Sara Ann Bundy (Grandmother)

Austin Bridges (Uncle)

Harry Lynn

US Pacific Fleet Jan. 31, 1938https://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_San_Pedro_and_Wilmington_Page_2.html

The USS Arizona in San Francisco Bay, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge.

May 8, 1937

Dear Mother:

Here it is almost Mother’s Day and I can’t do anything about it except write you a letter to let you know I haven’t forgotten you altogether.  Even if you don’t get many from me, I think of you often.  Today is Friday and it’s been drizzling rain all day except for a while in the morning.

They launched two new destroyers Thursday, but I didn’t get to see it.  Me and some other of the boys were cleaning up the recreation hall after the Navy Relief Carnival they had.  Boy, I’d like to get on one of those cans.  They can be handled almost as easy as a motor launch.  I would tell you more about them but all mail is censored so they would burn this.  You know all about the spy dangers now.  The other day they caught one or thought they did.  They really made it hot for him for a while.  We are expecting an air raid so they darken the ship.  The light is so dim I can hardly see.  You probably can’t read this, but you know what I wanted to say.  Mom, I met the swellest girl in the world (except you) just before we came to Bremerton.  She lives way outside of Los Angeles.  I’m the first sailor she ever knew personally.  I met her on the beach by accident, she was out in the water, but was afraid to go any further by herself.  So I took her.  Her name is Juanita DeRonsey, sounds classy doesn’t it?  She’s pretty too, about 5’4”, weighs 118, big brown eyes and can dance like Ginger Rogers.  She just turned 19 in February.  That reminds me, I’ll be 19 in four months.  I’ll send you a picture of her as soon as I get one.  She acts about this crazy as I do sometimes.  I guess my love affairs bore you, but I think a lot of her.

 The race boat Coxswain is trying to get permission to take the crew to Jake Kitsap for a week.  We were supposed to pull just before we leave here.  The race is to be pulled at Washington in freshwater, so we can’t work out at Kitsap.  It’s a 2-mile race pulled by a 180 lbs. crew, I weigh 167 ½ now.  I don’t know whether I can make the weight or not.  I got to sign off now, too dark to see. 

Lots of love, your son, Harry Lynn 

June 2, 1937

Dear Mother:

I’m sorry I couldn’t send you the five, but a guy can’t pull money out of thin air you know.  I was going to wait till payday to send, finally got five coming, and I’ve got laundry, stamps and since I’m eating on the athletic mess, I have to tip the bean wrestler a buck a payday.  Maybe I can send Bob’s uniform by express, but I guess it won’t get there.

I’m in the sickbay with a sprained arm so I couldn’t go ashore.  I did it riding a bicycle at Camp McKeen over the weekend.  Boy, it’s sure swell out there, swimming, fishing and canoeing at night.  They’ve even got a dance hall out there.  I didn’t get to go this last weekend though, since I’m on the sick list.  I guess I didn’t tell you, but I got a new suit just before we left Long Beach.  Boy, it’s a honey.  Tailor-made, light gray.  I wear my white shoes with it.  I tried to get out of the sickbay for a while today, for some road work, but the doc wouldn’t let me.  I’m getting stale cooped in this 2 x 4.  I’m glad you got to work at Burkes so you can make the payment.  I was going to try and save up enough to come home on leave, but I guess there isn’t much chance.  There is a fellow here in the Bremerton, Washington bay that hitchhiked home in four days to Louisville Kentucky.  He only had 35 bucks in his pocket for 30 days’ leave.

You know dang well Mom, that any boy he owes his mother everything he’s got in the world, and I’d send anything I could if I had anything to send.

We’ve really had some swell weather up here lately.  If it was like this all the time, I’d like to stay here all the time.  Boy, Dad would sure like the lake and I think you would like it too.  Everything is union in Bremerton.  They’re having a ferry strike now for shorter hours on the Bremerton-Seattle ferry.  A lot of workers can’t come to work in the yards from Seattle.

Well, Mom, take it easy, maybe sometime I can pay you back for what you have done for me and the brats.  Your loving son, Harry Lynn

June 11, 1937                                      Bremerton, Washington

Dear Mother:

When did you go to Ohio?  That’s where the card is from.  I hope you’re having a good time, you need a trip or something to relieve the tension you’re under.  Mom, I’m thinking awfully strong about going to China.  If I do, I’ll be home sometime in August for about 30 days.  I’ll need some money though, will you send me that $3, 000 policy?  I’ll cash it in and then I’ll start for the Orient.  I’ll take a 20 year paid life policy.  That will be better than that ordinary life anyway.  I’ve wanted to change it for quite a while, but haven’t had a chance to.  I paid about $65 on it now and I can get about two thirds on it.

The whole fleet is up here in Seattle, Washington for Fleet week.  Boy, I bet they’re having a swell time.  I can’t go ashore because I’m still in training.  We pull our race in five days now.  Boy, I hope we win.  We get a sweater if we do and a week out to camp McKeen for just the crew, whether we win or not.  A week after this race we’ve got another one, The Tacoma ledger.  If we win both of them the crew can just about get anything they want, from leave to special pay.

Don’t forget the policy mom.  And if it gets here before 18 September I can get a smaller premium on the 20 pay life.  You want me to come home before I leave, don’t you?  I hope so.  Did that buddy of mine ever show up?  I’ll bet he comes when you’re gone.  Well, I’ve got to get ready to work out, so I’ll write again soon.  Your loving son Harry Lynn

PS write soon as you can HLM  XOXOXO

June 24, 1937                                      Bremerton, Washington

Mother:

It’s been so long since I wrote home that I had just about forgotten the address, but, I’m writing now.  We’ve got three more weeks till the race comes off and the crew isn’t in shape yet.  We can only pull a mile in 21 ¾ minutes in one cutter.  That’s good enough to make a bid for last place.  I still weigh 170, but I’m a little darker and solid.  I can run 8 to 10 minutes now without working up a sweat.

Dad, did you read about Washington you taking all three of the college races?  Boy their really good this year.  I’m in the fleet competition only.  Our racing cutter weighs 1,200 lbs, beside the college crew’s shell that weighs 250 pounds.  I’d like to pull one of them once or twice just to see what they’re like.  They can pull a mile in 6:30, boy that’s hitting it mean.  We can do a minute in 7:15 in our cutters.

The Arizona is going into drydock Monday: Boy, that will be a rugged 10 days in there.  I’ll get out of a lot of it though since the crew is working out twice a day.

A bunch of boots came aboard from a patrol boat the other day.  Boy, they sure looked silly following each other around in single file like ducks taking off in the water.  I hope I didn’t look as young and inexperienced as they did.  I’ll bet every one of them was filched from school.  There goes hammocks.  I’ll write again as soon as you do.  Your son Harry Lynn

PS Tell the governor to drop me a line, will you?

June 29, 1937                          Bremerton, Washington

Dear Mother:

Received your much expected letter yesterday.  Since we are in drydock now, I haven’t had much chance to answer it or it was too tired to.  Boy, they are really putting us to work now.  The morning we scraped and wire brushed the sides and bottom and that is a long tedious job.  Take into consideration the ship is 308 feet long, 106 feet wide and she has 32 feet from the water line to the keel.  There was everything on her from starfish to barnacles.  We start painting tomorrow morning.

The race is only about three weeks off now.  Boy, I’ll sure be glad when it’s over, although I’ve never been in better physical shape in my life.  I weigh exactly 173 ¼ in my socks and I run all day without getting tired.  I had my picture taken in my race boat gear. I’ll send you one as soon as I have them developed.  I grew a mustache, but I don’t think you can see it in the picture.  By the way, a shipmate of mine that lives near Indianapolis is coming home on leave.  He’s coming out to see you.  Tell Betty and Rosie and all the girls that if they’re smart and want a good time to treat him nice if a sailor can’t find any fun at home, he isn’t a sailor.  His name is Smitty, I mean that’s his nickname.  His real one is Sanford R. Smith, (Naval Aviation) but just call him Smitty if you want to be friends.  Do you know anyone named McGinnis out there in Carmel?  (Harry Leon McGinnis, also served on the USS West Virginia) One of my shipmate’s home is out there.

Tell Grant I said hello, and I don’t think I’ll be a gray-headed old man when I come home.  Of course, I would be if I stayed in the service.  Is Rosie still the bashful little girl she was when I left?  She was sure pretty.  Tell her to send me a picture and I’ll send her one.  Well, I guess I’ll knock off and sling my hammock.  Your son, Harry Lynn

July 18, 1937                                      Bremerton, Washington

Dear Sis:

Boy, I pulled in the biggest race I’ve ever pulled in and got beat the worst.  We came in seventh place.  Gosh, I sure hated to come back to the ship.  We went to Seattle and on the West Virginia from Wednesday to Friday and pulled the race Friday afternoon.  They gave the winning crew a big silver cup and all the crews had a banquet.  You know speeches and dinner and converses.  We filled the cup up with beer and passed it around for everyone to drink.  That night, we went to a hotel and everyone had enough to drink to make them feel pretty good, then we went out and painted the town red.  Boy I still feel funny.  We’ve got another race next Saturday I don’t think we’ll have much of a chance in it either, but I’m going to pull with everything I’ve got to win.  Boy I sure wish we would win one.

By the way, you’re going to have to get another picture of Rosie.  She’s too pretty to send this one back.  She’s really keen.  About Smitty, I don’t know how old he is and I’m not sure when he’ll come.  You won’t have time to give a party because he wouldn’t be there long enough.  He’s old enough all right, any sailor is.  I think he’s about 30 or 21 or something like that anyway.  Say Sis on the side, how’s to send me Alma’s address.  I wrote to her once but the letter came back because I had the wrong address.  On nuts, I can’t write now.  You write soon and tell me that address.  Lots of love, your brother,

August 9, 1937,                                                            San Francisco, California

Dear Mother and Governor:

Received your letter today and boy what a kick I had.  Gees, I can’t believe it.  Chuck, my old buddy, married.  Whew, and housekeeping to boot.  Well, he’s got a swell girl for a wife anyway.  I’m going to write to his mother.  Do you know his address?  I’d like to write to him too.  Boy, that gets me, he was a swell guy, too.  My future is waiting for me and LA.  I think.  She’s been writing regularly anyway.  I got the policy, okay.  I thought I’d answered your letter that came with it.  I guess I didn’t though.  I thought so hard about doing it, that I thought I had.

How’s Berlyn making out?  Tell him to drop me a line when you write.  I’d like to hear from him.  Are all the kids okay?

We’re in San Francisco now, but we’re leaving Tuesday.  This is Sunday.  Last night the fleet had a searchlight display, it was pretty nice.  There are about 30 ships here in the harbor and from 2 to 8 lights on each ship.  It’s as bright as day when they turn them all on.  We past Alcatraz Island, where Al Capone is serving time when we came in.  We looked over there through a long glass and could see prisoners playing cards in their cells, the guards walking the walls, and some men in the recreation yard playing ball.  I’d like to go over there and look that place over, but I can’t.  No visitors allowed in unless the immediate family of a prisoner, and I don’t think any of us are in there.  We pulled a race here, a mile in an eighth but didn’t make out so good

Dad, thanks so much for writing, Gov.  That makes almost 3 times you wrote.  I like to read your letters or notes.  You’re right about pulling the race, it takes more guts than luck.  The luck has a lot to do with it.  Sometimes, the starting and finishing lines aren’t parallel and that makes it a little farther to pull for a boat at one end of the start then one or the other.  And the tides have a lot to do with it too.  At Tacoma Washington, the tide goes two ways at once.  One boat can be pulling with the tide, and the next one next to it can be pulling against it.  Dad, there something here are you ought to see, that Golden Gate Bridge.  Man, she’s a Beaut.  8 miles long.  A man from West Virginia jumped yesterday, Saturday.  They’re building the World’s Fair of 1939 here too.  It’s a handmade island, pretty big too.  They got some of the buildings up already.  After the Fair is over, they are going to make a landing field out of it.  The ticket building will be the hangar.  Barber prices are mile high.  You can’t get a haircut for less than four bits a crack.  I went into one shop and when I came out, I owed the guy $2.25.  How’s that for salesmanship?  Well, I gotta knock off and write to my sugar in LA.  So hold on.  Your son, Harry

PS write soon and tell me about Barb and how the brat is.  PPS here’s a negative of a picture.  I’m in race boat gear, get a developed, huh?  I set the picture to my girl.

August 22, 1937                                  Long Beach, California                 (Navy YMCA letterhead}

Dear Mother:

I’m at the YM tonight, Saturday, and nothing to do right now.  I’m on weekend liberty, but since there is nothing to do right now, I’m scribbling you a note.  I wrote two different letters to you with the intention of sending them to you, but stuck them in my locker and didn’t get around to mailing ‘em.  I got the policy okay, and sent it into the guy to get a cashed, but I don’t think I’ll get the check for two or three weeks yet.  When I do I’ll stick it in the bank and try to save up enough to come home on.  I know I can’t get leave right now because of the short-range battery practice coming up.  I might be able to get some in October or November, but I’m not sure.

I went swimming this afternoon, the first time since we left here, on a real sandy beach.  That saltwater really felt good.  I’ve got a date tomorrow, can you beat it?  She invited me out for breakfast.  I think I’ll take her out to Uncle Aus’s if she’ll go.  I don’t know whether I can make it out there by eight or not, that’s a pretty early reveille ashore.  I’ll have to get up at 6:00.  There’s a guy here by me trying to work some crazy puzzle.  There’s a time limit on it and boy he’s throwing those blocks around like a sailor throws a heaving line.  They made me nervous so I moved.  Boy, today is sure going slow.  Seems like while I’m aboard and working, it passes like a Santa Anna.  A Santa Ana is a Desert Storm the blows out on the ocean.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  We had a slight tremor here, Tuesday, in fact two of them.  One about 9:30, I hardly noticed it, but the second one, about 12:30, was a little stronger.  My girlfriends, girlfriend almost fainted.  She was lying on the floor when it happened, boy she turned white as a beaker.  Well, I gotta knock off and get some sleep.  Good night.  Love you, your son, Harry Lynn

September 11, 1937                                        San Pedro, California

Dear Mother:

Received your long-expected letter today, Friday.  The ship just anchored about half an hour ago.  I’ve been taking care of an officer’s motorboat while the ship was out.  They always send the boats into the beach, manned by men from a division that isn’t firing and I happen to be listed for it.  Boy, it was swell.  We rated liberty all the time.  The only time we were at the repair base was to muster at 9:00 every morning.  I bet I didn’t get 10 hours sleep all the time we were in.  The sixth division fired last week, and I was on one of the two guns that made a perfect score.  I had a million things to say but got to talking to some guy just back from the hospital in Bremerton.  Oh yeah, I got my check from the insurance company.  It was only 24 bucks and just paid off most of my debts.  I still owe about $35.  As soon as I get cleared up, I’ll make out an allotment home.

I was out to Uncle Aus’s a week ago.  Beulah was in San Francisco, so I didn’t stay long.  I had one of my shipmates with me, too.  Everyone is okay and the little girl (I can’t remember her name to save my neck) is smart as a whip.  She dances and plays the piano.

Boy, those were swell pictures, and I’ll keep them too.  I’m proud of the gang.  Pauline is smiling like you do sometimes.  Bob is getting big, starting high school too, I’ll have to do something about that.  Joyce is getting better looking every day and you and Dad looked pretty happy, if you ask me, even if you do have a load of trouble.  I’ve been trying to get in touch with Chuck, but can’t.  I wrote twice to his mother, but they didn’t answer.

Were going out again next Monday and fire backer practice.  We fire shrapnel at sleeves towed by planes and dummy bombs they drop out of a plane.  Last year when we fired backer practice, the battery blew three sleeves to pieces, two of our own and one of the Nevada’s.

Well, Mom I found a new romance.  She’s really swell.  She and her sister came here from Dallas Texas.  She’s about 19 and innocent as they come.  Hammocks have just been piped down and movie call will go in a few minutes, so I’ll close with, lots of love, Harry Lynn

PS  Don’t wait so long to write next time.

PPS I’m not going to China after all.

September 21, 1937

Dear Mother:

This makes a second telegram you sent me and I still haven’t sent you one.  Let me see, you had one last month didn’t you?  That makes you 42, doesn’t it?  All I can send you is my love until I can add something a little more substantial.  Mom I’d sure like to bring Bob out here.  I think it would be a great experience for him, don’t you?  And if he liked it, I think I could scrape up enough to send him to school out here with Beulah’s little girl.  What do you say we get together and let him come out next summer vacation.  I can put away a couple dollars a month for transportation and clothes.  Boy, this old ocean would make a real man out of him.  Think it over will you?  I guess it’s a little absurd to you, but it happens every day.  I could send them back a different person, for the better of course.  Not that I could make him any better morally, but the experience and lots of clean fun would give him a more ambitious outlook.  To tell the truth mother, I’m lonesome.  And for me to come home before I get paid off seems impossible.  And have someone of us out here to look after would be tops.  Please don’t tell him I mentioned it, will you?  In case it all falls through he won’t be disappointed.  When the time comes I’ll tell him that.  I had to rush off all of a sudden.  We just had fire and rescue drill.

We’ve been out to sea most of the time lately, but we are in for this week.  I went ashore over the weekend and had a swell time.  I met a couple of girls that have a car and they took me and another gob to Seal Beach swimming and all the “hotspots” there, and we all came back to LA Sunday evening and went to the “Palamar Club” where Ed Brice and his orchestra are playing.  Boy I saw more celebrities.  Part of Sunday noon we were in Hollywood.  We drove around Beverly Hills and went through Hal Roche’s Studios.  There wasn’t anyone there then.  A couple of weeks ago I was ashore on a weekend and  I was walking down Ocean Drive in Long Beach.  There was a preview of one of the shows along there.  I stopped and was looking at the bills and a big purple car with a chauffeur and all and Big Boy Williams stepped out.  Man-of-war, I thought the crowd was going to gang him.  All I got was a glimpse of him and I only got that because I was standing right by the car when he got out.  After that, he was lost in the rush.  My guess I better shut my tater trap.

Love,  Harry Lynn

PS tell everyone I said hello and tell Rosie she looks like a million that picture. 

H L Malson #6                       USS Arizona                      Bremerton, Wash.

October 18, 1937

Mother:

When are you going to write again?  It’s been almost 3 weeks since I wrote and no answer yet.  I’d like to know everyone at home hasn’t forgotten me, at least my mother.  I know you’re busy and all that, but you could at least find time to write your lonesome son a note once in a long while.  We are out to sea now getting ready to fire antiaircraft illuminating for the secondary battery.  We’re just off Catalina Island not far from San Pedro.  I hope we anchor tonight ‘cause I’ve got a 12 to 4 watch.  And boy that some watch.  I got your little longer letter but I’ve got to start cramming for my seaman exam coming up next month.  I didn’t make the last quarter so gotta study a little harder and do it this time.  I haven’t been out to Uncle Aus’s since I wrote last, but I guess they are getting along.  Say, have you heard from Dolls.  I’d like to know if they got out there or not.  If they are close enough I could take my civvies over there and leave them.  These dang locker clubs have all gone up in their dues and a cost too much to belong.  Well gotta get busy so write soon.  PS taking out $20 to pay life insurance, government

Your loving son,   Harry Lynn     Tell the kids hello

November 7, 1937

Dear Mother:

Receive both your letters when I got back from machine gun school yesterday, Saturday.  Boy, I really had a great thrill the last 13 days.  The school was held at San Clemente Island.  I learned how to take apart and put a 30 and 50 caliber.  All that each one of us fired over 1500 rounds of ammo.  When we weren’t firing or taking tests we could go fishing, hunting for goat, fox or partridge, and go swimming too.  I guess that sounds silly to you now, but it’s warm here in the day.  Of course at night it gets too cold to go swimming.  I’ve got enough ammunition to start a war with.  Our targets were sleeves towed by planes and balloons they let go.  I hate to be in a plane fired at by this bunch.  They’re all experts.  And boy was a chow good.  Mmmmmm.  I went hiking on the island with three other gobs to the other end of the island.  Everyone was supposed to be in camp at sunset, but me and another guy got stuck in a ravine about 250 foot deep.  We didn’t get out until late in the afternoon and we had to hike 22 miles back to camp.  Boy, I’m telling you, it sure gets dark in the wide-open spaces when there’s no moon.  We didn’t get back until after midnight.  You never saw tireder pair of gobs.  The island was okay, except it was dusty, no radios, and worst of all know furnaces.  I had a great time anyway.  I have an average final mark of 3.2 for the course.  The best you can make is 4.0.

I wrote to Dolls and told ‘em I was coming out to see them when we get back from Frisco.   I’ll be glad to see ‘em.  Say, you know what?  Coming back on the destroyer from the island, I met someone I know from there.  You know those Jews that live on the corner of Woodlawn and Villa?  Well, it was one of them.  His name is Lewis.  He said Priscilla Lawson is out here in Hollywood, in pictures.  I guess I’ll have to look into this, eh?  He is on the “Okie”.

Mom, you know what?  I think we’re going to see two Worlds Fairs next year or ’39, I don’t know which.  The one in New York first and then one in Frisco.  It’s a man-made island.  Boy that is going to be swell.  I ought to be able to come home next summer, sometime.  I’m not sure when.  And I’ll have more than just a round-trip ticket, I hope.  Say, my old girl came back to LA.  The one that went to Bremerton.  I haven’t seen her yet.  Tell Joyce I hope she’s getting along in school, and she’s getting to be a mighty nice-looking girl.  I guess I’ll have to come home and take her out.  By the way didn’t even know “Mart” was married, let alone having two kids, whew!!!  That was a surprise.  Well, visitors are coming aboard now, I guess I’ll go up and see if my girl came out.  The gang looks pretty good in the picture.

Your son, Harry Lynn

PS Write soon soon soon

PPS How about Charlie’s address?

November 27, 1937

Dear Mother:

Received your letter and the kids’ notes the other day.  I’m at my girl’s house here in Long Beach, boy she is keen.  I met a Marine from Decatur that used to run around with Earl and Jean.  We hitchhike to LA and saw a parade with Bobby Breen, Leo Correllio, and a bunch of the other stars in it.  I stopped by Dolls while it was up there last Thursday.  Boy, I thought she was going to jump down my throat.  I stayed for Thanksgiving dinner, had turkey and all the trimmings.  Ruth’s mother just gave me a glass of grape juice.  Pretty good too.  Ruth Ann Lister – her name – we’ve been going steady for about four months.  You heard of that hill that’s caving in, in LA, me and Bat Eye saw it.  I’ll bet that we saw every road and every streetcar in LA.  More fun.  We were looking for some friends of his and when we did find them, they weren’t home.  Tough.  So it’s around 11 o’clock and we had to get back to Long Beach about 40 miles away, hitchhiking.  It was so foggy we had to get out every once in a while and scrape it off the fenders and top because it weighed down so much.  We got one ride I thought we were never going to see the finish of.  The guy didn’t go less than 60 all the way and I’ll bet that we couldn’t see 10 feet in front of us.  Well, they have breakfast ready.  I got them up this morning and made her get breakfast for me.  I put in a request for Christmas leave, but I can only get seven days so won’t have time to come home.  I promise I’ll come home this summer if I have to hitchhike.  What if I come home with the wife?  Will you help her for me till I come home to get her?  She wouldn’t be safe out here with so many sailors around.  Well I gotta quit because there is no more news.  Doll said to say hello and so did “Sandy”, the girlfriend.

Your loving son, Harry Lynn

PS tell Betty to take it easy

December 8, 1937

Dear Mother:

Received your letter today, was wondering why you hadn’t answered.  I wrote one to you from my girl’s house about a week ago and she said she would mail when I saw her last night she hadn’t, so I put an airmail stamp on it.  I won’t have much time to write as I’m in the motor launch crew, and might be called away anytime.  Joyce sure told me a lot, but I couldn’t read all of it.  She understands what’s going on though.  I saw Dolls last Saturday week and everything is okay.  My shipmates and I hitchhiked up there and coming back we got caught in a pea-soup fog.  We couldn’t see 10 feet away from us.  We left LA about 10:00 and got to Long Beach about 1:30 in the morning.  I went over and got the girlfriend up out of bed just to see her.  More fun.  I bet we woke up the whole court.  They (her and her mother) live in an apartment.  I haven’t done any drinking since I met her.  I mean not to get drunk.  Just a cocktail or so once in a while.  We took a ride out to Redondo Beach and up on San Fernando Mountain Sunday.  It was really pretty.  I saw where Thelma Todd was killed when we were there.  Well, I gotta go now.

Your son, Harry Lynn

December 22, 1937

Dear Mother:

Received your unexpected letter this afternoon.  I didn’t know dad was in such serious condition.  I hope he gets along okay.  Tell him he’s got to.  What shall I do?  I’m broke.  About the only thing would be to go to the Red Cross and borrow, but after that, I couldn’t be much help unless they could get emergency leave and I come home and work.  I’ll go down and talk to the chaplain and see what he has to say.  Is there any place you know of that I could get a job?  In Aurora, there are a lot of breweries I might be able to pick up a few days, but I don’t think I could make it pay in less than a month.  I paid out all of my payday on things I owed.  Haven’t even bought any Christmas presents, just one for the girlfriend three dollars I still owe $40 on my civvies, but I can hold off for a while before they write to the commander.  I’ll make seamen this time when we go up, I’m pretty sure.  I was at machine-gun school the last time.

Boy, everything is under wartime conditions for us.  Everyone running around with a 45 on their hip.  Machine guns manned on the foc’s’tle all night and small boats patrolling the harbor.  There was a rumor of a camouflaged Jap ship sneaking in.  Although it was warned to stop last night by a coast guard boat, it didn’t stop and it pulled away before the guards fired a shot.  Orders for men on machine-gun watch are to fire on any object in the water unless recognized.  It’s getting close.

I wrote to Charles but put down the wrong street so I’ll have to send it again.  I wish I could be there to help you mom but duty before anything else the oath says.  I can hardly believe it, this is my third Christmas in the Navy.  I got a card from Jasmine.  She had (remember me, your cousin) at the bottom of it.  I wrote them a couple of letters quite a while ago, but they didn’t answer.  I feel like a heal not answering Edna’s last letter.  They always send me a card.  Gee I’d like to see Uncle Perry and the folks again.  I used to write to Eva, but she never did answer.  Tell the kids I send my love cause it’s about all I’ve got, besides my curly hair and the salt air is making it corse.  We’ve got the ship all dressed up for Christmas.  I’m going to ask Mr. Doll and family to come out and look at my $10 million home.  Well, it’s about time for hammocks so I’ll knock off the chatter.

You’re well-wishing son,    Harry Lynn

December 25, 1937

Dear Mother:

Here it is Christmas and I haven’t been able to do anything yet.  I got cards from Jack, Mrs. Goebel in Shelbyville, and one from an old girlfriend in LA.  My girl gave me a shirt and tie, the only presents I got.  I’m over at her house now, she’s cooking a turkey dinner.  It’s warm enough to go swimming out here, it doesn’t seem like Christmas without snow and cold enough to freeze your breath.  I haven’t seen Dolls for quite a while.  They’re getting along okay, I guess.  Mr. Doll is working for West, got a run in Hollywood.  Ray, wife and kids are staying with them.  I might get a chance to run out there today.  The girlfriend has got a car, pretty nice, eh?  I hope Uncle Perry is okay.  I’d like to see him.  I might get a chance to when I come home this summer.  I saw the chaplain, but couldn’t do anything, they are piled up with such cases and they can take care of only the worst ones.  Things are getting hot for us now.  Machine gun watches all night and patrol duty in the harbor.  Don’t know what the dope it is.  There’s a lot of wild rumors flying around, but you can’t go by them.  Everything from dope smuggling and racketeers, too, camouflaged ships and spies. 

The ships are taking care of a bunch of school kids today, a Christmas dinner, and presents with Santa coming in an airplane.  Each ship has about 100 kids, not counting the personal families.  I can’t think of a thing to say.  She sitting on my armchair and I, oh well, it disconcerts me.  She made me take her dog out for a walk as soon as I got here.  Did I tell you her name?  It is Ruth Ann Lister of El Paso Texas, age 19, almost anyway.  I’m broke but happy I gave her a hostess gown you know one of those sleazy silk things.  It’s green and fits like pretty good anyway.  Well Mother I hope you have a Merry Christmas.  Tell the kids I said to be good and take care of you.

You’re wandering son,    Harry Lynn