March 21, 1944 A Letter from Leland

On March 21, 1944 Dewitt noted, “Got a letter from Leland. We found out at last that he is located on the Anzio beachhead near Rome where some of the heaviest fighting has been for the past month.”

Letters from overseas were an item longed for and read many times over.

There were also the letters from overseas that were sent to Fred and Lillian Blauvelt at the Interlaken Review Office. Esther Wyckoff kept an extensive scrapbook of all the letters sent to the paper and other notes on the men and women. The original was given to the American Legion and later past on to the Historical Society. Each soldier is pictured in the front of the scrapbook, with the page numbers where his or her letters are in the book. The letters are in chronological order of when they were published in the paper.

The May 5, 1944 issue included a letter from Leland. No date is given of when he wrote it, just location, Anzio Beach-head.

Dear Fred and Lillian:

It has been a long time since you heard from me last, but of course I have good reasons. My outfit has been on the front-lines nearly all of the time since we landed back in September of last year. The newspapers can tell you all about life here on the beach-head, and censorship would not allow me to say much, anyway.

We all feel that our “ack-ack” is the best, and we know that the “Jerry” pilots have been discouraged by it more than once, to say nothing about the planes shot down.

I receive The Review right along, but it is usually about a month or so late. I certainly enjoy reading the letters from the boys in camp.

To protect ourselves from shell fragments and personnel bombs it is necessary to sleep well below ground with plenty of cover over our heads. Hardly a night goes by that German bombers are not overhead.

I have had any number of narrow escapes from both bombs and shells. It is bad indeed when they catch you off guard. I can recall one incident very clearly which happened a few weeks back. I was standing quite some distance from my hole when a shell (large size) landed about fifteen feet from me. Thank God, it was a “dud.” Had it exploded it would no doubt meant quick death. These things happen to us every day and they are soon forgotten (I hope).

I might add that I have been awarded my Good Conduct Medal, which all Interlaken boys should get, also my campaign ribbon with gold star for major landing (also more to come).

As I have several things to do this afternoon it will be necessary for me to cut this letter short.

Thanks again for sending The Review, and keep up the good work at home. It will shorten our battles over here.

Sincerely yours, Pfc. Leland F. Bassette.

Other letters from this scrapbook were shared on January 29 with the Scrap Material Drive snippet.

Dewitt’s Diary Monday March 21, 1927

Rain this morning. Sold my old sow today 8 cents per pound.

We remodeled the old surrey for a driving wagon today.

We got a heavy rain tonight.