Kelly Field
Friday, June 12, 1942
Dearest Mom & Sally,
This is by far my busiest week. The sun has been shining twice as hard & we have been working twice as hard. The sun yesterday was 116° on the parade ground and we were out there for four hours, all afternoon.
My studies so far are progressing exceptionally well for me as I have an average of about 92 so far. Before, my best average used to be around 80 in High School. I have been working harder here even than in college though. I expect to raise it to 95 which will place me on the honor roll.
Before we can get through here we have to complete certain athletic events. They are the high jump 4’2”, run the mile in seven minutes, chin six times in succession, and run the 100 yard dash in 12 seconds. I have successfully completed all but the high jump, and will do it soon.
The past week I got a letter from Bill & Margaret & you & Peggy, and I sure gathered a lot of news from the combination
My best friend is Lieut. Col. here I found out the other day. But just the same Cadet Maj. gave me two gigs this afternoon for talking while he was yelling his head off trying to get me to stand at attention.
I won’t have to walk it off though as we are allowed seven gigs from Friday to Friday and I only have six. The other four were for slight discrepancies in my bunk maintenance, boy what buzzwords.
The government is going to raise our actual salaries $135 per month but I haven’t been paid yet!
Today we have rock detail. On the parade ground which is about ¼ mile square – about a thousand of we cadets loaded 15 trucks full of small sand rocks the size of your fist this afternoon.
This is all that I can think of now. I write again Sunday, write me soon.
Love,
Roger
(On back)
Hello there Betsy & David! Hug your mother and grandma for me –
This is one of Roger’s closest friends and also his nephew. Bill was the son of Roger’s brother, Clarence and his wife Bertha Campbell. Bill was only two years younger than Roger.
Margaret is Roger’s older sister. She was a nurse and was headed off to WWII as well. Margaret, born in 1905, was sixteen years older than Roger, who was born in 1921.
Mentioned in this letter is a boyfriend, Bob. who lives in Knoxille. I am not sure (yet) who he is.
Peggy (named after her Aunt Margaret [above]) was also a child of Clarence and Bertha Payne. She was sister to Bill (above) and was Roger’s niece.
Japan
The week since Roger’s last letter was an important one for the US. On June 7, the first invasion on US soil in over 128 years occurred when Japanese forces landed in Attu and Kiska, Alaska.
Much further south the luck of the Japanese was not so good as the Battle of Midway came to an end. The USS Yorktown was lost, but the Japanese fleet attacking it was decimated. This was considered by many to be a direct answer to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and is largely considered to be an important turning point in the war with Japan, who had hoped to cripple the US as a naval power at Midway.
Germany
In North Africa, Rommel continues to dominate British and Free French forces.
In Central Europe, however, Hitler took revenge for the murder of his most ruthless adviser, Reinhard Heydrich, by attacking the Czech city of Lidice where Heydrich’s assasins were hiding. German soldiers killed every male over sixteen in the city and sent most of the woman and child to the camps to die in the gas chambers. Some became servants to German families, and a few of the very youngest children were given to German families for adoption and to be raised as good Germans.
A sad reminder of the inhumanity of the German Army.
News of the tragedy at Lidice as it was reported in the US:
