in 3 weeks what they do in six. All this haste is due to the fact that the division is going on maneuvers on the 23rd of April. Two weeks out in the field—and two weeks back here—then two weeks in the field again. This is liable to keep up for 2 or three months.

My morale is better than it was during my first few days here—but, on the other hand, I don’t think it will ever be quite what it was at McClellan because I haven’t got the A.S.T.P. to look forward to. There is nothing especially pleasant in the offing and the future (“zukunft” to you) bodes no particular good.

I do not choose to write about the present simply because it’s routine boredom. I do not care to speculate on the future because it looks too ominous. This leaves only the past to think about, and I’ve thought about it so much, I’m already beginning to feel like Marcel Proust. […]

I have been reading King Lear a fine play by William Shakespeare—I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He used to write sonnets for high-school anthologies.

I fear that I shall once again fall into that mental slump, which is so necessary to being a good soldier. After one week here, my thoughts have already become less coherent. This is liable to be the most depressing feature of army life again for me. Even on your own free time you cannot manage to think the thoughts you want to, and escape from the army for a while. Everywhere you look you see barracks, jeeps, rifles, soldiers, insignias and everything that pertains to the army. You can’t get away from it. It’s like a horrible obsession.

I sent Al [Millet, army friend from ASTP] a copy of one of Roger’s poems, a sonnet. I’m sure he’ll like it and I’m anxious to hear what he thinks of it. I’ll let you know what he says.

I trust you received my books all in good condition. I’m afraid I shall not be reading them for quite a while.

Seen any rosy fingered dawns lately?

Love,
Tony

[June 12, 1944] Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

[To his parents]
Dear Folks—

I regret to say that I am quite depressed about things in the offing. I think I told you once that, according to schedule, we were to be here till October—that next week I go off on a six day problem, that later on I go out in the field for five weeks straight. Radical changes have been wrought very recently which seem to throw this scheme somewhat askew. I have it on pretty good authority that something big is going to happen to us around the 23rd of July—the whole division will be affected. We may be going on maneuvers, or moving to a new camp, or shipping to a P.O.E. [Point of Embarkation]. I don’t know—but the number of furloughs a company is now permitted to send out at one time has been raised from 7% of the personnel to 25%. In addition, all men will have to have physical exams before leaving on furlough. So I may (?) see you again. I certainly hope so. The 32 mile hike back from bivouac was rather rough. We started at 9 P.M. and arrived in camp at 6 A.M. I went into St. Louis with Jimmy, and had a few drinks, which served to lead me through a gamut of emotional variety, changing momentarily from rare exuberance to abysmal depression. It was strangely reminiscent of my younger days. I can say “younger days” in all seriousness because since I’ve been here, I feel as if I’d added a millennium to my age. […]

I have enjoyed all your letters immensely, and look forward to them every day. I think I may have told you—I’ve started a sonnet sequence—a series of V mail letters to Al [Millet]. Have finished one and started two others.

Let me know what The New Yorker does with Roger’s work—

The next day—

Further rumor and information seems to indicate our going to a P.O.E. and subsequently to a “staging area” overseas. (This is relative to the 23rd of July.) The training is becoming increasingly difficult and arduous.

There’s not much more I can say. People aren’t saying very much around here now. If there only were a light on the grubby horizon. Being neither the captain of my fate nor the master of my soul, it is hard to be bloody but unbowed.

“How weary, flat, stale and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world.”3

Gloomily,
Tony

August 23, 1944 Santa Monica, California

[To his parents]
Dear Folks—

Opportunities present themselves in droves, it seems, and my pen is equal to all of them. When I last wrote, I told you we were going south to Camp Callan, near San Diego. We are “en route.” We have stopped overnight at an army recreation camp (for soldiers returning from fighting overseas), a very comfortable camp, in Santa Monica. I phoned the Geisels this evening; Ted wasn’t home, but I spoke to Helen, and I shall call back later and speak to Ted. So far things are going well.

The fact that I am already on my way to Callan pretty well precludes the possibility that I am on any of the many “shipping lists” that were rampant about the division on my return. People were, and still are, leaving for all over.

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses, and with assays of bias
By indirections find directions out.

Hamlet [2.1.61–63]

It occurs to me that my next letter may reach you before this one, since my next will be air mail again—(I’ll be able to get at my envelopes). Please excuse the non-sequitur.

All my love,
Tony

September 28, 1944 Camp Cooke, California

[To his parents]
Mes Chers:

Forgive whatever evasive or nebulous qualities you may encounter in this note, but I am now, for the first time, subject to censorship, of a sort. I trust I am not guilty of a breach of military reticence if I suggest that, were this ban to be lifted, I could report nothing that would give you cause for either worry or excitement. It is still, I regret to announce, the same dull routine, but the powers that be, with their odd taste for melodrama, have decided to enliven the situation by shrouding it in mystery. You can’t win a war without secrets, you know.

Last night I got rather potted on 3.2 beer, and one of my manifestations of this condition is the advent of extraordinary mental lucidity, together with an unusual and scintillating eloquence. So I wrote a letter to Pres. Gray [of Bard College]. I’m afraid I can’t describe it other than to say that it deviated to some considerable degree from the established precedent of letter-writing. I’d like to see his face when he reads it. Don’t get me wrong; my words did not reek of liquor, but instead they were vivid and free, unhindered by the servile bondage of logic and grammar.

I must confess that the cause of this rather conservative orgy last night, was a keen but misdirected desire to release myself from the fit of utter depression which has been blunting the edge of things for me for the past several weeks.

[…]

This note is doubtless far from cogent, or anything mildly pertaining thereto. My next one will be composed with great, soaring flights of imagination. I’d like to think it might resemble Alice in Wonderland, but present circumstances tend to confirm the suspicion that it will be more like The Fall of the House of Usher.

Love,
Tony

[October 11, 1944] Camp Callan Hospital, San Diego, California

[To his parents]
Dear Folks—

October Fool! You thought I’d be at Camp Cooke now, as previously advertised, didn’t you? Ha, ha! Well you’re wrong—wrong as hell. I’m back at Callan. It is a long and relatively uneventful story. I took off on my cruise of the Pacific and environs; altogether we made four landings, securing, against almost no opposition except cactus, small portions of the California Coast and adjacent island. It will doubtless give you great satisfaction to know that these strategic spots are in safe hands. We made our last landing on Saturday morning. The tactical problem was to last all day and then we were to camp there, set up tents etc. and move into Camp Cooke on Monday. All went according to schedule till the problem was over. Then the barracks bags didn’t arrive. They contained the tents and blankets and additional warm clothes. In fact, they didn’t arrive till very late that night, by which time I had contracted quite a cold. To break it off, they took me to the hospital at Callan (because it is much nearer to where I was, than Cooke) where the doctor pronounced me in great danger of living. I subsist on a diet of liquids and sulfur drugs. I must admit I don’t feel too good, but my temperature has gone down to about 99 so I guess it’s not too serious any more.

Write same old address Camp Callan Hospital.

Love,
Tony

[October 12, 1944] Camp Callan Hospital, San Diego

[To his parents]
Dear Folks

Excuse sloppy writing but I’m in bed, with only a small hand-mirror behind this paper to keep it flat, so that everything slides around as I write.

The first diagnosis of my condition is that I have gout, which I contracted from eating too much of those rich, tasty, field rations which the army offers us every so often.

Matter of fact, I have pneumonia. Don’t be scared. Comparatively speaking, I’m leading a much happier life here in the hospital with my own private little illness, than I did when I was with the company, sharing the great public woe. For the past four days I have been living in a little oxygen tent, which has many advantages over the little tent I used to live in. First of all, it’s indoors. Then, it’s air-cooled. It also has windows, so that I can look out and watch all the silly people playing doctors and nurses. —can see them stalking down the halls with a mesmerized look in their eye and a bottle of urine in their hand. I do not yet know when I shall emerge from my little home of calico and eisinglass. “They” don’t seem to know either. They seem to be taking everything into consideration, however. They are, if nothing else, thoroughgoing. They have taken x-ray pictures of me, they have taken my blood count; they have also taken samples of my blood (more than I personally thought I could spare)—and they are trying to destroy the evil that lurks in my body and soul, by drowning it in fruit juices and water. The idea and spirit behind this treatment is not unlike that which spread through New Salem at the time of the famous “witch-dunkings.” Both come from the same malevolent natures. It’s just a bit more refined in the hospital, that’s all. Doctors have to keep up appearances. You should be delighted to know that I only have pneumonia. With things as they are today, any number of other things could have happened to me to give you more cause for alarm.

Write and tell me how glad you are that I’m ill.

Love,
Tony

[October 26, 1944]

[To his parents]
Dear Folks—

Yesterday I got your telegram and today your letter of the 21st, forwarded from this hospital. In the letter you ask “will you go to a recuperation camp? Will you get a furlough? May there be a chance for reclassification?” I’m afraid you overestimate either the severity of my illness or the generosity of the army. I was in the hospital for two weeks, in the oxygen tent for about four or five days, and under sulfur drug treatment for two days. During the last week I was permitted to get up and walk around, eat at the hospital mess, go to the Red Cross Recreation hall etc. In the course of the treatment they took three blood tests and an x-ray of my chest. I’m telling you all this to assure you that I had the best possible treatment. I am back with my outfit, still feeling a little weak, and I shall see if I can’t get a ‘Light Duty’ slip for the next few days. That’s about as much as I could hope for in the line of furloughs or recuperation camps. You have to be on the very point of death before you get a furlough. As for reclassification, I could duly get it with a permanent disability, or else the fact that I were prone to a particular illness. One mild case of pneumonia won’t do it. I wish just as much as you that there were something in it for me, but it doesn’t look that way. I shall try to phone & let you know this information before this letter reaches you, but the facilities here are pretty bad. I hope I have dispelled most of your worries concerning my health. I had hoped to do that through my letters to Roger—to show you that I was feeling well & in good humor.

This camp is a horrible place—a very “waste land,” barren, nothing but sand & fog, and blighted with the seventh plague—the presence of soldiers. I do not think we shall be here very long—possibly till the middle of November. Then? To another camp somewhere in Calif. No one seems to know for sure.

My return from the hospital brought on a fit of despondency which threatens to linger a while. Seldom have I felt such a keen desire to escape completely from all features of reality. If you have an extra box of cocaine in the closet, ship it to me, will you? I must stop before I become maudlin.

I hope Roger had the best time it was possible for him to have on his birthday. Shall try to phone.

Sonst nicht[s] neues,4

All my love,
Tony

[October 28, 1944] Camp Cooke, California

[To his parents]
Dear Folks—

The morale has taken a new plunge, the reckless extravagance of which is unparalleled. I am plumbing the depths of a fathomless sea—beginning to feel like an emotional William Beebe [the naturalist and explorer who set a deep-sea dive record in 1934]. Today I embarked upon a venture which, under ordinary circumstances, would prove stimulating and exciting. I offered to write a Regimental show to be put on in about 5 or six weeks. This, of course, in addition to my regular training—which, incidentally, I have not yet started, since I’m still weak, and have been allowed to rest a while. Nevertheless, I came away from my interview with the Special Service Officer in a fit of abysmal despair. Don’t ask why. You’ve asked why before and I told you the truth when I said I didn’t know. It is partly due, no doubt, to my return to my original status. But that’s not all. I have been here long enough to get over the initial shock.

“I have that within me which passeth show
These but the trappings [and] the suits of woe.”

Hamlet [1.2.85–86]

You understand, I know, that I am not trying to cause you concern—this is evidently a perfectly normal thing with me. I’ve had it all along through high school and college—and I shall come out of it sooner or later as I always do.

So much for the nausea. Sonst nichts neues. There is never news, of course. Not even as much as you are able to garner from the menus of our relatives. I have been reading a bit—there’s a good library here. An anthology of long poems and a book of short stories by Elizabeth Bowen, an Englishwoman who is very good. By the way, you might mention to Roger that the esoteric quotation which I carelessly attributed to Michael Drayton over the telephone, was really, I think, Andrew Marvell. I must say a few words to Roger.

Dear old goat—

How’s the old petty pace coming along? From day to day? Well, Hercus Civis Eblaneusis, I always say. Leopold Bloom thought that the keys gag was very clever, but he failed to see the wheels within wheels of the situation. No wonder his friend spurned him—he was a faux pas? But not us—no sir. Not by the beard of my aunt in which many a dog hath died and if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, well, you know what happens as well as I. Look at your aunt. Awful, isn’t it. Ship her off to a nunnery. Say it, if you like—weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable, but if we cease to bear fardels, the genus is liable to become extinct. In which case we are bereft of the toads with gems in their heads. But then, I never thought of these as appropriate wedding gifts. —Ship her off to a nunnery. We’ll meet again. We’ll part once more. The place I’ll seek, if the hour you’ll find.

Yours ever, whilst this machine is to him,
Tony

December 26 [1944] Camp Cooke, California

[To his parents]
Dear People—

Since the last time you heard from me, I’ve made more efforts than I can recall to get in touch with you. All to no avail. Tried to phone Christmas eve but there was a 12 to 14 hour delay in getting calls through. Tonight the delay is 4 to 5 hrs. Je suis désollé, mais qu’est ce qu’on peut faire?5 […]

Now to the main news. I shall not be home on furlough at the time I stated. The division is leaving for maneuvers in California on about the 21 of January. The maneuvers will last about a month. I shall be one of [the] first to leave after they are over. Which makes it about the end of February. Sorry. I know how you counted [on] celebrating all those occasions. But, after all, this only means that we’ll be here in the U.S. that much longer. I understand our division has dropped from second to ninth on the shipping priority list. We were seventh when we were in Missouri. Of course this ninth place is the position we were in before the German Offensive started. I don’t know where we are now. Still, it looks good.

I had a long talk with a German prisoner (auf Deutsch, naturlich). But don’t spread that around. It’s a Court Martial offense. He was 22 years old, and it has been five years since he has seen Christmas at home. He was in a Panzer Outfit in Africa. Thinks very highly of America and Americans. Doesn’t, for instance, think Germans are better. Thinks Nazism would never work in this country, because people prize their individual liberty too highly, whereas they don’t in Germany. He seemed quite intelligent.

Now, there’s a job I’d really like to have—reeducating German prisoners of war with an eye to anticipating the problems that will arise in Germany after the war. Ah, well.

Hoping this reaches you in time to allay whatever fears you may have conjured up since you last heard from me,

Love,
Tony

1945

February 27, 1945 At Sea [v-mail]

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

The present jaunt upon which I am engaged in no way resembles any previous ones I enjoyed in your company. [The Hecht family sailed to Europe on several occasions in the late 1920s and 1930s.] People look upon this trip from a totally different perspective from the one we were familiar with. For example, I distinctly remember the bar on the ship—the table-tops were done in red linoleum or plastic with a playing-card motif decorating the border. The bar proper was a semi-circular affair against the forward bulkhead, arranged with bottles and indirect lighting—altogether a very charming hang-out. Now, as far as I can determine, this vessel has no bar at all, and was obviously constructed to carry miscreants from the Venetian Doge’s Palace to the prison, in the event that the Bridge of Sighs broke down. The chief steward does not have that suave continental air, and they do not serve bouillabaisse at 11 o’clock every morning. All in all, this voyage falls quite short of the previous ones, and though I appreciate being sent on the Grande Tour, if you paid more than 75 cents for the passage ticket you were stuck.

The trip, I may add, has been singularly uneventful. I expected to see the First Mate pipe the ship’s company on deck every morning to witness punishment. As a matter of fact, nobody has been keel-hauled—not even suspended by his thumbs from the yard-arm. And I doubt if the crew can sing anything more closely resembling a “chanty” than “The Beer-Barrel Polka.”

Seriously, though, we have had an exceptionally calm time of it—and it has not been nearly as bad as I anticipated. I eagerly await your first letters with all the addresses of friends and relatives abroad, and any helpful suggestions on continental etiquette that you’d care to make. Send me voluminous letters and I shall try to reply in kind—Hold off with the books, however, till I give you word. And let me know about the college extension courses.

Je vous embrace,
Antoine

March 5, 1945 Somewhere in France

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

It has suddenly occurred to me that I neglected to tell you what steps to take apropos of those books of mine which are languishing in the hands of Lois [Montgomery]. Repair, then, to the nearest Los Angeles Telephone Directory, and find the address of Martindale’s Book Store (Beverly Hills branch—approximate address 113? Santa Monica Blvd.) This is where she works and they can forward your letter to her. The books included Auden, Marianne Moore, Huxley, Euclid (I think), Shapiro etc. Can’t remember them all—but my names are in them so she’ll know. I have with me Finnegans Wake, The Pocket Book of Sonnets, Five Shakespeare Tragedies, a Pocket Anthology of Short Stories, and copies of The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Partisan Review and Horizon—so you see I am not without literary means.

What I have seen of France so [far:]

This is an abridged version of the first draft of this letter. Abridged in the sense that the original second page has been entirely omitted. I have done this myself because, as I was in the very midst of writing this letter, I was called away to a security and censorship lecture, and found out that everything I had said was censorable. It was, of course, a matchless page of eloquence, rich with powerful metaphors, sparkling with eloquence (oops) witty digressions, after the fashion of Byron. But, what ho! The army, being essentially an illiterate organization, cares not a whit for the flights of my fancy, nor the purity of my prose—the hell with them. It simply means that you and posterity will miss out on one more beauty which might have been a joy forever.

I have just thought of a book I might like to have, but if you have any difficulty locating it, don’t bother. It’s a paper bound edition of André Gide’s “Journal” published in French by some Canadian Press. See if you can locate it, but don’t rush all over town.

I look forward with great eagerness to your first letter, and hope that you will have included “Maddy’s” address. I would very much like to write to her, and I more or less expect to get one from her soon. That was a splendid concert, that one. Really.

If I pick up any cheap Daumiers or Matisses over here, I’ll ship ’em right home for that big bald spot between the bookcases in the living room.

Je vous embrace de tou[t] mon coeur,
Antoine

P.S. If you have any pride in the reputation of the family, for God’s sake don’t let Anne [Stern] embroil us [in] any sort of mess with the Schwabachers. It would be an ineradicable blot on the old eschutcheon.

Rabelais

Herewith are appended brief instructions on what to write about in your letters. Describe in full the good books which may make their appearance from time to time, plus any remarks the critics have to make. Keep me posted on any news of my friends you may come across. Brief opinions of any new shows as they appear—and if you have a particularly good meal now and then, send lush descriptions. Any news of exhibits at the Modern Museum or the Metropolitan, with your own criticisms if you go. Describe any renovations at home, to the minutest detail, floral decorations, new clothes you might buy, additions to the library. Let me know when the cherry blossoms and dogwood and forsythia bloom in Central Park. Let me know how Paula makes out with Schopenhauer.

As for me, I have no reason for complaint. Things are neither better nor worse than I expected—which in fact is saying a great deal.

March 7, 1945 Somewhere in France [v-mail]

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

Today your first letters arrived, the third and the ninth, oddly enough, and as a result my morale has jumped to almost fever pitch. The idea of numbering your letters is a splendid one, and though I have already written several to you (I can’t remember how many) I’ll start numbering from now on. […]

—Mon Dieu, a great change has occurred. I am continuing this letter the following day, (March 8), and I am no longer where I was, but am instead somewhere else. (That’s about all one can say about location over here.)

However, the great blessing has come. Just what I had hoped for. There is always a marked paucity of polyglots in any army. I’m afraid I can do nothing but revel in my good fortune without giving you any details. It must suffice to say that I’m well pleased with the turn of events. There are some absolutely wonderful aspects to the present set-up, all of which fall under the “restricted” category. It annoys me just as much as it must bother you, this veil of mystery, but “que peut-on faire?”6 […]

Je vous assure que tu [tout] va bien ici, et j’espère que cette bon[ne] chance va duré pour la durée.⁷

Je vous embrace,
Antoine

March 19, 1945 Somewhere in France

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I’ve written you a V Mail letter this evening but because I feel verbose and poly-lingual, I choose the old fashioned epic in preference to the “sonnet-space” allotted by the V-Mail letters. In addition, I am trying to irritate my Platoon Leader who has to read all these letters, and work him up to the point where [he] arranges to have me discharged from the army in order to save himself the work of reading these pages.

I’m writing by candle light, and would feel rather like Martin Luther in his dark little cell, writing the translation of the Bible into German—were it not for the fact that a radio amplifier just above my left ear is blaring forth popular music, and there’s a motion picture playing just around the corner. As you may guess from this, I am not yet in the thick of battle. The news looks good and I continue to have high hopes[.…]

[Tony]

March 25, 1945 Somewhere in France

[To his parents]
Dear Kids

Today I stand in receipt of eleven letters, including one from Kathryn, that priceless one from Paula, and a “Bard Newsletter.” I am delighted to receive the info that my letters to you are arriving “en fin,” and I was afraid that you might be unduly concerned over the delay, or perhaps think I might lapse into a periodic “blackout” in my literary commerce with you. Your own mail has been coming through steadily, and with blissful regularity, with such fidelity that if a day passes which fails to bring me at least one letter, I curse all the subalterns in the Post Office Dept.

I admit to a certain laxness in the past few days which have elapsed without my writing a word. My explanation (which I do not proffer as an excuse) can be, as usual, nothing but vague at best. Something big for me was in the offing—but unfortunately it did not come off. I was waiting to write you a letter of great rejoicing, which, of course would be anything but specific. There is still a chance, and in the event that the Fates don’t knot up the yarn, I will write you:—“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth tidings of great joy.”8

I’m afraid I cannot elaborate upon my precious good fortune, other than to say that it presented me with the opportunity to get some of the local brews, and do a bit of sightseeing. With the exception, however, of that brief period, all my letters have been written from the same place.

I’m writing again by candle light, this time feeling like Erasmus, so you can see that these minor discomforts provide good artistic discipline. I have not, however, managed to ferret out enough solitude to put out any distinguished prose, much less verse.

A brief word to Paula: Many thanks for your letter which I read without any difficulty. I must admit that I suspected that Schopenhauer’s dislike for women would prejudice you against him. I appreciate the spirit in which you attempted the cookies, despite the results, and beg you not to be too downcast about it. All you need is practice. Seriously, though, the food here (unlike Johnie’s outfit) is remarkably good—not, of course, like that meal you (Mom) described in one letter involving chicken and mushrooms and chocolate éclairs—but by all military standards, excellent. This does not mean that I would not appreciate food if sent. Thanks again for the letter.

A brief word to Roger—Dear old shoe, your peerless parchment on divers introspections served to revitalize an otherwise grubby horizon of noxious extroverts, with a bit of healthy neuroticism. It was an invaluable respite from the incessant monosyllabic balderdash which festers in all our minds for sheer lack of stimulus. I look back in awe and reverence to those days when I was intellectually acute and perceptive enough to be comfortably maladjusted. I reached the apex of that psychological luxury during my years at college, and those years will remain for me some of the most thwarted delights in my memory. By the same token, I look forward to the day when I can re-enter our living-room with a goodly supply of scotch, and just sit and wallow in my own pathologies. Write soon again.

A brief note to Kathryn:—(which I hope you will pass on to her.) My dear Kathryn, you may justly accuse me of both mental and physical laziness for not writing directly to you (you richly deserve at least one long letter—it may yet come), and for not replying in kind. I flatter myself that my fluency in both German and French has improved since I’ve been over here, but to offer you written proof makes me feel as if I were about to dash off a line to Bertolt Brecht, or some equally prominent literary figger. I am much interested in your plans to join me on the continent, and hope I shall not miss the chance of seeing you. I’ll be sitting at the corner table of the Café de la Paix at 3 o’clock, when the war’s over. I expect you to help me determine the authenticity of some Van Goghs and Cezannes for our bald spot in the living-room at home. Similarly, I expect you to have all necessary information concerning vintages, and full instructions for headwaiters on your own particular method of preparing “crepes suzette.” I’ll follow this gibberish with a letter less given to fripperies. Thank you ever so much for your polyglot letters, Sincerely, Tony.

As to the rest of you, cher famille, I continue to thank you for your letters which are my constant delight—for the copy of Gide you sent (which of course has not yet arrived) and for your excellent morale. Strangely enough, my own morale has been remarkably high since I’ve been here. May this be a harbinger of Fate, “Deo Volente” (Ovid). Many of the boys over here with me are pitifully homesick—to such a degree that it is with mixed pleasure and pain that they receive a letter. Do not think me an ingrate, but I am somehow weathering this difficulty handsomely. Perhaps it is because France is practically a second home to me now. I have found time to chat with some very pretty Mlles. Which brings to mind A. Planche. I’ve gotten two V Mails from her, neither of which take full advantage of the space offered. Let her know how much I appreciate them, nevertheless. Incidentally, don’t include any cartoons etc. in V Mails. For some reason it is impossible to reproduce them. I got that one letter in its original form. Sonst nichts mehr.9

Get potted a few times for me,
Pascal

April 6, 1945 Somewhere in Germany

[To his parents]
Dear Kids

I sincerely hope that you have not allowed the gap in my letters to cause you any alarm. I’m sure you realize that moving around and various military idiosyncrasies of mine preclude the possibility of writing regularly anymore.

As you see, I have arrived in the “Vaterland.” I came by way of Belgium and Holland, travelling in the traditional luxury of troop sleepers marked “40 hommes—8 Chevaux.” I spoke to quite a number of civilians on the way here, and they are all most optimistic about the end of the war—much more so than I am. I may tell you now that my brief sojourn “elsewhere” was in Rouen, where I was working as an interpreter. It’s a most remarkable city—absolutely full of history. Joan of Arc was imprisoned, tried and burned at the stake there; William the Conqueror and Richard, Coeur de Lion floated in and out from time to time; Corneille was born there, and the place is just glutted with sights. It was here, incidentally that I met O’Hara’s ex-wife.

Your letters have been coming through more or less regularly, as the occasion permits, and I am very grateful for them. Since you press me to send requests, my primary need is woolen socks—I’d appreciate all you can send.

It will doubtless interest you to know that since we’ve been in Germany we’ve been billeted in German homes; so you can see that things could be a lot worse than they are for me. In fact, my only complaint right now is that my feet hurt. In the house I’m in now, there’s a piano, and I’ve been having quite a time, though my fingers are very stiff from lack of practice.

I will write again as soon as I can. Give my best to Kathryn, Paula and whomever else you think deserves them.

Sei immer herzlich gegrurst¹⁰
Wilhelm II

April 20, 1945 Somewhere in Germany

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I have been getting a short, much needed rest yesterday and today—sleeping, eating, smoking and generally taking it easy. Mail has been coming through from all of you and A. Planche, Kathryn, Anne Stern (yes, I said Anne Stern) Mary Shaffer, and assorted sources—all coming through, as I say, much more frequently than I have time to answer. Your letters, as always, are a blessing. Keep writing them just as you have been. Dad’s peerless Baedeker of Europe—(though you ought to shift the locale to Germany) and Roger’s fabulous discourses on sundry things, and Mom’s reporting of the tastes, smells, fashions and talk of home. They do wonders for me. At the same time, do not be alarmed by the irregularity of mail from this end. I know that long periods of silence will not reassure you, but I’m sure you understand that I’m not always in a position to write letters. From what I have seen of Germany, I can safely say that it is far better off than France. On the other hand, I think reconstruction in this country will be accomplished much more quickly than in France. The French just sit around in realms of self-pity, telling one atrocity story after another. No doubt the occupation was horrible—but who do they expect is going to rebuild France,—the Germans, perhaps?

For as long as I’ve been in this country, I’ve only slept on the ground one night (so far). In every other case I’ve slept on the floor, sofa, or bed in a German house. The inhabitants are told, (by me, of course) either to move to the cellar for the night, or to move out altogether. They generally prefer to stay in the cellar, an old habit of theirs for which our Air Force and Artillery are responsible. One night we slept in a school house which was on the H.Q. of a Hitler Jugend organization. I am naturally required to do all translating, to secure mattresses, hot water, and whatever accessories are necessary. On the whole the Germans we have “stayed with” have done their best to impress us with the idea that they were never Nazis, they hated the party, they’re glad the war’s almost over, they’re delighted that we’ve come and assorted fairy tales of this kind. Every single family—and many prisoners that we took—told us the same story. The explanation of why they went to war (they admit they started the war) was that if they didn’t fight and cooperate generally with the Nazis, they were shot. Now this argument, if pursued to its logical conclusion, (“reductio ad absurdum,” as Aristotle would say) would mean that Hitler with one pistol at the back of two other men, etc. has completely terrorized every last person in Germany. A remarkable feat! These houses are frequently full of Nazi propaganda, most elaborate, and many have framed photographs of the members of the family who are in the service. As you see, we don’t trust any of them.

I wrote a letter to Maddy a long time ago, while I was still in France, in fact, and never heard a word from her. Perhaps you could contact Ben and discover what the matter is. I have lost her address and cannot write her again. I remember your writing that you intended to have Ben, Mary and Maddy in for dinner some time. Did that ever happen? How was it? Perhaps you’ve already written to me about it and I haven’t gotten the letters yet. (By the way, in answer to your constant query, air mail is faster than V mail.) You may or may not be interested to know that today I was awarded the “Combat Infantryman Medal,” an award whose meaning I do not entirely understand myself.

Thank Anne Stern for her letter for me. I have lost her address. I cannot keep these little scraps of paper around all the time.

Things look good.

Wie immer11
Hohenzollern

Of the “friends” alluded to below, Tom Mack was a classmate from Bard and in ASTP at Carleton College. “Philips” was probably Laughlin Phillips. After an early career in the CIA, Phillips served as board chairman (1966–2001) and director (1979–1991) of the museum in Washington, D.C., that bears his family name.

April 26, 1945 Somewhere in Germany

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth tidings of great joy.”

Do you recognize the quote? I can only refer you to a previous letter of mine [March 25, 1945], in which I whispered of the harbinger and vast portents of a wonderful future. I said if everything transpired as I hoped it would, I would open my first letter on the subject with the quote that appears above. At that time things fell through in the most dismal fashion imaginable, and my morale took a commensurate drop. However, yesterday, with a surprise element worthy of our best dramatists, I was whisked out of a “front-line” Infantry Co., and sent back to Battalion, then to Regiment, and finally to Division.

In case your exuberance to open my mail and taste of the fruit of first class prose was such that you failed to notice the change in my return address on the envelope, I offer a recapitulation here:

Anthony E. Hecht
#12187656
97th C.I.C. Detachment
H.Q. 97th Inf. Div.
c/o Postmaster, New York City, N.Y.
A.P.O. 445

I must admit that I am not yet permanently situated here—I am working on a basis charmingly termed “detached service.” I will, nevertheless, continue to have the highest hopes, for as you know, C.I.C. has been one of those inaccessible Nirvanas, which I’ve always hoped for, and […] the dissatisfaction of not being in it was heightened by the number of friends I had who did make it. You yourselves know two of them—Philips and Tom Mack.

C.I.C. has that great, midnight aura of secrecy about it in which our whole family seems to dwell from time to time. You, Mom, were never very explicit about the nature of the work which the W.D. [War Department] asked you to do over here, but I somehow gathered that it might be in this line. And Kathryn, who is to all intents and purposes, a member of our clan, sounds, as she writes of her incumbent trip to Europe, like some neo-Romantic figure—possibly out of the “Count of Monte Cristo.”

You can surely surely appreciate the beauty of my position when you consider that for the first time since I’ve been in the army, I am doing work that interests me. It is a more important phase of the war than I ever expected to be concerned with; it is a greater responsibility than I have ever been granted in my phenomenal military career. But what intrigues me most of all is that this is the first time the army has offered me anything in the way of an intellectual challenge (whose glove I am delighted to pick up). You remember how I complained, even during Basic Training of the stifling, retrogressive mental atmosphere. My sparkling mental acumen dwindled to a paltry remnant of what it was. O miserere nobis!

Last night I slept in quarters that were the very paragon of luxury. If the commanding general has any more comforts and conveniences than I had—by God, he is welcome to them. I begrudge him nothing. Though he walk on carpets of concubines, and drink of the nectar of gods, he is no more content than I. I slept in a feather bed of royal cherry wood, beneath a carved wood paneled ceiling. There was running water and electricity, a radio, the toilet functioned properly, and all the normal facilities of a house, such as walls, floors and a roof. (Do not be misled into thinking that I am happier here than I was at home.)

See if you can discover why Maddy never answered my letter to her. And send me her address again—I have lost it. Inform Ben, and any other friends of mine about town of the “exceeding great joy”—(and send me Al’s address—I’ve not seen my duffle bag with all my addresses since I left France).

[Sei immer herzlich gegrusst und gebusst?]12
J.S.Bach

May 14, 1945 Somewhere in Germany

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I sincerely trust that all your anxiety for my welfare was assuaged when you received my last letter, bearing the intelligence of my transfer. I am sure you must have been just as happy as I was. You will note (but not with alarm, I hope) that I have been returned to my original outfit. This was done at the cessation of hostilities and what will become of me is still a matter of some contention. Rest assured that I have “taken steps.” It seems that the interim between this letter and my last was much greater than it should have been—if it should be commensurate with the luxury in which we live. For I must admit that while I was with C.I.C. I lived in regal style. If on the other hand, this lapse may in any way be explained by the comparative leisure I had, I feel that I am purged of sin—for I have been busy as hell, catching up with the Gestapo, the Sicherheitsdeinst, the SS., S.A. u.s.w.¹³

This letter is written primarily to inform you that the war is over, and I have come through it unscathed. You had probably guessed as much by this time, but I am sure that my own confirmation can clinch the matter more firmly than anything else. Unscathed, of course, does not mean unaffected. What I have seen and heard here, in conversations with Germans, French, Czechs, & Russians—plus personal observations combine to make a story well beyond the limits of censorship regulation. You must wait till I can tell you personally of this beautiful country, and its demented people. The country really is beautiful, some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. It looks almost as though it had been created by Norman Bel Geddes [the famous theatrical and industrial designer] instead of by God (no blasphemy intended, just a plug for Norm).

A great batch of your letters arrived this evening, in which you mentioned purchasing replacements for all those books I left at Lois Montgomery’s. I hope you don’t do that—partly because of the expense, and partly because the listing I sent you was incomplete—and I cannot remember now just what books I did leave there. Perhaps another letter to her, with a slight note of impatience, will do the trick.

A letter from Maddy (and a very satisfactory one) arrived last night.

There is not much more I can say now. If you have postponed your V-day celebration in my behalf, stop postponing and get out the drinks for God knows when I’ll be home. There is plenty to drink to, as this letter can testify—and that does not include all the hopes for the future. So invite Kathryn over, if she has not already left, and have a vast number of drinks on me.

Cum tuo in spiritum ero.14

Love,
Tony

May 24, 1945 Near Bamberg, Germany

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I must admit that I was surprised at what I took for a tone of painful naivete which I seem to have detected in your post V-day letters. Correct me if I’m wrong, but [I] felt that you had the idea that “the war is over—and Tony’s on his way home.” I hope I misconstrued your meaning, but according to a recent poll of Army personnel having 84 points or less, the consensus of opinion seems to indicate that the war is not yet over. Or, if you prefer, only one war is over. […]

[To] quote directly from Stars and Stripes … [:] “Every man in the 4 divisions will receive a furlough of undisclosed length in the U.S., and the divisions will probably undergo additional training in the States before shipping to the Pacific.”

Despite the anticipation of getting home again, I am nevertheless quite depressed by my inability to get into Military Government. I went up to Division H.Q. to see what could be done, and everyone was very discouraging. I insist on maintaining one hope, however. I think that while I was working at C.I.C. I managed to worm my way into the good graces of a few key men, who told me then that if there was ever again a call for more men, I would surely be one of them. One of these men was particularly interesting—I may have mentioned him in a letter before—his name was Robie Macauley, a descendant from old T.B. Macauley. He majored in the classics at Kenyon College, and has studied under John Crowe Ransom and Ford Madox Ford (Roger should know the names). He has excellent taste in music (Mozart is his favorite composer) and, of course, in literature, and is fully acquainted with contemporary writing. His taste in art is similar to mine, genuine without too much cultivation. After college he worked for a while as an investigator for an Insurance Company. He has a sharp quiet sense of humor, is very soft-spoken and well mannered, and is very easily depressed—more easily—I think—than I. He’s tall and lanky, very thin, with amazingly stooped shoulders, and it’s a tribute to the strength of his personality that the army has never had any effect on his posture. We became very close friends while we were working together, and I hope to be able to introduce him to you some day.

For the present we have relapsed into the typical garrison “training schedule” with hikes, close-order-drill, physical training etc. It was amazing with what rapidity they rushed us from front line fighting, back to the same damned routine. As if they were afraid to let us profit in any way by the victory in Europe. We didn’t expect anything more than a rest but apparently the feeling is that we’re not even entitled to that.

By the way, if there’s another world war in 30 or 40 years, don’t go pointing any fingers at my generation. The news of the progress of the San Francisco Conference is very disheartening, but it has nothing to do with my generation, except insofar as we will be paying the penalty (together with our children) for the mistakes that are being made. This war, like the last, has accomplished nothing in a positive sense—only in the negative one of destroying an aggressor. I think I was fortunate in expecting no more than that from the beginning. It seems, in fact, that the time is pretty well past when war can have any positive value.

In Dad’s blue-print of the house, he omitted two chairs in the living room—the one Peppy sleeps in and the one everyone stumbles over on the way to the bed rooms.

A bientot
Paul Claudel

August 3, 1945 Fort Bragg, North Carolina

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I am gradually becoming acclimated (that’s a little too strong—resigned is better) to my status and surroundings, and have calmed down quite a bit—although the great “questions” of my future are still uppermost in my mind every moment of the day. But being, as I said, somewhat more subdued than I was at any time during my furlough, I wish to offer a most sincere apology for my frequently irritable moods during those 30 days. Those things I said which bothered or saddened you, were said, as I’m sure you both realize, under considerable emotional pressure. You are, of course, entitled to speculate on the cause of the pressure (Dad attributes too much to The New Yorker situation) but personally, my theory has nothing to do with any single incident or event. I believe that I was so happy on my furlough, and managed to get so far away from the idea of the army, that the unalterable fact of my return assumed unduly large proportions, and hung, like the sword of Damocles, above me, almost from the time I arrived. Going back was not like previous goings back. I had been away from my company during my last month overseas, and I disassociated myself from it on the trip across. That I was away from the company so long, and had become, mentally, at least, autonomous, made return to this imbecilic, servile existence all the more difficult. Add to this, the beautiful Nirvanas that were flaunted in front of my face just before leaving, in the form of Yank, C.I.C. etc., the ultimate goal, which I was powerless to do anything about, and I think you have the essence of the difficulty. Suffice to say that this stage is at least partially past, that I never had a happier furlough, and that I very much regret those unpleasant moments.

Except for that letter from Gray, I’ve gotten no mail from anyone. I answered his letter immediately, with a long rambling letter. I wrote a short note to [William] Shawn, thanking him for his kindness to me during my sojourn in town, and wrote a long letter to Robie last night. This frenzy of activity is brought on by the fact that, up till this evening, I haven’t done any work at all (nor has anyone else) and have spent all my time in the barracks reading the Kenyon and Partisan Reviews. I have exhausted them both, and would be grateful if you’d send Barzun’s book, though by the time it arrives, I will probably have little time for reading. Could also use some more airmail stamps.

Most of the men in my barracks think I’ve changed since I came back from furlough. I’m quiet, I stay by myself, I don’t go out to the P.X. and movies in evenings. Actually, I am waiting to be taken away from them. I keep imagining how the word will come—in a letter from Yank, a wire from Robie, an order to pack my bag and report to Regiment. I fully realize that I am building up hallucinations which, if totally destroyed, will leave me desperately depressed. But I cannot help it. I cannot be satisfied with this animal existence.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”15—This is only a half truth; theoretically splendid, but practically untrue.

In my leisure, I have had several ideas for poems, but have not been able to bring myself to write them. My rationalization is the constant interruption of lewd conversation which people try to drag me into. I have at least reached the point of detachment to create the following untitled verse, which I sent to Robie:

An earnest young latter-day Pater
Wrote a piece on the “Maps of Mercater,”
But so cryptic his phrase
And contextual maze,
He was finally shot as a traitor.

A bit too obscure, perhaps, but the effort was there. Let me hear from you soon.

Love,
Tony

August 9, 1945 Fort Bragg, North Carolina

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I started to write you a letter last night, but it’s a good thing I didn’t, because I was too depressed. I haven’t heard anything definite from Yank or Robie yet, but our division schedule is being speeded up and we’ll be leaving this camp on the 17th of this month. All this happened yesterday, a day of mixed blessings, which also brought the first Atomic Bomb and Russia’s entrance into the war …

God grant that this may be the last day of war.

Love,
Tony

August 13, 1945 Fort Bragg, North Carolina

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I stand in receipt of a number of your letters which are, so far, unanswered—mainly because I have been too depressed to answer them. This only goes to prove that I am essentially more optimistic than you are. The fact that Japan is on the point of defeat, that we are awaiting her acceptance of our terms, does not elate me as it should. I suppose I never really expected to see combat in the Pacific. But I am still scheduled to start a transcontinental journey in less than a week, and I am destined to go overseas from there. We continue to pack, draw equipment, and behave generally as if the war were going to last at least another year. The New Yorker has not come through; Yank hasn’t said a word, and the whole aspect is rather grim. Nothing substantial from Robie, either. Though the homefront seems to be able to see the rosy-fingered dawn even though it’s still midnight, I’m not that clairvoyant. I do not relish the idea of wandering about some typhus-infected island, occupying swamp land and sand dunes. If this is what you meant in your letter by “red tape,” I don’t like it.

Barzun arrived, and many thanks. Glad to hear about Roger and Bard.

It looks as though I’ll live through this war, but what concerns me is what will happen to me before I get out of the army.

Love,
Tony

August 14, 1945 Fort Bragg, North Carolina

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

The war ended this evening.

I was walking past the orderly room with Rike, a friend in Anti-Tank Co. We were on our way to visit Jim Ryan, and join him in some beer at the PX. Suddenly there was a terrific shout from one of the barracks, and instantly everyone seemed to be shouting. It was like spontaneous combustion, as though everyone had heard the news simultaneously. People rushed out of the buildings and stood around shouting, shaking each others hands and patting one another on the back. Then they began to feel silly and wandered back into the barracks.

I was affected in much the same way. As soon as I heard the shouting, there was no need to ask what was going on. We’d been waiting for this for too long. The Atomic bomb, Russia’s entry, the Jap proposal, our counter-proposal, the false report of acceptance, the great delay of communication, made the final announcement seem very anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I was caught with the excitement of the great crowd around me, and I went over to one of the men in my company, and shook his hand warmly. We stood grinning at one another for some time and could think of nothing to say. So I went off with Rike to find Jim.

We wandered up by the Service Club, and the band was coming down the street, playing like hell. It was followed by a huge entourage of soldiers, many of them marching in step & formation. The band was in motley uniform, apparently having left whatever they were doing to come out and blow their heads off. Rike and I joined the great throng behind them, as they marched around the central area of the camp. Ordinarily I would not have done this (nor would Rike), but we both felt extremely calm about the news and thought that perhaps if we participated in this public demonstration, the contagion of the excitement, and possibly even the profound significance of its meaning, might be caught.

But it worked the other way. The people who were shouting themselves hoarse stopped shouting, the band got tired of playing after a few numbers, and the men started to wander back to their company areas with weak, puzzled smiles on their faces. They were wondering just what it meant to them. They didn’t expect to see combat in the Pacific, particularly after the events of the previous days, but they were still destined for shipment overseas and people were still packing, and would continue to pack tomorrow, and the next day.

Everything goes on quite as usual, as if it were yesterday, or two weeks, or a month ago.

All I know is I’ve lived through the war. This should be enough, I guess. I don’t know what to think.

Love,
Tony

[October 6?, 1945] Japan

[To his parents]
Note: Paper supplied by Japanese Society for the Propagation of International Love
Dear Kids—

Since you have heard a report of the trip in Jim’s letter, I will dispense with any further description. Suffice to say it was insufferably hot in the holds at night, and it smelled like an old gymnasium. We were onboard ship for thirty days, going to Cebu in the Philippines first—and apparently by mistake. Then we went to Leyte, thence to a weakness, thence to a sadness, and by this declension, into the madness wherein he now raves, and we all do mourn for—i.e. Japan. We landed at Yokahama, disembarking from the ship at about 3 AM. We drove through the darkened city in trucks, going a short distance to the railroad station. The city, even in the darkness, seemed extremely modern, and the damage done in no way compared with the wrecked cities of Europe. We arrived at our destination at 8 AM of a bright and pleasant morning. The trip was quite interesting, especially when going through the rural “districts” in which the architecture was typically Japanese. Those buildings seem to be made essentially of bamboo, paper, a few pieces of pine, and glass. There is much light in the room, a great part of the walls being devoted to windows, and a soft diffuse light coming through the paper walls between the strips of bamboo. This use of natural light, through the use of many and large windows to opaque walls, together with the tasteful simplicity of the furnishings (which are few, at best) have a remarkably “modernistic” appearance. Le dernier cri de Yokahama, so to speak. The roofs are heavily tiled or thatched, and shrines and monuments inscribed with Japanese characters occur as frequently as pissoirs in Paris. […]

Keep writing, and thanks in advance for the books, the hair tonic [booze], caviar, etc.

Love,
Li Po

October 9, 1945 Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear Kids—

I am translated! How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth tidings of great joy. I am bound in a nutshell, but count myself king of infinite space.16 I have been assigned to the Public Relations Office of this division. My job will be to write feature stories about the division, its personnel, and its occupation sector for American newspapers and the Stars and Stripes. So far I have written nothing but the enclosed limerick:

“L’Arte Moderne”
Un homme nomme Gaston De Gaulle
Est un artiste fantastiquement drole;

Sur un jolie collage

Il a fait un visage

Avec c[h]apeaux et fillets de sole.¹⁷

Mail has not been coming through very well because of the weather conditions. It rains here almost constantly, and most planes have been grounded. So far I have gotten about seven letters—but have gotten none in the last four days.

I am living most comfortably now, in barracks, with electric lights, so there is no point in sending any necessities—just luxuries—food, drink, books etc. And by the way, if you can get any cheap reproductions of the following artists, please send:

Van Gogh	Picasso
Rousseau	Mattise
Chirico	Cezanne

(This represents the collective choice of the whole P.R.O. staff, a very agreeable and intelligent group of men). Don’t spend much money on them since I won’t be able to bring them home without damaging ’em beyond repair. We would just like to liven up an otherwise drab office.

Love,
Kandinsky

[Note on back of envelope]: Improvisation is the soul of genius.

Stanislavski

[October 18, 1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear Kids.

Just a note to tell you to remove the bar sinister from the old escutcheon, for I am now engaged in legitimate endeavors of a most interesting nature. I’ve been writing stories furiously for the Stars and Stripes. The stories are, of course about the 97th—but the work is fascinating, the company is delightful, the conversation is intelligent, witty, provocative, ribald, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Actually, I find less time to write you now than I did while I was back in the company. We frequently work till 11 or 12 at night, and if we don’t work, we just sit around and talk about Plato, the moral basis of democracy, the effect of strikes on the war effort, food, the effect of the army upon individuals, the Defenestration of Prague, the receptivity to art of different people, the lack of German intellectual advancement in the last 50 years, drink, the comparative efficiency of various forms of propaganda, sex, or intimate notes on the lives of Picasso, Koussevitsky, Isadora Duncan, Frank Harris, Berlioz, Shakespeare, Taine, Dürer, and ourselves, of course.

As you can well imagine, this is almost the first time since I’ve been in the army that I’ve had access to such a fund of sensible and entertaining talk. […]

Your letters are finally coming through at a gratifying rate, and I continue to take immense pleasure in reading them. I have tacked most of the articles and clippings you sent me on the wall of the office beside my desk. I eagerly await the arrival of all those packages which must be on their way to me in the mail, for I stand in great need of that mosquito repellent, despite the cold weather. Send on books, the more the better—they will receive a generous audience here.

I have been into Tokyo—specifically to Radio Tokyo, where the Stars and Stripes are located, and to the Imperial Hotel, Frank Lloyd Wright’s monstrosity [demolished in 1968] which is restricted to field grade officers only (that means majors or above). However, down in a small cavern in the cellar, there’s a sort of Peons Pavilion where Enlisted Men are served a pretty decent meal at a fair price. Next door to the Peons Pavilion is the Serfs Salon, where junior grade officers may eat.

There’s really nothing extraordinary about the town. It’s big, dirty, sprawling, crowded, and generally unpleasant.

Thank Kathryn for her wonderful letters, especially the one from Saratoga Springs, and keep writing yourselves,

La morale de cette histoire,

C’est de boire avant de mourir.18

Voltaire

October 24, 1945 [Kumagaya, Japan]

[To Roger Hecht, now at Bard College, a birthday letter]
DEAR BECKMESSER

The rose withers on the stalk, the woods decay, the woods decay and fall, after many a summer dies the swan, and your birthday passes into grey oblivion. The rollicking Geburtsfest [birthday party] is over, and there you are—an old man in a rented house, being read to by a professor of Middle English. The glory has faded from your eyes, the flush of triumph from your cheeks, and all in all, you’re beginning to look like Ramses the second. Death and Transfiguration. People are starting to talk, you know. They say, “how he is growing old, how his hair is growing thin.” Have you taken to wearing a necktie rich but modest, asserted with a simple pin? Fie! By the foul bowels of Klopstock, fie! Look to the lady, go and catch a falling star, but for God’s sake do something—don’t just stand there with that stupid expression on your face. […]

How are things getting along in the Slough of Despond? Pretty slough? What are you reading these days? How is Dupee? What is Mary McCarthy like? Have you been writing? If so, what?

WRITE.

Herzlich,19
Hans Sachs.

The events reported here, with great excitement, eventually did appear in Yank but not for another month and in a much “emasculated” version, as Hecht later reported to his parents.

October 30, 1945 [Kumagaya, Japan]

[To his parents]

Mes Chers,

[…] I have been having a positively fabulous time these past few days, seeing a great deal of Robie [Macauley], and engaged in covering one of the most sensational and fantastic stories to come out of this war. You will no doubt read all about it in the papers some time soon, and even see it in the movies, for there were newsreel photographers up there. However, I was there, and I think I have more background material on it than any one else except the CIC men.

It all hinges around a small resort town about 50 or 60 miles from here. The name of the town is Karuizawa. It used to be a leading summer resort for foreign diplomats and businessmen in Japan. When war came in ’41, a number of neutrals evacuated to the town, and after the defeat of Germany, and the bombings of Tokyo, there was a great influx of foreigners. These were mostly Germans, who had managed to form a veritable state within a state. It was a Germany in miniature. It was divided into party sections—Kreis, Gau, Ort, Block—just like Germany. It had its own food supply, its own rationing, its own semi-Nazi organizations, its own cultural societies, its own Geheimnis Staats Polizei, its own spy network. It was extremely powerful in the orient, and most of the significant personae in this drama have been living right in this town. And I was there. I spoke to some of them, and have the background on most of them. Their stories are fascinating.

Take Paul Wenneker, for example. Full Admiral in the German Navy. Former commander of the German pocket-battleship “Deutschland.” Captured the American vessel “City of Flint.” Was made naval attache to German Embassy in Yokahama. Used to get most of his naval information at geisha parties, where Japanese naval officers would soften under the influence of women and drink, and consequently spill the beans. Once took Hitler on a Baltic cruise. He was in charge of German U-Boat activities in the Pacific.

Then there’s Joseph Meisinger. He was known as the “Butcher of Warsaw.” Was connected with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Bavarian Police in Munich. Later was Dept. Chief of the Berlin Gestapo, where he had a reputation for cruelty. He was transferred to Warsaw in ’39 where he became notorious for atrocities against the Poles and Jews. Came to Japan in ’41 as police attaché to the German Embassy, and it is suspected that he controlled the Ambassador. It is also suspected that his real mission in Japan was to provoke war between Japan and Russia, to relieve pressure on Germany’s eastern front. He was supposed to be one of the most important men under Himmler.

Or there’s Karl [Gustave] Kindermann, who studied classical philology under some of the best German professors, and immediately after finishing his doctor’s thesis on the use of Latin terminology in medicine, became a spy for the German Government in Russia, where he was captured, and interned for a year, and upon his release, wrote the book, In The Toils of The O.G.P.U. [1933]. Did some more spying in Russia again in ’39 and after getting out of the clink again, wrote Moscow Totenhauesern. Wrote a long treatise on the cultural heritage of the Red Sea basin. He is a Jew, but his German passport is not stamped with a “J” as it usually is in such cases. Was the only Jew admitted to the Embassy in Yokahama. Was in correspondence with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York, and Wiedermann of San Francisco fame. Was interested in refugee problems, Moslems, philology, and Gestapo work, which he carried on here in Japan.

I can’t give you the background on them all. There’s Mosaner, an Olympic ski champion, and Gestapo man. Speringer, an SS man and former official at the Dachau Concentration Camp. Hammel, a former butcher who knows 50 languages and dialects. Count Duercheim, the “Goebbels of the East,” propaganda minister.

They’re not all bad characters that accumulate up here, either. Dr. Joseph Rosenstock, a German Jewish refugee, and present conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic, and a number of other estimable characters.

THE ABOVE IS STILL EXTREMELY CONFIDENTIAL, AND IT IS MOST URGENTLY REQUESTED THAT YOU KEEP THIS TO YOURSELVES ENTIRELY, WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS. I will give you the word on when to release the info as soon as I can. […]

Love to all,
Esterhazy

Nov. 7 [1945] [Kumagaya, Japan]

[To Kathryn Swift]

Oh, thou Kate, thou marvelous Kate—

(I wish I had my Shakespeare here. I’d be ready with an appropriate salutation.)

I shall not apologize for not having written to you since I’ve been overseas. Not a word from Germany, nor Japan. Any excuse I might proffer would be much too thin to be convincing. I have finally been “driven” to writing to you out of gratitude for your thoroughly delightful letters. Don’t misunderstand me. This has not been due to any particular letter which happened to coincide with a great surge of energy on my part, but rather it is the cumulative effect of those splendid missives which were continuously sent out into a silent void, with not so much as a belch in response. Nor am I so presumptuous as to think that I can make up for this infinite silence in one letter, but I have recently met some people who, I think, would interest you greatly—some of the old “transition” crowd, so to speak—and I want to tell you about them.

One chap you’d like is Dr. Joseph Rosenstock, the conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, classmate of Artur Rodzinski, friend of Adolph Busch, and a delightful little man. He looks a bit like Voltaire without a wig, if you can imagine that. He has piercing blue eyes, a handsome aquiline nose, a sharp, biting sense of humor, and a profound sense of responsibility as a conductor towards his orchestra and the public. He is a German Jewish refugee, and God know what he’s doing in Japan. (But then there are a lot of unusual people here.) I had tea at his house yesterday (was introduced to him by Robie), and we have become fast friends. He has invited me to come to all of his concerts in Tokyo, and to meet him backstage after the concerts are over.

An even better friend of mine is a chap named [Leo] Sirota. Magnificent pianist. Ranks, so they tell me, among the six best in the world. I must admit I’ve never heard of him, but I heard him play Chopin, Liszt and Glinka the other night, and insofar as I am able to discern, he is incomparable. I had tea at his house too (one drinks a lot of tea in Japan), and he played for Robie and me. He is a good friend of Rudolph Serkin, Egon Petri, and a few others whose names I’ve forgotten. He’s giving a concert in Tokyo with Rosenstock on the 15, 16, and 17 of this month, and he also cordially invited me to come and visit him backstage.

These are only two of a most remarkable group of people now living in the beautiful summer resort of Karuizawa, here in Japan. For further information about other folks of a more insidious nature, ask the folks to show you the last letter I sent them. I told them that the story was extremely confidential, but the secrecy has been lifted […].

Will write again soon,

Love,
Tony

November 23 [1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]

Well,

I have been reading, with a modicum of interest, the various suggestions which have been made as to what should be done with the formula for the atomic bomb. Should we deposit it in a “time capsule” along with some gifted interpreters, for the future use of posterity? Should we manufacture the stuff in a diluted form, and sell it commercially as a laxative? Every crack-pot in the world has an idea about this earth-shaking problem, and even some intelligent men have bothered their brains about it.

Actually, I don’t think it makes any difference what the final decision is. The bomb was discovered in the first place because the cumulative knowledge of physical science, together with its accompanying theories, made such a discovery possible. All that was needed was a man with the imagination and correlative powers to add the sum of the theories and facts; the result was inevitable. But the theories and facts are common property, inasmuch as all knowledge is common property. And if one man can deduce the formula from a common body of information, another man can do it too. An American has done it; there is nothing to prevent a Russian, or a German, from doing it again. The raw materials, in the form of fact and theory, are readily available to anybody who is able to make use of them, and all that is lacking is the mind to grasp what is already implied. America has no monopoly on such minds. They crop up all over. This is one reason why so many of the most revolutionary scientific ideas have been conceived separately and simultaneously throughout history. Calculus, quinine, the theory of evolution (I wish I had my books with me; I could give you innumerable examples) are not to be attributed to certain men with the idea that had Leibniz not lived, or had Darwin never existed, these things would never have been known. Sooner or later all these things would have been discovered. This may sound a bit like Spengler, but don’t be fooled. Spengler attributes these discoveries to an omnipotent Destiny. If Napoleon had not lived, if Galileo had never been born, other men would have fulfilled their functions, because destiny decreed it. I am not trying to say anything of the sort. I am simply suggesting that if there are two apples on the left, and two apples on the right, sooner or later somebody’s going to come along and, being wise, recognize the fact that there are four apples. We cannot put knowledge away in a vault; it is much more lively than any of us.

These mental peregrinations were brought on mainly by a desire to keep the weary old mind in working condition by thrusting weighty problems before it at regular intervals—about once a year. And also of course, to let you know that I’m still capable of enfeebled comments upon the world at large. And though nothing spectacular has happened for the past two or three days, which is indeed unusual, I felt like writing to you. I wrote last night, a short note attached to my mss. about Karuizawa.

Keep writing.

Love,
Tony

Troop train, postwar France, 1945
Courtesy of Emory University Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Division

November 25 [1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear kids,

No long letter today. Nothing much going on. Just wanted to send you some photographs taken in various parts of the world. I am not in any of them. The picture of the troop train (40&8) was taken on the trip back to France after the war was over. It is offered simply as documentary evidence of the splendid travelling facilities and improvements that have been made since the last war.

The banquet scene was taken here in Japan at Thanksgiving. We had turkey, cranberry sauce, corn, fruit cake, apple pie, nuts, salad, fruit, coffee, and beer.

The post cards are of a huge Buddhist monument at Takasaki, about 30 miles away.

The photos of the Japanese garden and house were taken at Takasaki, too. It’s the home of the sculptor who designed the statue on the post card. I was there, with an interpreter, of course, to get some information about the shrine for a story.

I have still not mailed the package of silk I was telling you about some time back. In the mean time another package of little items has accumulated, and I plan to send them both home very soon. One of them will contain the 75 yards of white silk I wrote you about, in addition to about 16 yards of striped, colored silk. Included in this box is the black lacquer cigarette box I mentioned in an earlier letter, and a handsome, white turtleneck sweater, which I plan to wear when I go back to college.

In the second box is a fur-lined Japanese aviators suit, which should come in handy if you ever decide to become a Japanese aviator. For aviators who have fixations about fur, I have also included a similar suit without fur. It ought to be good for groveling around the house. As a matter of fact, the jacket is rather nice.

Oh, I forgot to mention that in the first box there are some Japanese rifle sights, which we can use to spy on the neighbors.

tally ho
Chris. Marlowe

November 26 [1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]

Well,

Went to an old whore house today. Pretty lousy looking place. The girls weren’t so hot either. But I got what I was looking for.

I was looking for a piano.

I think that I may have mentioned in an earlier [letter] that I was trying to get Leo Sirota to come down to division for a recital. Well, the general approved the idea, and turned all the details over to me, and I’ve been searching high and low for a piano that’s good enough for as excellent a musician as Sirota. The only pianos in the division area that are army property, are all spinets or uprights. However, an officer I know told me that there was a reasonably good grand piano at a particular whore house not far from here, and that’s where I went this morning.

I had an interpreter with me, which solved what might otherwise have been a rather embarrassing situation. As it is, I’m sure the girls are still puzzled by our behavior. I dare say we’re the first people who ever came in there, played the piano, talked to the owner, and then, without further delay, left. However, the deal was consummated. And, in passing, I think it’s a rather amusing note that one of the greatest living pianists is to give a recital on a whore house piano.

Another piece of good luck. Some time ago, just for the hell of it, I started to write a radio script, satirizing the popular conception of “what we’re fighting for.” The little white house, and blueberry pie, etc. Well, I was just doing it for fun, and I didn’t bother to finish it. It floated idly about the office for some time. In the meantime, the 97th division had gone on the air, with a weekly broadcast (every Sunday afternoon) from Radio Tokyo. The long and the short of it is that my script is to be incorporated into next Sunday’s program. It’s going to be typed tonight, and I’ll send you a copy.

I was deluged with packages and mail today. Two parcels from Kathryn, a letter full of clippings, and two typewritten letters from you, as well as the prints, The Partisan Review, the Bard newsletter, and the Bardian which included an excellent poem by Roger. That’s enough to last me for some time.

The prints are delightful. Just what I wanted. The Cezanne still life is the best reproduction, I think, and is a splendid piece. The other Cezanne, with the two figures, I was not familiar with, but I like it very much. The reproduction of the Gauguin was rather bad. The Picasso is one of my favorites, as is the Chirico, The Redon serves to bring back memories, though the color is very poor. All in all, they are wonderful, and I thank you immensely.

By the way, there’s an ad in the issue of The Partisan Review you sent me for a small shop called “Books ‘N Things” at 73–4th Ave. Tel. Gr. 5–8746. I pass this information along because the ad says they have volumes no. 3–4 of Verve, the magazine which had those handsome reproductions of primitive Italian paintings in one of the issues which I bought while on furlough. If you have time, I wish you’d look into it.

Love
Vincent

December 8 [1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To Kathryn Swift]
Dear K.

(That looks sort of like Tchekov, doesn’t it?)

I quote from your latest missive: “If you like my [translation of Rilke’s] ‘Cornet’, then you must like [Amy Lowell’s] ‘Patterns’.…”

Madam, this follows not. This is most strange, a veritable non-sequitur. I am not trying to affront your predilections for the poem, particularly if it has a personal and heightened meaning for you, but I do not like it. In fact, I think the last line (“God, what are patterns for?”) should be intoned with a feeling of exasperation. What for, indeed. What was Amy for? Now, there you have a question. Especially when you consider her size. As a matter of fact, her size has a lot to do with it. Gross wasn’t the word. Mammoth. Gargantuan. A bloated behemoth. She lacked every physical quality of femininity—well, some of them, anyway. She must have been acutely aware that she was not “acceptable” as a woman when she started smoking cigars. The dame was frustrated. As a result, all this inhibited femininity was released in her poems. Now, I’ve got nothing against women, not even against Amy, whatever she was. But when she starts being so God-damned feminine all over the place, I turn to the wall. Dickinson can be feminine without becoming cloying. There is a strength and rigidity to some of her poems which balances the delicacy of feminine quality. But Amy’s poems are like a Schrafft’s dessert. Fudge and whipped cream, piled on top of candied fruit, and syrups, and molded into a very pinnacle of sweetness.

I am sorry you picked an Untermeyer anthology. He’s an old fool with no taste, and didn’t even start including Eliot in his anthologies til he was forced into it by the tremendous acclaim the poet got from all the best critics. Even now, his choices are frequently unrepresentative of a poet, and they often reflect the anthologist’s bad taste. I would suggest, however, that the next time you visit chez Hecht, you borrow some books. I don’t remember exactly what books we have, but I’m sure of the following: try Harmonium by Wallace Stevens. Particularly such poems as “Peter Quince at the Clavier,” “Le Mononcle de mon Oncle,” … memory fails. We also have a pamphlet of selections for Rilke’s “Das Stundenbuch” with foul translations by Babette Deutsch. Eliot’s Quartets. Several volumes of W.B. Yeats. Auden, et al.

Nevertheless, I eagerly look forward to the arrival of the Rilke, both original and translated versions. They are easily the finest Christmas present you could send.

Things are getting dull around here. We have descended into the maelstrom of conflicting personalities, and everyone seems to grate on everyone else. In addition, the brass is making our job doubly difficult by insisting on censoring every release from this office, and consequently cutting down our output to a mere shadow of its former self. The brightest part of my day is when the letters arrive. Yours are real gems, and I can’t thank you enough.

Toujours gai
Tony

December 26 [1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear kids,

[…] The usual military pall hung over Christmas again this year, but it was accentuated more than ever before by the untidy condition of the world. There may have been those who thought it ironic to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace in a time of war, but I think the newly-arrived peace has made the occasion much more paradoxical than it was before. When we were fighting, we were doing something which, despite its barbaric nature, was necessary to the people of the world. In a negative way, we were accomplishing something. With the peace at hand, we are rapidly losing everything which was gained in the fighting. I have written you about this before, about China, Indonesia, politics, pressure, reaction ad nauseam. Japan is still full of corruption. From men in the highest places down to the lowliest menial in the fascistic Japanese Police Force, politics and corruption are rampant. There is one particular incident which occurred this Yuletide which brings home my point very nicely. The bulk of the Japanese people, who have borne the expense of the war (I speak only of the financial expense) are for the most part very poor indeed. Besides this, the war has caused all sorts of shortages, much more severe than those in the States, particularly in housing, food, and coal. As a result, food rationing has been turned over to Japanese civil authorities, in order that the most equitable distribution of foodstuffs may be made. A few days before Christmas, it was discovered that the mother of a large and very poor family, driven to insanity by starvation, killed one of her step-children, cooked it, and fed it to her husband and children. It seems that she was not getting her due from the food rationing system, and being too poor to deal with the black market, was driven to cannibalism.

This is the story I mentioned in my last letter, referring to it simply as something big coming up. As you can see, it has its sensational angles, and will probably receive wide coverage in the states when we release it. The story should be ready in a few days.

The point, however, is this: people are starving all over the world, some in a more sensational manner than others, but they’re starving nevertheless. Whether this condition can be rectified immediately I doubt very much, and some situations might even be considered beyond the realm of practical assistance, such as the feeding of entire nations. But where the starvation is the fault of political corruption, it is a sign of what by now has become altogether too clear—that in a certain and very important sense, we have ended this war in catastrophic defeat. It may seem ridiculous to you to exaggerate one incident into a “Decline of the West,” but I have seen so much of this graft, corruption, and intrigue, both in and out of the army, in minor and major matters, affecting few and many, that I consider this story quite representative in many ways. […]

Rien de plus.

Lots of Atomic Love,
Max Plank

December 27 [1945] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear kids,

Just wrote you last night, so this will be a short note, but I just found out about a few things which I thought might interest you.

In last night’s letter I mentioned the case of cannibalism which we’re covering now. Well, I’m getting most of the information from a Captain Gottesman, a rather colorful gentleman from Brooklyn, who is the legal officer of the 77th Military Government Detachment. He’s a very intelligent guy, has travelled all over the world, was sworn into his legal position at the Supreme Court in Washington when he was a civilian. I don’t know much about his background, except that his father had something to do with the manufacture of silk in the States, but the Capt. is a good fellow, excellent company, a fine sense of humor, u.s.w.20

As legal officer, it is Capt. Gottesman’s duty to investigate, among other things, the records and books of all large Japanese corporations within his Ken (Ken being the Japanese word for Prefecture, which is the limit of the MG [Military Government] authority for that area). In line with this work, Gottesman requested GHQ [General Head Quarters] to put out an order requiring all Japanese firms to show statements of ownership, etc. from before the war started, with periodic reports on all changes which would cover the entire period up to the present time. GHQ refused the request. Why they did this you may judge for yourself when you hear why the request was made.

All the Japanese industries which were involved in war production are beginning the reconversion program, just as is being done back home. For authorization they have to deal with the MG, of course, and it’s usually Capt. Gottesman who takes care of them. In one particular case which he told me about, he asked the men who represented the particular corporation who had laid down the initial capital upon which the corporation had been established shortly before the war started. The Japanese replied quite simply, “The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.” The Capt., thinking there had been some misunderstanding on the part of the Jap, rephrased his question and got the same answer. And how much of the corporation did Goodyear own? 450 out of the total 500 shares. And as the war proceeded, Goodyear bought up the other 50 shares. At the end of the war, the corporation was worth 30 million yen. So the Capt. asked, “Who owns the corporation now?” And the Jap answers, “I do.” And Capt. Gottesman asked, “You mean you bought it from Goodyear for 30 million yen?” And the Jap said, “No.” And Capt. asked how much he paid for it, and the Jap said “Nothing.” So Gottesman asked how he could say he owned it, and the Japanese replied, “Very delicate question.”

Now, Goodyear is far from the only American [corporation] which was actively involved in the Japanese war effort. Capt. Gottesman mentioned General Electric, Douglas Aircraft. Am going to try and find out more about this as soon as I can. Will let you know. If I can get documentary evidence, it would make a swell story for PM [Picture Magazine, a leftist New York City newspaper].

Love,
Tony

1946

January 5 [1946] Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear Kids,

[…] Got a letter from Robie [Macauley] this morning, and his parents need have no further worries about him. He’s leaving for home on the 9th, that’s four days from now. […]

In his letter he mentioned that he had just heard from a friend of his, Peter Taylor, a good short-story writer, who is teaching school in some place like Wilsbury Hants, Somersetshire. He’s been able to get to small gatherings with T.S. Eliot and has had conversations with Gertrude in Paris. As Robie says, it makes me realize how far I’ve gone away from the “literary life.” […]

Love,
B. Croce

This letter was written the day after Hecht’s twenty-third birthday. Hence the applicability of Milton’s sonnet, “How Soon Hath Time,” followed by lines stitched together, with some alteration, from Hamlet 2.2.565–578. Milton wrote his “Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” not at nineteen but in the month he turned twenty-one.

January 17, 1946 Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]
Dear Kids,

As I recall, Milton wrote a sonnet upon becoming twenty-three years old. Not only did he write a sonnet, but the damned thing has become immortal. Besides this, he’d written plenty of immortal stuff before he ever became twenty-three. Take the “Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” written, I believe, at the age of nineteen. Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak like John a’dreams, unpregnant of my cause, and can write nothing, no, not for a world, upon whose property and most dear life a damn’d defeat was made. Ah, it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered, and lack the gall to make oppression bitter. For if I would, oh, what would come of it?

I have, in fact, begun a series of articles on the little faults and flaws which are barely discern[i]ble in the army system. Petty problems, of no consequence, yet it amuses me to invent banter and small talk on the subject with which I feel I am modestly acquainted. They are delicate pieces, almost fragile (commensurate with the subject), and the finicky might even call them precious. But to me they shall represent an achievement equal to a monograph on the Tasmanian business cycle; shallow on the surface, perhaps, but of great pitch and moment to the intelligent reader. […]

Watch for the Ding an Sich,
E. Kant

January 21, 1946 Kumagaya, Japan

[To his parents]

Oh, joyful, joyful.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth tidings of great joy. “If the present shipping schedule holds, enlisted men with 45 points or 30 months service … will be home or on their way home by mid-February, Col. L. B. Shaw, 8th Army G-1 announced Saturday.”—Pacific Stars and Stripes, Jan 21, 1946.

That includes me. I have 31 months service, which means that I’ll be among the last of the group to ship out […]. Nevertheless, if I leave on the 15th of Feb. I’ll be more than delighted. I hadn’t expected to leave before April. […]

Excitedly,
Petronius

Anthony Hecht, age 24, University of Iowa, 1947
Photograph © C. Cameron Macauley, courtesy of Cameron Macauley