Dear Folks:
Here it is another evening about through and no letter to you yet. There isn’t anyone around just now so maybe I can get the job done. Last night was the regular meeting and the time when the local talent gets up and does their song and dance. But last night there was something especially interesting—anyway it was for me. One of the officers has a powerful short wave radio and he brought it along to listen to a nightly broadcast direct from Tokyo. Since Guadalcanal has fallen into our hands it was especially revealing and contained the usual abundance of propaganda. Perhaps you would be interested in a few of the minor details. In the first place the announcer had a very good command of English and aside from the announcement and the tainted propaganda it sounded like any state station. Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of the Emperors and subsequently the broadcast was full of the glory and promising future of the Nipponese. On the capture of Guadalcanal he said our losses in ships amounted to 117 (177?) while the Japs lost only 17. Among our casualties, they gave 7 aircraft carriers. The whole text was full of the invincibility of their forces. What was equally interesting was a short program of transcriptions made by American war prisoners and broadcast to relatives back home. The prisoner’s voices and the context sounded very much like a well worn set of phrases. In all cases they were entirely happy and talked of the splendid treatment from the Jap forces. Among other things the announcer orated on the happiness of the people relieved from British oppression, the poor job an American representative did of explaining our lack of success to the House of Representatives, and the great advances made in controlled territory. At the end of the broadcast he reiterated the Japs promise of complete domination over Anglo-Saxon peoples and lands everywhere. I was very interested in the whole program and finally had a first hand chance to hear some of their fantastic baloney. A little later, ironically, I returned to my billet and heard the US version of the fight and a stranger or anyone unknown to the action could never have guessed they were both on the same topic. Well so much from the mouths of Tojo’s hopheads.
I hope by this time you have received the small gifts I sent some time ago, and I’ll get the others that you wanted soon.
I hate to stop here because every time I write I feel like it’s sort of gas stove chat, but tonight I can’t find much to talk about. Instead of talking I’d like to sit down and work on the mountain of popcorn that was so frequent at home and the apple supply that never diminished. Believe it or not, our household conventions during the winter are what always stand out more vividly than anything else when I get to thinking what makes a home more than walls and a roof.
I guess I’ll have to shut off the faucet here—
Love,
