Phil Wood's Letters
Letter #38
This Is A Crack Outfit
To Margretta & Gretchen
December 1943
Saturday noon[1]
Dear Girls, my Dear Girls!
This is the longest time you have ever gone without a letter from me – and there have been some long times.
I’ve worried about it a hell of a lot. This is no time to let you go a day longer than necessary without word, but believe me, it was necessary. There was nothing I could do – not even warn you that there would be no letters. We were on transports, on maneuvers at sea for the whole of that time and of course no word was allowed out. The same thing will happen soon again – so please don’t worry.
I hate this. I have always felt free to tell you all that I thought we were going to do, because I didn’t know. Now I’m pretty certain I know (where we’re going, that is), and I do know a lot more of our very specific plans & methods than most. So I have to weigh every word, and don’t like it. One thing though: it will be a very glorious page in Marine Corps annals – something that you will be proud of. This is a crack outfit. They have lavished more care in training the Fourth Division than on any other so far – we’re good, and will soon prove it. I wish I could tell you more about this training that we’ve been going through, but – enough of all that. It’s been rugged, and I’m still slowly putting on weight.
Got a new man in the platoon about three weeks ago – Stephen Peter Hopkins – Harry Hopkins’ son.[2] A very nice, intelligent kid of 18. He isn’t as mature as the rest of them are, but he is very willing, and gets along well – mixes in, and is big and strong enough to take care of his end of a Machine Gun. He’s the first celebrity in the company, and I’m glad to get him, though I’m not sure just why. He has fit right in – no special attention, but none really needed.[3]
About a month ago, or over that I guess, we made a landing at (of all places) the Beach Apartments. Right in front of it, too – stormed right up past it and well up toward the center of town. It was the first time I’d seen it since I said goodbye to you there that night – almost six months ago, Mother.
I’m still having some troubles with the platoon, mostly an occasional man a few hours over leave, but I think that on the whole it’s going a lot better than it was for so long. I worried a lot about that, didn’t like to think of those boys getting fouled up – though the things they did would have little or no bearing on their conduct in battle.
Christmas presents arrived: yours and Fred’s & Aunt Kit’s, but you know me; I haven’t opened them yet. I want to save a little bit of Christmas spirit – hear a carol or two as I unwrap – might sneak one little present in on Christmas Eve for you, Mother.
Getting presents for you all is going to be a terrible problem. I haven’t been on liberty in almost a month, and though I might get a chance to get off in the next couple of days, your presents will be late, for sort of a Rapp Christmas.
Got to go now – from now on I’m going to write, whether I can mail to you or not. It will at least make me feel better, if not you.
Love,
Phil
Footnotes
[1] Probably early December 1943; evidently a follow-up to a telegram dated 8 December. PFC Hopkins, referenced below, joined Phil’s company on 15 November 1943, “about three weeks” before this letter.
[2] Harry Hopkins was President Roosevelt’s chief diplomatic advisor and a well-known politician.
[3] “Hoppy” quickly impressed his new squad mates, and within a very short time was one of the platoon’s most popular men.
The arrival of Steve Hopkins (shown above as a senior at The Hill School in 1943) caused something of a stir. Captain Irving Schechter related the event to Henry Berry for the 1982 book “Semper Fi, Mac.”
I was over at the HQ when my first sergeant called me on the phone.
“Captain,” he said, “I have a young PFC here whose orders say he is to report to A Company.”
“Okay, sergeant,” I answered, “process him and get him squared away in the morning.”
“But, captain, there is something screwy about the address of his next of kin.”
“Why’s that, sergeant?”
“It’s the White House, Washington D. C.”
As you might assume, I was a little taken aback.
“Oh,” I said, “well, what’s the name of his next of kin?”
“Harry Hopkins, sir.”
This did make things a little interesting. I decided to go to my office and have young Hopkins meet me there. His first name was Steve.
He arrived at my office and gave me the proper salute. I asked him to sit down.
“Hopkins,” I said, “I see you have been in officers’ training and I’m somewhat puzzled as to why you should show up here. There is no mention of your flunking out of OCS.”
“No, sir,” he answered, “I did not flunk out; I just got damn sick and tired of getting the needle about my having some kind of an easy job because I was Harry Hopkins’ son. My dad has believed in this war since it started and so have his sons. I’m anxious to go overseas and back up what my father stands for because I stand for the same things.”
“Okay, Hopkins,” I told him, “we’ll get you into machine guns in the morning.”
Well, when we finally left San Diego, we were stationed aboard our transports until we reached the Marshalls. We had a chance to go ashore some at Honolulu, but never overnight. And when you spend a long period of time aboard a transport, you have plenty of time to study the men you live with in such close proximity. This is what I did concerning Steve Hopkins. I wasn’t trying to be fatherly, mind you; he was only a few years younger than I. I just wanted to make sure he was for real. He was.
There he was, every day, field stripping that machine gun of his, cleaning the barrel, checking the ammunition, and above all, fitting right in with his fire team. He was gung-ho all right.
Hopkins was assigned to a machine gun squad with George Smith, and the two young men quickly became close friends. The story of “Hoppy” volunteering for dangerous duty won him much respect – as did his obvious desire to do well. According to Smith, Hopkins nearly drowned on one of the rubber boat exercises but stuck with his squad and toughed it out when older Marines gave up.
Tragically, Hopkins would be the first A/1/24 marine to lose his life in battle. While helping to set up a machine gun on Namur in February 1944, Hoppy was shot in the head and later died of his wounds. He was buried at sea in Kwajalein lagoon.