LETTER TO WIFE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1944, Page 3

LETTER TO WIFE

U.S. GENERAL IN ITALY While Lieutenant-General Mark (Wayne to his friends) Clark and his Fifth Army are busy in Italy, his diminutive, vivacious wife (sft tall) has been equally busy capturing America with a one-woman war bond drive, states the San Francisco Chronicle. Mrs. Clark had an especially good reason for her efforts. In the midst of the Naples campaign her husband wrote her: "I hope your bond effort is a success. The way we are shooting up ammunition and using up equipment here, we'need the financial help of every soul at home." In this same letter the general told her, "I'll take Naples and give it to you for a birthday present. What are you going to do with it?" As usual, he was as good as his word—in fact, a little better —he took Naples several days ahead of her birthday, which was October 5. The busy general found time to write his wife some of the homely details of his living arrangements and of the bravery of his men. "My field command post is a truck, made into a sort of home and office on wheels," he wrote. "It has a bunk with a desk and a wash basin, and screens and blackout ourtains at the windows. "I visited the wounded last night —our men are wonderful. The nurses are the best soldiers wo have. They work 24 hours a day, live in dust and dirt and never complain."

The general also told his wife of the need for blood plasma—how doctors and nurses at the front were giving their own blood and go right on working.