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Submitted by: Harold M. Newman

Attached is a V Mail letter from my wife, Maggie who died in 2002. On VE Day she was she was in New York City, I was in a town called Olertlum in Austria - east of Salisbury and not far from Berchfecgaden. On the day of the German surrender, one day before what became officially VE Day, I had taken my Artillery Combat Liaison crew to visit those two cities. With the permission of Major Thomas M. Ward, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 342nd Infantry Regiment, (whose unit I had supported with artillery fire) I had decided to visit the storied houses of the Nazi leaders.

However, with the many moments, some good some bad, the letter I received from my wife was among the most memorable. One is enclosed.

'My dearest good love, easy darling, it's VE Day I would like more than anything to write to you airmail today but none of it will get shipped that way. I'll write both ways, darling and one of them should get to you soon. This, darling, unless all of us have temporarily lost our minds and the radio among us, is the day.. it is the day I can stop holding my breath every time I hear the doorbell ring.. or the telephone ring.. or the elevator outside stop at our floor. That is as soon as I have heard from you and know for sure that my good love is well and safe, now that the worst is over, then, I will rest easy. We all feel that way.. we are happy, but with the reservation that we wan to hear that you are happy too before we really relax. Understand, darling?

Of course, the usual fools threw tickertape.. as if this were really the end and of course, people will go out and get drunk tonight. Maybe Daddy will mix a drink tonight.. maybe we will drink to you in milk, darling. Whatever the case, this night you won't be any different, actually, because there is never a time when I don't think of you drink to you in every drop of wine or water or milk that I drink. Even cokes, darling, are to you. Truman hasn't yet made this official, and in the back of my mind is a tiny lingering doubt.. engendered by the more-than-enough times that the peace has been announced falsely. Truman, they say, will speak at noon.. and then, darling, I will know. So many people, in the past few days, as army after army was made inactive by German surrender, have relaxed, have said to me,'Well, now except for the formal surrender, the war there is over' It wasn't for me, darling, because you are in the Third, and for all I know were very much involved in his drive in Czechoslovakia. It got to be as if you and a few others were doing it all alone, because even the radio said things like 'With the exception of a small pocket in Czechoslovakia, resistance has ceased' as if that pocket weren't holding my own good love, and therefore, the most important piece of earth in the world. Darling, my heart is so much with you now.. praying that you will be able to rest, to relax, to be allowed to stop moving and learn, among other things, to sleep in a bed again! My laughing prediction that I'd have to teach you to sleep in a bed again after the war seems to be backfiring. This morning a letter (one of four, covering the 22nd, and making yesterday's letter about my lack of mail as outdated as yesterday's headlines) said you prefer to sleep on the floor in your bedroll. Sweet, is there room for me in a bedroll? Because I don't think I'll care much where we sleep, as long as you're with me. I'll start an airmail now, darling. But anyway - any time. All my love, Maggie'

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