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Earl Leas correspondence
This collection results from Earl Leas’s service in the United States Army during the Second World War. This compilation of 473 letters was written to his family: Muzz (mother), father Floyd, and sister Arlene. Other items found among the letters were church and dinner service programs, foreign curr...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Collection: | Earl Leas Correspondence |
| Collection Number: | 3417 |
| Format: | Manuscript |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects and Genres: | |
| Online Access: | Link to finding aid |
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| Physical Description: |
2.0 Linear feet ; 5 boxes |
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This collection is open for research. |
| Summary: |
This collection results from Earl Leas’s service in the United States Army during the Second World War. This compilation of 473 letters was written to his family: Muzz (mother), father Floyd, and sister Arlene. Other items found among the letters were church and dinner service programs, foreign currency, post cards, and receipts from the Billy’s Butter Bretzels (also Billy’s Bretzel Bakery) in Reading, Pennsylvania.
In the army, a high degree of security was enacted to prevent the leaking of classified information. Many of the letters the soldiers sent home were evaluated, or censored, to prevent or impede a breach in their security measures. Knowing this, many of the soldiers wrote letters which did not provide more than discussions of weather and other mundane observations. Much of this can be read in Leas’s frustrated attempts to write within the boundaries of proper military secrecy and conduct. The majority of the letters seems to be saturate with repetitive information and observations.
The first few letters in the collection are without numbers and only demarcated with the date. Leas started numbering his letters on March 25, 1943 (Box 1, Folder 1) noting “Well here is No. 1 letter. There are a lot of letters before this one, but I will start with this one as No. 1.” He gives no reason as to why he decided to do this. In this same letter he also noted the inauguration of the V-mail system. “Starting April 15th they are going to start the real V-mail system that is photographing the letters. They say this way we should get them much quicker. I will use V-mail then also, but you see we don’t have so many V-mail forms here. I will use regular air-mail until the regular V-mail goes in effect.” While the V-mail system made it possible to send and receive the letters quicker, it also allowed the military to censor the letters more efficiently.
Acknowledging the time he spent abroad, Leas in August 1944, “A year and a half ago today we left the states, boy, that seems an awful long time to be out of the good old U.S. and away from home.” As his deployment abroad extended, perhaps much longer than ever imagined, his foundness for communication from family and friends back home grew, so much so that he started his letters with the expression “Boy, I sure did hit the jackpot with the mail today . . ..” Although he continued to write about the same things as in previous letters, following those written August 1944 took on a more gleeful tone.
In January 1945 he was transferred from North Africa to Italy. He wrote, “I guess you think it’s a long time since I wrote the last letter, but as you can see by my new address that we took a little boat ride. . . . I knew we were going to move some time ago, but I couldn’t let you know in any way. We had quite a rough trip the first few days when we ran into a pretty bad storm, but the rest of the time it was very smooth.” In May of this year the censorship was relaxed but Leas’s letters continued in a similar fashion and writing style. Writing on May 12th, “Since we can write practically what we please, I am going to write more air/mail letters. It seems strange to talk to you without having to worry about giving some military [information] away.” As his letters continued, he grew more and more frustrated with being away from home, constantly making note of his longings to be near family, friends, and home. Although they learned that the war was over in August of 1945, he and other soldiers remained in Italy until November, much to his dismay and bewilderment. Then, when orders came for his return, he left Pisa for Naples, where he wrote his final letter informing his family of new devel0pments. He concluded, “Well I guess that’s all for now, I’ll let you know as soon as I can when I hit the good old U.S.A.” Earl Leas was born in 1920 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and lived there most of his life. The collection includes 473 letters, dated 1943-1945, that Leas wrote to his family in Reading during World War II. The letters are mostly about his activities in the army and the time he spent in Oran, Algeria and Marina Di Pisa, Italy. |