At sea
June 15, 1944
Dear girls,
We’ve been on this baby for a long time now, and of course are getting restless. The heat becomes more and more oppressive – shirts are always wet and soggy, and you actually steam when you go below decks. Wish we were doing this in winter, as we did last time. Hard, terribly hard to bring yourself to realize that summer is coming into her first full bloom back home, that you girls are wearing flouncy, starchy summer dresses, that the windows are wide open to welcome the warm night air, and the comforting hum and rumble of New York at night. What plants do you have in the window this year, Mother? I was always partial to the grapefruit we had in Hastings. I hope it won’t be too long before I see it all again. By next summer, it must be.
All my love,
Phil
This was the last letter that Margretta and Gretchen received from Phil. Obviously written quickly, it dates from the day that Able Company landed on Saipan. Any other messages he might have begun composing were lost when he was killed twenty days later.
One can imagine Phil trying to calm himself before the landing by sending one last note to his family. It was probably sealed and given to an officer aboard the transport to be mailed.
The family would hear nothing about Phil for more than a month.