Letters - March 27-June 15, 1945

The collection contains letters from Paul Gilbert Stroud Jr., a U.S. Air Force serviceman in World War II, to his family in New Hampshire while he was stationed at Gunter Field in Alabama during the spring and summer of 1945. He describes his various duties and events during his four-month tour at Gunter.

One of the letters describes the crash of a B-25 "with a crew of 8 negroes... during a take-off from this field. It happened shortly after midnight. They all were killed instantly except for the flight engineer, a corporal. They said he could walk and talk but his hands & face were burned. He died the next day. It was a miracle he lived at all." In the same letter he talks about seeing in his hometown newspaper a letter written by a friend who was serving in the military in Germany. The letter tells "of the German atrocities he saw. I guess you have to actually see it before you realize what happened. And then I guess you can hardly believe it."

Other letters are much more lighthearted. He fusses at his mother to use the allotment from his pay to fix up the house. He says, "I can't think of anything better to use it for. If I can't get by on $14 I'll like to know the reason why."