The Easter Letter

April 9, 1944

Dear Mother & Father,

It is Easter Sunday, and you will be happy to know I made it to Mass today.  I have some time now and I am so behind in my letters, thought I would catch up.   I also included the picture I promised to send you.

This morning a line of truck’s showed up at our camp while it was still dark and we got to pick between the Catholic or Protestant service ( yes… I picked the right truck!). We were driven down to Swansea to a rugby field full of soldiers for a sunrise service. Two hours in the cold was not pleasant, but watching the sun come up over the bay made it all seem worthwhile. It made me think about the Easter’s we used to celebrate at Sacred Heart in Los Angeles. I miss you all so much!

Afterwards there was time to wander around town, but being Sunday, nothing was open. Swansea was hit hard during the Blitz and many parts of the town are still in ruins. You have to give the Welsh people credit for their courage, no time to rebuild, they just cleared the rubble off the streets and continued on with their lives.  

The Army still has me scratching my head. After six months of training in Wales we got news yesterday that we are being re-assigned and will be relocated soon. No real explanation, just something about needing a division that had completed their amphibious training, so we got the short straw.

I am not sure where we are going, but I will miss some things about Wales. Our camp is in the middle of a farm on the top of a hill, and the countryside is so beautiful. It’s just a short hike to the local pub and the people there have gotten to know us very well.  Meeting soldiers from other countries has been interesting too, like the marksmanship contest with the Welsh Home Guard ( we let them win) and the combined training with the Glasgow Highlanders ( yes, they really have bagpipes), but the highlight was at Christmas when we got to entertain all those English school children who were forced to leave their families in London. Poor kids… made me miss Corky terribly.

Plenty of things I will not miss, like fifteen mile hikes in the rain on Christmas Eve or training on the beaches with live rounds exploding overhead. I could fill another page with my thoughts about the Army and this war, but it would never get past the censors, so I better stop right here.

 I love you both. Hopefully, this will all end soon so I can get back home.

Jack

The 112th regiment was spread all over South Wales. Jack’s Company was in a British Camp that was built on a farm at Tre-glog, just outside of the village of Llansawel.

Jack described the countryside in England and Wales in one of his letters. Green and raining all the time, but training went on rain or shine.

The Black Lion Hotel was a pub in the small town of Llansawel that was a short hike from Jack’s camp. It is still in operation today.

The Assault Training Centre was located in North Devon and included extensive training for amphibious assault. Some of the remnants of the pill boxes and concrete obstacle courses still remain. Jack’s Division trained their in November 1943.

The 112th regiment sent eight of their best marksmen to have a shooting contest with the 1st Pembrokeshire Home Guard Battalion of the Welsh Regiment at Tenby. The Home Guard won the contest.

Jack’s regiment exchanged soldiers with the 15th Scottish Division that included the 56th Highland Brigade, 9th Cameronians, 2nd Glasgow Highlanders and the 7th Seaforth Highlanders.

St Helen’s Rugby and Cricket Field was where the Catholic Easter Sunrise Service was held on April 9, 1944. It is also where the demonstration american football game between the 28th Division and the 101st Airborne was held.

The Swansea Blitz occurred over three days in February 1941. Germans targeted the port city because of its shipping and nearby oil refineries. Over 230 people were killed and 7,000 lost their homes. In 1944 much of the town was still in ruins.

English children were moved from their homes in the cities into the country for their safety. Many US bases hosted parties and entertainment over the holidays for these children. Several thousand visited the 28th Division during Christmas in 1943.

Jack Emme was my dad’s brother. My dad’s nick name was Corky and he was fourteen years old in 1944. Jack was in the 28th Division, 112th Regiment, Company L. This blog post is part of a project to rebuild Jack’s service history during World War II.

This is not an actual letter from Jack but matches the tone of many of the letters he wrote while overseas. It is filled with verifiable facts about the six months he spent in South Wales.

As he describes in his letter, orders came through for Jack’s division to be reassigned the day before Easter in 1944. They were moved from the First Army to the Third Army under General George S. Patton. On April 19th, they were relocated by their own motor pool in three shifts to Ramsbury, England, which was about 150 miles away. The relocation was done in secret as part of an elaborate diversion to convince the Germans that the D-Day invasion was to be a landing at Calais instead of Normandy. It is likely that Jack’s division was added because there were no other divisions in the Third Army that had completed their amphibious training and they needed to look like an Army that was ready to invade.

 This diversion strategy was not known about publicly until after the war and created a lot of confusion for the soldiers of the 28th Division. On June 6th many felt that they had been passed over for the actual invasion and did not understand why.

Forty six days later, on July 22nd, the 28th division landed at Omaha Beach and went on to play a crucial role throughout the rest of the war. Jack was killed in action on August 7th somewhere near the road between Vire and Gathemo.