Letter from Frank L. FitzSimons Sr. to Aunt Ellen, war news from Reginald and Frankie, 14 March 1944
Book 1, Page 532 ·1944
Transcription
Henderson County
Hendersonville, N. C.
Office of Register of Deeds Frank L. FitzSimons, Registrar Marshall Watterson, Deputy
March 14, 1944
Dear Aunt Ellen:
I got a long letter from Reginald yesterday, the first one in three months. He was very cheerful and asked me to write and thank you for the Xmas package you sent and the letter. I was on the verge of getting the Red Cross to look him up when we got the letter. He said that he didnt get his Xmas packages until the last of January. And the reason he hasnt written more and sooner is that since November he has been through the Sicily campaign with the British 8th Army and through the Italian campaign also and is still in Italy. He said that he has been well but on the go all the time. The Canadian Army wont let them write but one letter a week while in the field and he does not get to write that one letter a week very often.
We also got a long letter from Frankie written March 1st. He is wild about the Pt. boat that he is on and says that it is both exciting and lots of fun. Since he has gotten on one of those boats his letters sound as if he was on a perpetual camping trip. Although it is much more dangerous than the ship he was on, both Maggie and I are glad that he got it because [after — handwritten insert above the line] he is at least enjoying himself. He also writes that at last more than three months his mail is catching up with him and he is beginning to catch up with the home news. In case you dont have his adress is
Frank L. FitzSimons, S/1c M T B Ron 6 Care Fleet Post Office, San Francisco, Cal.
We are all well here and have been all winter. Uncle Tote is gradually getting weaker and weaker, but I think the Old Man is keeping you informed in regard to that.
I hope by now that your arm is regaining some of its strength. I wish that you would come up and spend some of the Spring months with us. Maggie and I had planned to come down for a few days some time soon but I dont think it wise to leave with Uncle Tote in the uncertain condition that he is.
I know that you will be pleased to hear about Reg, and wish that you would give this news to Marguerite.
Lots of love from us all,
Affectionately,
Frank L. FitzSimons
AI Notes
Typed letter on the printed Henderson County / Office of Register of Deeds letterhead (Hendersonville, N. C.), with embossed cut of the county courthouse at upper left and the line ‘Frank L. FitzSimons, Registrar / Marshall Watterson, Deputy.’ Dated March 14, 1944. From Frank L. FitzSimons Sr. of Hendersonville (the Henderson County historian, b. 1893, m. Maggie Kershaw c. 1922) to his aunt Ellen M. FitzSimons in Charleston, with news of his two sons in service. The wife referenced twice in the letter is ‘Maggie’ (Frank Sr.'s wife Maggie Kershaw FitzSimons). The Sicily campaign army is the British 8th Army (Canadian forces in Sicily were attached to the British Eighth Army historically). The ‘Frankie’ in service is Frank L. FitzSimons Jr., signing his Navy address as ‘Frank L. FitzSimons, S/1c, MTB Ron 6’ — i.e., Seaman 1st class, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 6, addressed care of Fleet Post Office, San Francisco. Daughter ‘Marguerite’ is mentioned only as the person Aunt Ellen should tell about Reg’s news. Signed in flourished ink ‘Frank L. FitzSimons.’ The word ‘after’ is inserted by hand into one line.
Frank Sr.'s Navy son writes his address as ‘S/1c’ (Seaman 1st Class); the unit ‘M T B Ron 6’ is Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 6 — i.e., a PT boat squadron in the Pacific. The handwritten ‘after’ is inserted above its line to complete the sentence ‘because after he is at least enjoying himself.’ This letter pairs with the nearby p529 (Aunt Ellen’s offered honorary Doctor of Laws from the College of Charleston, 28 March 1935) — both are correspondence to/about Ellen Milliken FitzSimons, the Charleston Library Society librarian. Marguerite mentioned in the closing is plausibly Reginald’s wife or sister; she should also receive Reg’s news.
The letter places two FitzSimons cousins in the European and Pacific theatres on the same day in March 1944: Reginald serving as a Canadian volunteer attached to the British Eighth Army through the Allied invasion of Sicily (July–Aug 1943) and the still-ongoing Italian Campaign, and Frankie crewing a PT boat in the Pacific. Plywood-hulled motor torpedo boats fought in close-quarters night actions against Japanese coastal shipping — the “exciting and lots of fun” tone is characteristic of the volunteer PT-boat service of the period.