The Letters of Roy J. Diehl (Jay Roy Diehl)

From 1917-1919, Roy J. Diehl, a railroad worker from Pennsylvania, wrote a series of letters to Stella Custer, his future wife, while he was enlisted in the 281st Aero Squadron. Most published letter collections consist of letters penned by men of education, rank, or fame. Roy J. Diehl was neither highly educated, highly ranked, nor famous, but his letters provide an interesting and valuable look at the life of an ordinary enlisted man, untainted by the notion that he may be writing to a wide audience or that anything beyond his relationship with Stella, his future betrothed, rests on what he says. Still, his letters display the usual characteristics of war-time correspondence; Sergeant Diehl omits potentially sensitive information about activities in his Squadron, treats probably disgusting or horrific situations with a certain amount of nonchalance, speaks in cliches of patriotism, and continually thinks of movement and distance.

July 26, 2010

Garden City Long Island, N.Y. July 23, 18.

In this letter, Roy discusses life in Garden City, Long Island just before shipping overseas. He visits home for a few hours--not enough time to get to Johnstown to see Stella--and points out how many young men who were home last summer are now gone. there is fun in this letter, however; the boys test out their newly issued helmets by dropping rocks on each other's heads.

My Dear Friend:

Your very welcome letter was received a few days ago and also the one you had addressed to Park Field and I want to assure you that both were gladly received. I have been intending to answer for the past week but we have been kept so very busy until yesterday that I have had little time for writing letters but yesterday and today we have not been quite so busy.

We are now almost fitted out for overseas duty and hope to get started over very soon. I applied for a few days leave of absence upon arriving here but was unable to get more than a week-end pass, from Saturday afternoon at 2:30 until eleven oclock Sunday evening. So fearing that I might not be able to get any more than that I slipped home last Saturday evening. I left New York City Saturday evening at 5:30 and arrived at Altoona at 1:45 Sunday morning. I then borrowed my brothers car and reached home, near Martinsburg, about eight oclock and had to start back to Altoona at 10:30 and left there at 12:45. So you see I had a very short stay. I certainly was sorry I could not stay longer and see more of my friends but it was impossible on that trip. My application for a three days pass still holds good so if we should stay here a week or two longer I may get back again. If I can do so I shall hope to get to Johnstown, too. I would very much have liked to see Claysburg, too but could not do that either. Of course, I suppose it is still the same place, but I know quite a few of the boys are gone to war.

I must surely sympathise with Mrs. Shaeffer. Last summer this time she had quite a large and jolly 'family' but now I suppose the boys are about all gone but Herbert. Elmer has been married, I hear, and Edward has gone by this time, I guess.

I believe your plan of sharing loneliness is a very good one and I may try it some time, though if they always keep us as busy as they have so far, I may not need any plan as long as I am in the Army. And, I suppose we will be kept busy on the other side.

We were issued our "tin hats" or steel helmets today and I think we now have almost everything we will get on this side.I had a card from my brothers wife last week on which she said my brother had left camp June 30th and had arrived safely in France, so you see he beat me to it.

Many of the boys are having fun with their "tin hats" this evening. They are dropping stones on one another's heads to see how it feels. I was walking down the Squadron street this afternoon with my hat and another guy came down on top of my hat with a broom handle hard enough to break the broomstick, but I believe they would feel quite heavy on one's head after wearing one a whole day.

Another thing beside work and drill at this place is music of which we have a plenty. Many organizations here are organizing bands and we go to sleep in the evening and sometimes get up in the morning with music in the air. This morning I was awakened by a band of the 11th Construction Co. They were marching up and down their Company street and playing some ragtime pieces.

My mother and sister in law in Altoona fixed up a big box of lunch to bring with me and I certainly did enjoy it, too. I have a little of it left which I think I shall finish up before I go to sleep this evening.

They took our Squadron Commander away from us since we came here though our old officer is going to stay with the Squadron. The new officer seems to be a very good man though we have hardly seen enough of him to know just what he is like. I hear we are to have a 'showdown' inspection tomorrow and that means clean up everything we have. All government issue clothing and equipment must be displayed in the prescribed way upon our bunks.

Well you will surely will be tired reading this scribble so I will close. I want to thank you for your good wishes and may I wish you the same.

Very Sincerely,
Roy J Diehl
281st Aero Sqdn Field #2 Garden City L.I. N.Y.
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2 comments:

  1. Carolyn BJuly 27, 2010 at 4:52 PM

    I see Roy also uses being busy as an excuse for not attending to letters promptly. A trait handed down through the generations?

    ReplyDelete
  2. KatherineJuly 29, 2010 at 9:09 PM

    Haha, apparently so. I believe it's been a go-to since the classical age, when letters would begin with apology/flattery/general deference. Why change what obviously works...

    ReplyDelete

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