Wilfred Smith’s 1947 letter to home

Let’s look back at another memory from one of my favorite contributors, Wilfred Thomas Smith. Wilfred was born in Webb City in 1927, just north of the railroad tracks at Independent Gravel Co., on the west side of Main Street. Wilfred was the eighth of 10 children. Graduating in 1945, he joined the U.S. Navy in July of that same year.

The following is a letter that Smith sent home in 1947. He wrote it in the form of a newsletter while stationed in Honolulu Territory Hawaii. It’s a sailor’s report to the family he had left behind two years earlier.

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Wilfred Thomas Smith, Yeoman Second Class, U.S. Navy, 19 years of age, son of Mr. and Mrs. Oral E. Smith of 619 North Hall Street, Webb City, Mo. has completed two full years in the Navy as of 5 September, 1947.

I went to Kansas City in 1945, where I passed my physical examination and was sworn into the United States Navy. I left the same night via train for Recruit Training at the Naval Training Center, San Diego, Calif. The trip took me across half the United States, seeing other states for the first time.

I arrived in Boot Camp on the 8th of September and was assigned to Company 421-45 and proceeded to receive my training for 10 weeks. I went home for a five-day leave following Boot Camp and just barely arrived home before it was time to return to California.

My next assignment was the Yeoman School at the Training Center in San Diego for 16 weeks of instruction. This school was at that time the largest Yeoman School of the Navy.  I graduated in April 1946 with immediate orders to Camp Shoemaker, California before going overseas.

Before leaving for Camp Shoemaker, I visited with some hometown friends, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Horne for six days. They took me on a scenic mountain ride picnic. The mountains surrounding Los Angeles were snow covered.  From one spot I was able to see the Mojave Desert. It was quite an adventure for a young man who had never seen the mountains before.

Twelve days at Camp Shoemaker had me boarding a bus that took me across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to Terminal Island (aka Treasure Island). My adventure then transferred me by ferry across the bay to board the U.S.S. Arthur Middleton, APA 24, which pulled out at 4:30 p.m. that day, May 3, 1946, bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with orders to be assigned to the Atom Bomb Project (Operations Crossroads).The five-day trip to Hawaii allowed me to observe flying fish, seagulls, albatross, and porpoises. The ship docked at the huge Naval Yard at Pearl Harbor. Upon arrival, I was assigned to Navy #128 Receiving Station. Seven days later, the 14th Naval District canceled my orders to Operation Crossroads, and I was transferred for duty at Air Transport Squadron Eleven of the Naval Air Facility, John Rodgers Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii Territory.

On the 15th of May, I reported at VR-11, and my first duties were working in the Captain Writer’s Office typing officer fitness reports and discharge letters. After many changes in officers, and switching and absorbing of different commands, I was settled in Squadron VR-8 in the Administrative Office. My first plane ride was in a Navy R5D, when in the company of one of the squadron officers.

My quarterly marks given by my department heads have been of the very highest and in keeping with the high standards of the navel services. I was honored with the Victory Ribbon and Medal, the American Area Campaign Ribbon and Medal. The faster I made a rate in the Navy the more money I made and the better qualified I became. I was proud to be advanced to Yeoman Second Class by 1 August 1947.

I am due to be discharged on 23 October 1948 and hope to go to college. I am entitled to four years of college to be paid for by the Government. My main hobby is short-story writing, and then I have an interest in Art.

To my relatives back home, I wish the best of everything to them, especially to my mother and father, brothers; Everett, Joe, Charles, Bobby and Curtis; sisters, Sylvia, Izora, and Gloria. To my girlfriend, Miss Artie Swallows of Anderson, Indiana, I send my fondest regards. To my Aunt, Mrs. Letha Terrell also living in Anderson; my other relatives, Leon and Peggy Stockton, Cotton, Bonnie, Marvin, and Sandra McKee; Mary Louise, Pat, Mike, and Kaye Smith; Maxine Smith and Anna Hicks, I will be seeing you soon. Mrs. Julie Stockton, Mrs. Mintie McKee, Bobby Neff and all of my neighbors, I wish to say, “Look for me, for I’ll soon be home.”

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Wilfred T. Smith’s letter gives us an idea of what the young men went through as they left home for the first time to volunteer to serve our country in 1945.