By Jim Nichols

Most people have a small number of Christmas memories that sit in their mind and bring joy, despair, concern, or absolute delight. It is, admittedly, a mixture of emotions. We remember people and events and treasure who was present and where we were. One of my Christmas memories concerns a person I had not met at the time; I had to learn about him in later years and part of the Christmas memory is contained in written letters and records he made of one Christmas. That Christmas was 1943 and the person was my father. 

I have before me some of his words and find that they describe a time and circumstances that are difficult for me to understand. Our current year looks significantly different from one in the middle of World War II; I find reading his thoughts and about his actions both sobering and inspiring. 

His descriptions begin in early December of that year as he was leaving Muroc, California, after further training in what was then referred to as the Army Air Corps. He describes traveling across the country in a troop train and identifies, by name and rank, fourteen others with him in his car. The destination was Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia. My mother, pregnant with me, was in Kansas City living with her parents. This was the beginning of an almost two-year separation for them. He was 23 years old when he wrote the following which I have edited only slightly.

December 5-9: Riding across country and added New Mexico to states traveled through.

December 10: Arrived at Camp Patrick Henry, VA. Some place, no passes. Officers’ club fair. Shows crowded.

December 13: Train to Hampton Rhodes VA and boarded a liberty ship. Men crowded into one hold, officers in “staterooms” (Ha! Seven officers per room.)

December 14-15: Sailing slowly out into the bay. Water getting rough. Forty-eight hours out we opened our orders, and we are off for Naples they say. Ten minutes later a crack caused by faulty welding was found on the port side of the ship and we returned to the harbor. The ship had been declared “unseaworthy” due to being torpedoed earlier and not repaired adequately. The crack in the hull ran down to the water line. 

December 16: Laid overnight off the pier and went ashore in the afternoon. Train back to Camp Patrick Henry, four hours to go seventeen miles. Cold, wet, and disgusted. Different barracks this time; near a better mess hall.

December 19: Train load of WACs (Women’s Army Corps) arrived and enlisted men practically picket their area.

December 19-24: In Patrick Henry with not much to do. Censoring letters (this was part of his job as an officer), eating, sleeping.

December 24: Entrained for the dock. Coupling broke on the car I was in and we had to be pushed to Hampton Rhodes. Consequently, I arrived at the wrong pier. Band playing for infantry men boarding ship. We boarded “SS Jonathon Elmer,” another liberty ship. Cleaner.

December 25, Saturday: Set sail about 2 AM. Received Red Cross packages including gum, stationary pad, soap, shoelaces, 10 cent book, pencil, cards, etc.

December 25-January 16: Sailing east in a convoy.

Italy initially fought as an ally of Germany beginning in 1940; they helped form the Axis Powers. In 1943 Italy switched sides in the war due to several factors, including military setbacks. As my father was writing these words, Italy was still heavily occupied by German forces; he was headed for Naples, Italy and, eventually, forming and constructing an airbase for Allied bombers.

There are several topics I want to ask God about if that is permitted in the future. Why have humans always been at war? Does God somehow approve/sanction it? What is war supposed to accomplish?

Reading these words from my father I hear logic and acceptance but surrounding chaos. He goes where he is ordered to go and does what he is ordered to do, even on Christmas Day. I asked my mother later how she dealt with his absence and her uncertainty, and she replied, “Almost all the young men were gone to the war.”

I may share some more of his words from Italy later.

Each day our local newspaper has a column looking back on that day in history. Usually, it concerns births of famous people or key government decisions. I wish this Christmas it might read, “On this Christmas Day in 1943 Lieutenant Ross Nichols of the Army Air Corps set sail for the war in Europe.”

 Thanks, Dad, and Merry Christmas.

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain