-
- February 11, 1943 envelope
-
- February 11, 1943, p. 1
-
- February 11, 1943, p. 2
Letter transcription:
2/11/43
Lt. (jg) Yegerlehner
Receiving Station
U.S. Naval Advanced Base
Noumea, New Caledonia
% Fleet P.O.
San Francisco Calif.
Dear Mother,
Now it may be some time before you get mail regular from me again. I’ll write as often as possible but the outgoing mail may not be so good – Don’t be discouraged if it runs into months before you get a letter but don’t worry. I’m not writing anyone else you might write the folk and tell them the mail service is going to be slow. I just don’t have the time to write to them all at present, but will do so just as soon as established. Now please don’t worry because that won’t help and after all there is
[page 2] nothing to worry about but I can’t tell anymore than that at present.
Lots of Love
Daddy
©2013 copyright owned and/or written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2013/12/25/temporary-addi…al-duty-roscoe/
Genealogy Lady 
I would definitely worry if I got a letter telling me not to worry….especially with the suggestion that she might not hear from him for a long time.
Whew, I’d be worried if I got a letter like this.
I agree. I wonder though how much he knew it was coming. There are a couple of references beforehand. He was joking around a bit, but he might have known something was about to happen.
You have likely figured this out but based on the documents, he may have been stationed on board the USS John Penn. (APA-23). The captain’s name coincides (Harry W. Need). She was sunk during combat in August that same year. In 1943, CV-3 (USS Saratoga) used Noumea as a port. I can’t imagine she would have been at all thrilled receiving this letter.
I have been trying to find out more about receiving station EPIC but have had no luck thus far. So I don’t know if EPIC was actually on the ship. I did find a ship manifest on Ancestry that listed a bunch of men who came from EPIC in July. They were listed as survivors from another ship.
I believe the USS John Penn was sunk in August… but EPIC… I think that is a coded shipping destination. In this case, it meant “Noumea New Caledonia 13AF South Pac POA”. Please check out: http://forum.armyairforces.com/m158925-p1.aspx?print=true