Phil Wood's Letters
Letter #56
Dates With Some Army Nurses
To Margretta & Gretchen
26 March 1944
26 March
Dear Girls,
I would have written the last few days had there been anything to tell you – honest, I would. My biggest worry now is that you are worried – not having gotten any of my letters since I arrived here, apparently. I hope to John you have by now, for I’ve written often and long. I don’t blame you, because a gap of a couple weeks is a long time, and I repeat again (and again) just how important letters are since I’ve been out here. Mail call is the focal point of every day.
Had a little accident the other day playing tackle football in a rocky field – broke a rib and have been taped up for four days.[1] The slight pain is gone, but my tummy itches. It wasn’t anywhere near serious enough to put me to bed, dammit. I could use a couple of days of resting and sleeping.
Last liberty [I] went down to the Army hospital with Joe Swoyer & Fireball, and we got dates with some Army nurses.[2] We brought beer – three cases of it – and they brought food, and we had a picnic out in the meadow. We really had a hell of a lot of fun. They are much nicer girls than the Navy nurses I dated at Pendleton; more well-bred, more natural.[3] Funny, Joe Swoyer’s mother & father met in the Army too – she was a nurse, he too was born Sept. 1920.[4] For some reason his stomach was fouled up on the picnic, and it resulted in his making smells – awful, tremendous ones. Fireball & I didn’t know where they were coming from – we couldn’t get Joe alone to discuss it, but we suspected the plainer of the three girls. Apparently by mutual but silent agreement we left the area – smoked out! Fire & I just had enough beer to giggle about it & think it the funniest thing in the world. So we went to the kitchen–
Got to fall out – assembly.
Love Phil
Footnotes
[1] Sports-related injuries were common, even for the non-athletic. Phil Wood’s medical records also indicate he sustained a broken nose early in his military career – an injury inflicted by an overly enthusiastic judo partner.
[2] 1Lt. Joseph D. Swoyer, Jr., is Phil’s tentmate – a machine gun platoon leader from B/1/24. 1Lt. Frederic A. “Fireball” Stott, once part of Phil’s “Agony Quartet” singing group, is now a liaison officer with battalion HQ. “The Army hospital” is almost certainly the 22nd Station Hospital, located in the Makawao school building about two miles from camp.
[3] “Much nicer girls” – all Navy nurses were commissioned officers, while Army nurses might be enlisted personnel. The difference between the “haughty” Navy nurses and the down-to-earth Army ones appears in numerous (male-written) memoirs of the time period.
[4] Margaretta Rapp was a nurse at Camp Dix; Philip Wood Senior was in the American Field Service, and the two met after he returned to the United States for officer training. Joe Swoyer is just two weeks older than Phil Wood, being born on 15 August 1920.
It is somewhat unusual that Phil never picks up this story again after the interruption (as he does on numerous other occasions) and instead mails it off in this incomplete state.
The “assembly” being called is probably part of the program commemorating the one-year anniversary of the 24th Marines (originally organized at Camp Pendleton on 26 March 1943). After a parade and an address from Major General Harry Schmidt, the regiment was given on-base liberty for the rest of the day. Marines could attend special religious services, sporting events, or live performances starring local entertainers and talented servicemen.