In an envelope with an incomplete postal stamp (no date), however April 5 fell on a Saturday in 1941.
Mr & Mrs K.W. Rhoades & Family
4011 North 30th Street
Omaha, Nebraska
Air Mail
Saturday, April 5, [1941]
Dear Folks,
Well here I am again. Imagine you are wondering right now, what has happened and why I haven’t written. Well, I have been pretty busy. We are out to sea now and it is really pretty hard to find time at sea to do any letter writing. We go out for two weeks and then in for three days.
I have also been spending most of my time studying. You see I take my test next Friday. Well, I hope my apology is accepted. I have had a letter from each of you since I’ve written last and was very happy over all of them. We are sending a mail plane in tomorrow so I figured I had better write.
I was glad to hear that things are picking up for you, dad, and I sure hope it continues that way. Gee, I just can’t think of anything to write about for some reason.
Today was payday. I drew $5 as I had drawn a new pair of shoes and that was deducted from the $9 I had coming, leaving $5. You should have received my second allotment check by now. When we get back to the states (if we do) (things are very uncertain) out here every time we go to sea things are so secret the crew doesn’t know where we are headed) that allotment might be able to bring me home on leave, I hope.
Well, Dick, I’m sure glad to hear you are getting along so good at Fred’s and school. I was also glad to hear that Babe [Helene] thinks of me.
Well, I wish I had more to write about but I just can’t think of a thing, and I feel like I need some sleep pretty bad. [I’ve] got the 12 [p.m.] -4 [p.m. shift/watch] coming up tonight. I’ve had it every night we’ve been out, so will close now and will try and write sooner next time.
Love to all of you and a Happy Easter.
Kenney
Hope Babe has been a good girl so the Easter Bunny won’t forget her.
Loads of love
Reported widely in the newspapers leading up to and for some time afterwards, on March 11, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill, which was formally titled “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States. This allowed the United States to begin distributing goods and services, to include military equipment, to Allied nations as indirect support of their war efforts. This Bill effectively ended the United States’ neutrality in the European conflict.
Silently, the US had been mobilizing the country for its inevitable inclusion in World War II. Earlier in the year, the Navy began restructuring its fleet hierarchy by reviving the Pacific and Atlantic fleet structure. This restructure also initiated the re-assignment of destroyers to Pearl Harbor. In February 1941, these destroyers detected an unidentified submarine in the Pacific near Hawaii. A search ensued but was called off days later, failing to locate and identify the mysterious submarine. The U.S.S. Colorado had begun conducting intensive training exercises (and war games) from Pearl Harbor between January and June 1941.
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| Clipped from Newspapers.com, Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA), 9 March 1941, page 5. |
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| Clipped from Newspapers.com, The Daily Notes (Canonsburg, PA), 27 Mar 1941, Thu, Page 12 |
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