Regensburg, Germany

September 11, 1945

Dear Mom,

My eye is coming along nicely. It is still very red but the burning soreness is gone. This afternoon the doctor said they would discontinue the penicillin shots. For this I am most thankful. They were beginning to have a most unpleasant sting. I've had so many holes put in me that I feel I should be bleeding from all sides. I mean that literally, for they've punched me all over - both arms and my seat. Each nurse has her own idea of where they go best. I don't like any of them.

Worst of all was getting waked up at 5:30 or 6:00 a.M. to get shot and take my pills. Fortunately, they skipped the one a.m. period.

I always think of Lt. Coghill when I visited him in the hospital last fall. "Don't ever let your bare arm hang out" he said "for everyone who passes by will poke a needle in it." It's not quite that bad but I'm glad I don't get any more even though they apparently do the trick.

According to our visitors the hegira to the U.S. is in full swing. Apparently a sizeable batch is being shipped out of Corps to other units going back and in a few weeks Corps itself will be gone - dissipated out to other units. I just hope it lasts until I can get to school. I don't want to switch units for that brief time.

Oddly enough the hospital does not object to my reading and I have been doing quite a bit, mostly the little pocket books the Army publishes. I mention this because of one book which interested me very much. Its title is "Hotel Splendide" and it is by Ludwig Bemelmans. It is interesting for not being merely entertaining (which it is) but because it has a chapter on Regensburg from where the author comes. I came on this unwittingly and was pleased to read his brief account of the town. He mentions the restaurant of the Hotel Maximilian as being the best in Regensburg. The restaurant, of course, is a thing of the past, but the hotel, I am sure, is the now hyphenated Park-Maximilian at which I stay. It still has an air of grandiose ness, somewhat faded to be sure. I must look at it more carefully when I get back.

The stone bridge across the Danube I don't place but it is now defunct in any event in company with other bridges across that stream except where the American Army has flung across a military passageway.

Love,

Bob