Military History In Paulding County

By: Mark Holtsberry

An Interesting Letter

(part two)

I assure you the line Company boys don’t take my liberal attitude, but are looking down the barrel of that rifle which bent up vengeance.

I’d do the same. You would really be interested in my surroundings. I’m sitting on a second floor balcony with the warm Italian sun creating a false feeling of peace and tranquility. The Italians really go in for spacious buildings, with big flare for unnecessary adornments. My desk is a box of grenades, all over the floor is scattered debris from the surrounding walls. It certainly will be a sad day when the owner returns and finds his house in such ruin. Many of the men have fled into the hills carrying a few meager possessions but they will return gradually as their homes are liberated from the Nazis. They are very bitter against the Germans, and small wonder. They even have looted what little the Italians were able to take with them. All of the stories about the unscrupulous Germans must have been true, even more so what some of the Germans have to say is very interesting.

Before I decide to start a novel on this subject, l’d better sign off, assuring you I am o.k. and will write as often as opportunity presents itself.

Corporal Royce E. Smith

35345369 85th Infantry, Division Band

P.S. A correspondent just gave four of us an interview. He took notes on our reaction to our first enemy air bombing. I consider myself lucky I didn’t get hit. Those Stukas were plenty terrifying. He also took the address of the Paulding Republican Newspaper, which I just received.

Royce Smith was my neighbor from my childhood until he passed away. I loved his sense of humor, craftsmanship in making human models for the Paulding Historical Museum. Leaving model heads in the windows of his shop was often scary. But as he would say, “No one ever broke in”. I knew his father Altie and his mother, Agness, great people. I had really neat neighbors as a kid growing up. I only wish that I would have wrote down what they said. All I have are great memories from old neighbors and watching new neighbors living in their homes. I guess to them, I am starting to be that old neighbor.

… Until Next Time!