Letters From North Africa

by BENJAMIN APTHORP G. FULLER, 2D

Captain, Tank Destroyer Battalion

and

EDGAR L. JONES

Ambulance Driver, British Eighth Army

North Africa, February 2, 1943
DEAREST MOTHER AND ALL: —
Today it is snowing (believe it or not) to beat the devil, and my hands are so cold it is almost impossible to hold the pencil. We are bivouacked high up in the North African mountains, and anybody who tries to tell you that this part of Africa is warm is full of baloney. Things are going O.K. for me, and I still am in one piece, which is all one has to worry about these days around here.
There is little use in talking about or writing what we have been up against the last three months, but I have been on the front ever since the show started, and my outfit has not yet been relieved. The morale is good but we have received some hard lessons from the Jerries and lost a good deal.
As Hod says, we always think about the peace and quiet at home and the rest when all hell is breaking around us and every moment is a good chance of being our last. Often I wonder how you all are and if things will be about the same when I get back. That scarf and sweater arrived O.K. and it sure is swell to have them in the bitter weather we are undergoing at present. Don’t attempt to send anything more as I have no place to keep anything and it only gets lost. If you send anything, make it toothbrushes, soap, or toothpaste. Those are the things that really count.
You sure would laugh if you could see me now. We have a makeshift shelter consisting of the side of a tank and a big canvas tarp stretched down to the ground from the side, making a big lean-to. I have that ten-foot scarf wound around my head and a big pair of non-waterproof Italian mountain boots on my feet and a quart of whiskey at my right elbow. My table for writing is an empty ration case, and I am sitting on another one.
As I wrote you before, I was promoted to Captain early in January for action on the battlefield, so have no complaints coming. This sure is a crazy campaign. I have seen some terrific tank battles and mechanized fighting. One has the feeling that he is hunting and killing great prehistoric monsters. Well, enough of that; all I can say is that every moral and ideal that a so-called civilized person is brought up on must be cut off, and the psychology of kill or be killed instilled into one and all. No quarter given or asked. As Hod says, great fellows are killed, buried, and forgotten in five minutes. It’s brutal, but if that is what the Jerries want to make it, that is what they’ll get and plenty more before we are through.
I have seen a lot of the French and British in action and they are damn good fighters. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that the British haven’t got guts. They sure can fight.

One thing I would like, if it is still possible to buy it in the States, is a good big hunting knife with a leather sheath. I had one but lost it in the shulfle. They can be used for a lot of diflerent things.
Well, Mother, that’s about all the news from me. I am O.K. and you have no reason to worry. As the boys look at it around here, if your name is called, you’ll sure as hell be present, so there is no point in worrying. Glad Bob and Uncle have done so well and are doing their part. All must work 100 per cent all the time to get this show over with.
I’ll bet your garden will be just starting to bloom when this letter gets to you all. I ’d like to take a day or two off and just lie around on the green grass and handle a few of those good old weeds. Another thing, you might see if you could get one of those fancy can-openers — the same kind that we have on the wall in the kitchen at home. We need one badly here in our mess truck and the boys will appreciate it as we eat out of nothing but tin cans. Best to all at home and hope all is O.K.
Love to all,
BENNY

North Africa, February 13, 1943

DEAR HOD : —
. . Naturally there is plenty to tell you and much has slipped my memory. We came ashore in good style and caught the French defenses napping. However, they got tough soon enough and as we had orders to take it easy for political reasons, they began shelling hell out of our infantry. The General then got sore and let us go after them. We piled in and shot up about three or four old horse-drawn artillery batteries with my scout cars and mopped up and neutralized with frontal machine guns. It took three days to get Oran when we could have had it in twelve hours if there hadn’t been so much “ taking it easy on the French " involved.
Within forty-eight hours after that we were on the road for Tunis with two battalions of M-4 tanks and a lot of armored infantry and our battalion. We rolled 650 miles over the Atlas Mountains and some of the ruggedest ground you ;ve ever seen. Heavy tank lighters and big armored equipment. The nights were about 15° above in the mountains but we made it O.K. We drove a hard armored thrust at Tunis and damn near had the place if we had had the infantry to hold the ground. Boy, what shows! One afternoon twenty-five German tanks smashed into thirty American tanks on one road neither could get off the road on account of the mud. What a time! Tanks and tank destroyers would shoot it out until disabled and two more would roll up to take their place. I have never seen anything like it. The fighting here is mostly armored stuff. We live on or by our vehicles and tanks just like aboard a small vessel.
The Germans are experienced, brave, resourceful. We are learning quickly but it has been costly. I had one damn close one which may be written up in the papers by this time back home. It ended up by my hand-grenading my way out. I took to the mountains for two and a half days but am back in pitching once again. My outfit has caught hell, is at about half strength, and has lost several officers.
This fighting of course is as opposite as day and night to what you’ve been in.¹ We are all tankers and heavy mechanical equipment, which is hard to keep up in this country. We attack in the valleys, fight it out with the famous German 88 mm. guns for about a day until the doughboys take over our ground, and then withdraw to the mountains to refit and repair. The weather is below freezing every night, and as my sleeping bag has received some heavy 77 mm. shelling, I find the bunking rugged.
The Jerries have a wonderful weapon in their 88 mm. self-propelled gun, and they have given us a dusting with it on more than one occasion. The so-and-so is deadly accurate and they use it smartly. So far my name has not been on a shell, so can ’t kick. Have a nice 35-ton M-4 tank for battle action with “Beaver Ben” ² painted on either side of the turret and have bagged several Mark IV tanks with my 75 mm. gun. Tangled with the Italians on one occasion and found them soft. We took over 400 of them prisoners in a god-damn mountain pass. They all had their musette bags packed waiting to be captured.
I get little news of the outside world and all I know is what is on my right and left (if I ’m lucky) and that there is nothing behind me. Hope your leg comes around O.K. Recommend a little “skunk oil” on those creaky joints.
The new American tanks have it all over the Jerries, but maintenance and refitting is the problem. What future operations here will consist of on this front, I haven’t the slightest idea, but it’s going to be a bloody fight to clear the Jerries out. They have their backs to the wall, and I know they are not going to take it lying down. We’ve got a big job coming up soon and sure hope we give them hell.
Well, Hod, that’s about all for now. Someday I hope we meet up on the front and put a Fuller twist on old Tojo. After that I figure to outfit a nice vessel-rigged 45-foot schooner and we’ll clear out paying our debts with ample scope and main sheet and head to the Southwest Pacific with some kegs of rum and a holdful of cusk and cod.
Figure the States after the war will be full of nothing but cut-throats trying to screw each other out of as much as possible, so we might as well clear for other fronts. My regards to the leathernecks, and I’ll still keep ducking as long as I can hear them.
Your brother,
BEN

P. S. I have not seen or heard of any Marines operating on this front. We could use you.

Tunisian Front, March 5, 1943

DEAR HOD : —
Sure am sorry to hear your leg still bothers you. As for myself, I still am lucky enough to have my skin on my back and the old Fuller luck is still sticking.... As you may have read recently, we had a terrific show here against the Jerries at Sbeitha and Kasserine. My outfit fought a rear-guard action at the pass at Kasserine. The gunners were firing so damn fast that the tubes on the tank guns pretty near burst their hoops. I sure thought my name was on that old St. Peter roll call as we caught a terrific pounding from their artillery and then had to tangle with their infantry. Well, we held the pass, counterattacked, and finally were relieved. My outfit is now well seasoned, all the deadheads gotten rid of, and all the good gunners, tank commanders right up at the top where they belong.
During the show I got some German 77 mm. HE through my left shoulder, but have had it taken care of and am now ready to tangle again. These Jerries are good, Hod, smart as foxes and bold as brass. They toyed around with us a lot, but now we’re getting wise and have handed their tankers plenty of trouble.
The weather is now improving but it sure was cold, muddy, and rainy for a spell. I’ve been on the front ever since November 24th and am looking forward soon to a break in Algiers. Our air force is steadily on the build-up over here and we are getting better coördination and support all the time.
The boys sure have been dusting the Japs “down under” and seem to be getting the situation better in hand all the time. I wonder if you will have any luck on your request for European duty — there have been no “devil dogs” on this front unless they are up on the seaports. Received the Croix de Guerre with gold star for action at Ousseltia.
I guess that tangle we got into on January 20th was written up at home. Sure had a close one, and had to clog-foot it over the biggest mountain around here. There is not much other news, Hod.
It’s going to take years to clean up this mess. Well, Hod, good luck to you and hope you’re back in harness before long. See you in Tokyo.
Bung ho!
BEN

If you happen to lay eyes on a vessel-rigged, able-geared 40to 45-foot schooner lying around, put an option on her for me as I’m banking dough fast. After this mess, we’ll pay our debts with the main sheet, take a nice breeze on the quarter, and stand for some place where no so-and-so can get our bracket.

2

British Eighth Army, November 21, 1942

DEAR FAMILY : —
In desert warfare, or any warfare for that matter, only a small section of an army is in action at any one time. For the most part it is a sitting-andwaiting game. It is the same with an ambulance unit. When the group we are attached to goes forth to battle, wc are busy. But it doesn’t last long and we settle back to the routine job of caring for the normal sick: the lads with dysentery, jaundice, fever, desert sores, etc. I can assure you that for us the dangerous days are over for a long time to come. We’ve had our trial by fire, and like visiting a dentist, it’s worse to think about than experience. The worst part of being bombed is not feeling the earth throb as the eggs hit home, but waiting and waiting for the pilot to stop circling around and make up his mind where to drop the blooming things.
I would much rather care for the normal sick than battle casualties, because the latter express reactions to modern warfare that would make a pacifist out of the most rabid patriot. I am thinking, for example, of a young little Tommy with a shredded right arm who kept moaning, “I never had a chance; I never had a chance.” Of course he didn’t have a chance, poor guy. We of today say how silly our forefathers were to settle arguments by dueling; and what a waste of life when Burr shot Hamilton. And yet as nations we go on asserting our rights with the point of a sword (understatement) and littering the land and seas with the wasted lives of thousands of prospective Hamiltons, Emersons, Beethovens, Pasteurs, and Rembrandts.
I am grateful for last month, because I had an opportunity to prove to myself and to others that pacifists are not cowards. I also learned that I do not hate a man because he tries to kill me. Now I can go on with my work here without feeling a sense of guilt that I did not join Tuck, Chellis, Ned, the Stahl boy, etc., in the firing squad.

If only this war would mean a second chance to do right by others, as Mother says. If only we would put Christianity on an everyday basis and make democracy something to live by and not just a slogan to die for. If only we would accept our responsibilities as world leaders and help the underprivileged instead of exploiting them. I find so many Americans who talk about how the American way of life must be preserved — and what they mean, it turns out, is not democracy, but the fact that we have more radios, more autos, more education and leisure than any other peoples. We, the richest people on earth, want to hold on to what we have at all costs!
For 166 years Americans have (through the necessities of building a new world) been working for themselves. Now they must work for others. We know there are thousands of good Christians in America. We have them as neighbors, relatives, business partners. From now on they must make a concerted effort to take our country’s destiny out of the hands of self-interested politicians, marketjuggling industrialists, racketeering labor leaders, and educational crackpots. Well, the lecture’s over. But I’m full of enthusiasm anyway.
Love,
EDGAR

November 22, 1942

DEAR NED: —
Two weeks ago I w rote to you and Mac together in care of Mac. But writing to you alone is more difficult. I can’t say anything from here. It’s one of those things where you should be walking up and down the apartment from 6.00 to 8.00 P.M. and talking aloud while I wash and putter about .
The only thing I’m sure of is that we are in a spot now where our personal plans for the future don’t count for a damn. The only way to stay sane is to stop thinking about how we are going to carry on after this whole business goes belly up.
We used to discuss bravery in our little foursome and wonder what we would do under circumstances calling for heroism. I’ve had just one opportunity to find out, but I think I can generalize for all of us. I had to rescue two men lying close to a burning truckload of high explosive shells.³ The shells were going off like fireworks and scattering shrapnel a quarter of a mile in every direction. I had to make two trips. The second one has me scared yet. But the secret of heroism, so called, is in the words “had to.” Under certain circumstances a man would do nothing else. You don’t like to do it, you’re scared silly and cursing, but you wouldn’t have anyone else do the job. That’s the end of my self-build-up. You arc the first person I’ve told about it. Fortunately it is commonplace stuff around here and no one has ever spoken of it since that morning. For me it was important because it was the first chance I’ve had to prove to myself that we who hate war are not afraid to face it when the time comes.
War is a lonely business with too much time to think. I have been trying to get my vague religious beliefs on a working basis. May I think aloud? There is something in, over, and above our world which I’ll have to call goodness for lack of a better term, and each of us has the power of expressing it through daily living. A man’s value to humanity is in exact proportion to how well he serves as an expression of this goodness. I think the good that all men do lives after them in the hearts of other men. Jesus Christ, as far as I know, is the man who has come closest to being a complete embodiment of these eternal values. To be a good Christian is to try to serve humanity as Christ did.
I am inclined to doubt many of the things Christ is reported to have done. But how can we tell? No one since him has ever lived so unselfishly in the service of humanity. Perhaps anything is possible if we live like that. Intelligent men who knew Christ said he performed miracles. I don’t think that being a good Christian has anything to do with believing that Christ did or did not raise the dead, or with following this or that religious dogma. A man’s worth to society is determined by how closely he lives by those eternal virtues that Christ lived by, and Lincoln lived by, and Mrs. Jones lives by. Some day I hope we’ll clean out the temples and get down to some constructive Christian living. Until we do, there’s not much hope for humanity.
A palm reader in Cairo took one look at my hand and said I worry about the war too much. I do; I’ll admit it. I’m like you and your ulcers. We used to tell you to stop worrying so much about little things. The same goes for me. So far I don’t think I show my worries. But this letter will be censored by our lieutenant. He’s a damn good man. I admire him and welcome his leadership. I’d like to have him feel that I can always be depended on to be a good soldier. The truth is, however, that I’m a remarkably poor soldier. This business tears my guts out. I hate war. I can’t view it impersonally. I can’t take it calmly. But enough of this sort of thing. YOUR JONES