Ralph N. Knight Papers

Résumé du livre

Letter, 31 July 1944 (Ravenel, S.C.), from Bettie Lou, asking Knight of his first impression of her, and confessing "I didn't like you at all the first time I saw you ... real love isn't seen at first sight all the time ... "; letter, 5 Dec. 1944, from McKnight, re censored letters, reporting departure from New York on 19 Sept. and arrival in England on Oct. 24, a 48-hour pass to visit London, his return passage via Newfoundland and arrival in Norfolk, Va., that afternoon; letter, 8 Dec. 1944 (Norfolk, Va.) re impressions of damage in London: "the ruins of London where the Germans had bombed was really a terrible sight for miles as far as you could see, not a house was standing. Lots of the people were living in air raid shelters and tunnels as they had no homes, and some were even sleeping in the subways, but there were wonderful sights to see also such as the king's palaces," impressions of his time in Plymouth, "the place that the Mayflower left," and its war damage: "over half the city was flat on the ground but had been cleaned up by U.S. Soldiers waiting on the invasion of Europe, but was hardly anybody living in the town ...," and his ship's stop in the Azores islands, where residents "came out and traded us whiskey for cigarettes and candy. They wore clothes and dressed like people of three hundred years ago ... the island was really beautiful."