July 26, 1945
Dear Mom and Dad,

It is now my 70th day fighting, with every passing hour I become more and more afraid for my life. The Russians keep coming out of nowhere and we’re running out of options of what to do. We’ve been without food for three days, because every truck we are sent the Russians keep blowing up. With the Russians still coming at us hard, I fear that we won’t be able to win this battle for we have lost over half of our troops with no new recruits coming in. The smell of rotting flesh from the dead soldiers is almost unbearable. We’ve buried as many as we could but with every soldier being buried there seems to be hundreds left. As the Russians keep coming we seem to be lost in a sea of blood and dead bodies. As the sun rises over the battle field I can’t help but feel bad for the families of the soldiers lying there never to be seen again.

October 19, 1945
Dear Mom and Dad

We have been fighting for over 100 days now with hardly any reinforcements and little food coming. We now only have about 200 soldiers in camp with more and more deaths every day. I fear that we will be over run by the Russians and taken as prisoners and then killed. Everyone here is either sick or dying. The weather is starting to change I feel it getting colder every day, you can’t really tell that fall is coming cause most of the leaves have been blown off the trees around where we’re camped. The Russian attacks have slowed down, but every time they do attack the number of soldiers seems to be growing. I don’t really know how much longer we’ll be here, the Commander says we’re not going to last much past the first snow fall when ever that will be, seems like we’re about to lose this battle.

November 14, 1945
Dear Mom and Dad

Things here haven’t been going any better. We’re now down to 190 soldiers; we’ve been out of food now for 5 days. The camp is moving out we don’t know where we’re going or if we’re going to make it there. The Russians have almost stopped their attacks for now; we figured that this would be the best time to leave. The burying of dead soldiers is an ongoing task, and the smell is still putrid. On our way to our new destination we’re going to drop off all of the wounded at a hospital which will drop our number of soldiers to about 156.

December 25, 1945
Dear Mom and Dad

We are now in the small town somewhere in Germany. We have joined another group of soldiers there and we are now heading to the border. They haven’t told us where exactly we’re going, all we know is that we’re headed for the front line. We are going to leave about 3 o’clock tomorrow morning. I don’t really feel much fear anymore with everything that’s happened in fact I don’t feel anything anymore no pain, no sorrow, no nothing. The days keep growing colder, it’s been snowing here for the past three days the snow is so white and peaceful. I wonder how long it will stay that way?

January 30, 1946
Dear Mom and Dad


When we arrived at camp everything was so different. Right when we unloaded the truck we were sent down to the field. We unloaded all the boxes from the truck. We were in the trench for about 8 hours when we heard the sound of distant gun fire. Knowing what was coming for us we readied for battle. We fought long and hard. Suffering great losses we waited for the other soldiers from the camp to take over. Looking over at the battle field all I could see was blood and dead soldiers covering the snow. When we returned to the camp I noticed that there was blood all down my arm. Taking off my shirt I can see that a piece of shrapnel had stabbed my shoulder. I had one of my buddies pull it out for me and bandage it.

February 9, 1946
Dear Mom and Dad

I was told to write this letter in order to inform you that the doctor says I’m not going to live much past the month. The wound in my shoulder has an extremely bad infection that has moved throughout my body. The doctors have done everything they can to save me but with the supply trucks getting blown up we are out of medications. I wish I could have seen the family one last time but it seems my time has run out. I love and miss you all. See you on the other side.
With all the love in the world,
You’re Son Jacob