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Journey of a Dead Man: CDR Abbott, Journal Entry - March 9th 1945

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The introduction to this series can be found here.

Log Entry, Bart Abbott's Personal Journal, March 9th 1945

Another day, another dollar, safe and sound back at Professor Oppy’s dude ranch once again. After a month in the land of indoor plumbing, I’m finally back at the site after the conference in Washington. It was a real pleasure to ride in a real cab and eat real food off real tables with real silverware and tablecloths. One morning I instinctively looked all over the room for my security badge before I realized that I didn’t need one to go into the Pentagon. Its funny how fast you adapt to the un-adaptable.

It was good too see Deak again, we had dinner and met with a few old friends from the Idaho, who are now “big brass” assigned to the CNO himself, but he and I both knew them when they were wetnosed ensigns back before the war. We both had to laugh at all the “pomp and circumstance” of these Washington types. He and I hardly wear ties out at the site except for special occasions, but in Washington, you don’t go four hours without a shoeshine. Deak and a few others will be joining us out here soon as things are beginning to draw to a crucial point in the tests.

As a favor, Deak asked me to fly into Albuquerque rather than right to the site, to pick up supplies and as a way to help out one of “our fellas”. Dick Feynman goes down to visit his wife in the tuberculosis sanitarium as often as he can, and he will very often, just hitchhike down without any real plan to get back to the site. A few of us out here working under Deak try to look after him and help to make sure that there’s someone in town at just the right time to get him a decent ride back. When he first came out here, Oppy asked Deak to help out “Young Feynman” wherever he could he could as Deak being Navy had access to things that even Oppy couldn’t get a hold of. Deak found the guy to be a real kick and soon we all just sort of adopted him. Hell of a guy really, he tends to talk your ear off, which makes the long drives back from Albuquerque just fly by. He’s got a real thick Brooklyn accent, which is refreshing as all hell with all the ivy league folks around.

On this trip, I brought his wife Arline some flowers, which gave me a chance to come in and politely gather him up and get him back on the road to camp. They love each other deeply, but I think she’s sometimes happy to see him go. The poor girl doesn’t look much too good, but Dick is right there by her side as much as he can be. He doesn’t talk about it at the site, just keeps his head down and does what he needs to do all through the week but as soon as he can whenever he can, he’s right out the front gate and on his way down to the sanitarium. Whenever he does his disappearing act, we give him a day or so, and then we invent a reason to get someone to go down into town and get him. We always know where to find him, right there in the room with Arline.

We asked Groves if it would be ok for him to take his own jeep from the pool, but he wouldn’t have it. He said it was hard enough to keep him onsite, his own jeep would mean he would probably leave every day. Oppy said it was a bad thing all the way around and that we should just try to help Dick and Arline as much as possible without forgetting what it was we were all here to do. It seemed almost like Oppy for once agreed with Groves, which is an odd thing to witness.

Our troops crossed the Rhine the other day. Now we are in Germany proper. In my experience, men fight for all sorts of good and bad reasons, but universally they fight for their home in a way they never fight on foreign territory. I fear that the fighting will get much worse before too much longer. After what we saw in Holland last year and what we learned in Belgium over Christmas, no one is stupid enough anymore to say out loud “the war is going to over soon” even though it’s the first thing on their minds every day. The consensus is that it will be over when its over and not a moment before. I just can’t see Hitler surrendering but it’s hard to see where this is going to end without a surrender of some sort.

The fighting on that little bat crap pile of an island called Iwo Jima is still fierce and the scuttlebutt about how it is going out there is not promising at all. The Japs are not like the Germans, but little Iwo is a lot like crossing the Rhine, for the first time, they are fighting for what they think of as Japanese home territory and not some outcropping guano in the middle of the Pacific, not that it matters much, they fought like hell on Attu and Kiska too and they had no business at all being there.

For all the talk about “after the war”, it’s clear to everyone that for now at least, the war is still very much at work killing people all around the world without any sign of letting up. But I should say that picture of the Marines on Suribachi was a good shot in the arm for the folks around the site. Heck, I still get all choked up every time I see it.

Busy week ahead. Lots of progress going on all the way around.

Posted @ March 09, 2008 11:51 PM | Blog-novel

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