War Diaries (September 3) (nonfiction)

War Diary quotations for September 3.

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Diaries

Sid Phillips: September 3, 1942

Private Sid Phillips celebrated his 18th birthday on September 2, 1942, on Guadalcanal. The next day, he got his first letter from home since he had landed on the island nearly one month earlier. It was, he wrote back, "the best birthday present possible."

September 3, 1942
Guadalcanal Island

Dear Mother, Dad, Katharine, and John:

Yesterday we got our first mail, the best birthday present possible for me. ... After mail call everybody would be nice and quiet when suddenly somebody would curse in a loud voice and shout, "Alice got married." It really was funny. Cherokee got word that he is out in the cold and really surprised us all. One fellow in our squad got a box of cookies that had been reduced to dust and the dust was soon reduced leaving an empty box…. Daddy! You absent-minded prof. When you write to mother, you better mail it to her and not accidentally put it in my letter. I destroyed it and didn’t show it to the boys though, just to show what a sport I am ...

Tell everybody hello for me…

Love
Sid

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• War (nonfiction)
• War Diaries (nonfiction)

External links

• The War at Home @ PBS