Letters From War Wednesday: World War II – Paul Prickett.

Happy Hump Day! Time for Letters From War Wednesday! Today we feature a note home, dated September 1943, from 1st Sergeant Paul Prickett, stationed at Camp Sutton, North Carolina.

“I have been letting my end of the rope sag in this correspondence business, so I thought it better to ‘take up some of the slack.’

“Things are pretty much the same here as when I left to come home on furlough, except that I find myself pretty much alone. Several weeks ago most of our unit went the way of a lot of them–across, leaving a dozen or so men. I’m one of them. It gives you a hollow feeling on both sides. You hate to be separated from your own bunch. We have heard from them, so all have arrived okay. They are supposed to return with prisoners of war, and from the recent success in Sicily it looks like they will have plenty to bring back. Those remaining here, of course, are still carrying on with the same work, so it keeps the whole bunch pretty well occupied and out of mischief.

“Here in the South things will commence to ‘pop’ in a few weeks. The tobacco harvest and the cotton pickin’. It will be my first experience to see the cotton fields in full bloom … . Also am planning to go to a nearby town and attend the tobacco auction. They say that is something to see and hear. There are a lot of things us ‘Yankees’ can learn from the South in one sense of the word.

“By this time I suppose you are having signs of fall coming on. Here it is the same–hot days and cool nights and already those pesky birds gather in large numbers to roost in all the trees in town. It’s odd they don’t spend their nights out in the country and in the woods. Maybe it’s a little different here because we have so many blackouts they can’t find their way. Ha!”