April 30, 1944

Dear Marvel Lee:                                                April 30
            As I told you I just moved into a new hut. We have lights now and radio. Have 6 men in the hut so far, among them are Horridge, Hollis and Watkinson. I mentioned Hollis and Watkinson before when we went to Tampa over Christmas. We have been spending our spare time fixing up the hut and working on the yard. We put up some shelfs and padded a bench we have. We are going to sod our yard if we can find the sod. Horridge nailed a shelf on the back of our dresser — we share one
            Was supposed to get paid to-day but something held it up. We have bright blue curtains for blackout curtains — pretty fancy, what? I got the film from home in 2 weeks. It must have come airmail. Some fellows letters have reached home in 5 days. The cookies surely were good but the can wasn’t big enough. The weather has been pretty nice last week, even got a little sun tan while working on the yard. I bought a bike last time in London. Watkinson and I went riding one afternoon and of course got lost in the maze of crossroads and turns. An army truck from our base finally came along so we threw our bikes in back and jumped on. Arlan said he was in Milwaukee. He didn’t know what the work was when he wrote but it should be a better prospect than India. I worked on St. Francis. What are Colemans working on now? Some evening could you see if you could find Mr. & Mrs. Clyde Schimmel. The ***last address I have is 2308 Laura. I’ve written them several times but have never got an answer. You met them, I believe. Got letters from Aunt Jessie, Aunt Hattie, Aunt Nellie. Must have been Aunt week. Saw in the paper where you had a whale of a lot of extra water in town.
                                    Yours truly, John

Please send me some cookies.

            Lt. J.D. McClurkin
            391 Bomb Gs. 574 Sq.
            APO 140 c/o New York N.Y.***

[***this small portion was originally paper clipped together with an April 5 letter, but I believe it goes here as a second page to Dad’s letter to Marvel Lee — writing about the Schimmel’s address in Wichita.***]