Last updated on August 15, 2006
The reason the Navy gave for assigning me to the Seabees was that they could repair my eyeglasses if needed. Well, I was trying to play basketball in the Gym on Attu and broke my glasses. Naturally no facilities existed closer than Seattle. They advised me to write home and have my original optometrist make me a new pair from existing records. Oh, better get two pairs — that got me in trouble. I wrote Dad a letter asking for “two” pair of glasses. All letters were read by a censor and they had this iron-clad rule that you could not tell where you were, what you did, and never use a “number.” Yes I got my ass chewed, but when they saw my scotch-taped glasses they relented and let me order two pair of eyeglasses. This brings up a question… You see these books compiling “letters from the Battle Zone” etc. Just how in hell could these letters be genuine if all mail was censored?
Mother decided that if I went overseas she preferred to know where I was. Then when something happened, she would know if I was there or not. Well, we decided that I would use a code word to let her know that if that letter was encoded to let her know where I was. In the letter we used the second letter of each paragraph to spell out the location. Using the first letter of the first word of the paragraph was too easy to see. When I was talking to a chaplain later he said that he had a system to tell his wife where he was. Before embarking they got two large world maps. Across the top he placed Bible book titles. Along the side he placed numbers to signify chapters of the Bible. Thus when you said the subject of your sermon was Chapter 80 of the book of Matthew [yes, I realize that it doesn’t go that high — my grandfather was just being illustrative] you could go to the map and find the place. He said he was always afraid he would use a large chapter number that did not exist in some Bible books. I never asked him how he got away with using the dastardly forbidden numbers in his letters. Officer privilege I guess.
