Lt. Reichard’s WWII Diary – March 12, 1943 by Lt.Reichard (03/12/09).
Lt. Reichard’s WWII Diary Project and Recap: On January 1, 2009, WorthPoint began a three year project following the life of a WWII soldier through the daily pages of his diary.To read about the inception of this project, or to add your own comments, click here.
January 1943 Recap: We first met Lt. Reichard in January, stationed at McClellan Air Base in Sacramento, where he was in charge of a motor pool unit. Expecting to be sent overseas, their orders were changed and they became restless to see action. Lt. Reichard’s sweetheart, Ginnie, would write frequently, and he would go to dinner and movies with local girls – Dorothy, in Sacramento, and Marie, when the unit moved to Gowen Field in Boise, Idaho. The men have spent their days in lectures, and physical demonstrations to try to keep sharp mentally and physically. But they are getting increasingly restless.
February 1943 Recap: The unit continues to be restless as they still haven’t any orders for overseas. The days are kept busy with lectures, physical demonstrations, and frequent hikes in the mountains above Boise. Lt. Reichard receives a promotion to Lieutenant First Class and continues to write to Ginnie back home, though her letters are becoming more infrequent. February 1943 comes to an end with the unit still feeling bored and discouraged.
Friday, March 12, 1943
Gowen Fieid, Boise, Idaho
March 12, 1943 Diary Page
I’ve been sitting here for half an hour trying to figure out what to talk about in order to fill out this page. I think a little less happens each day around here just to test my ingenuity in keeping a diary. I was so bored yesterday that I started delving into “Omar Khayyam” whom I readily believe to be about the most cynical man ever to live. His philosophy certainly is “Eat drink and be merry today for tomorrow we die.” If I stay in this army much longer I’m liable to feel pretty much the same way. Today was just another day of lectures. I wonder what in the hell we would do without those lectures. Of course it does give the men some of the theory of mechanics that they wouldn’t ordinarily get but they are going to get pretty rusty as mechanics if they don’t get some practical work along with the theory. The radios for the last week have been full of talk about the fact that the time of the big push in N. Africa is at hand. I wonder. I wonder how long its going to take to clean up that small area that has been the stumbling block of the second front for so long. It looked like a sure thing when we first started but turned out to be any thing but. Rommell is a long way from being licked.
Good Night
To An Airman
Insert to Diary - March 12, 1943
By Rosalie Schwimmer.
“I will not ask these things of you.
To comb the eagel from your hair,
Nor close your eyes to paths of blue
That you have cut across the air.
I will not ask that you forget
Songs you hear as the engines roar
But pray that you return and let
Me spread my wings along with you.”
• On the Eastern Front, the fighting continued in Kharkov. The German command dispatched a unit eastward to Chuguyev in an effort to cut off Soviet forces to the south of Kharkov. Meanwhile, the Red Army occupied Vyazma as the German Army Group Center continued to retreat on a wide front. (http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/mar1943/f12mar43.htm)
• In Tunisia, the 2nd New Zealand Division and the 8th Armored Brigade were secretly moved south from Medenine. They were being concentrated west of Wilder’s Gap in preparation for an outflanking move around the Mareth Line, across the Dahar region. (http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/mar1943/f12mar43.htm)
Production Credits:
Diary transcription: Kathleen Long
Diary photos: Claudia Forbes
Video production: Alison Harder
Narration: Mountain Vista H.S. Theater Department
Jeremy Goldson, Department Chair; Sean McGill – voice of Lt. Reichard
Poem narration – Jordan Wood
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