Belgium May 21, 1945

                  (1)
Dear Mother & all,
       Time again for my weekly letter
to you. I am now permitted to tell
you where I am at. After almost
two years you can know where
I am at. If you have a map of
Belgium handy look for a town
about twenty five miles east of
Brussels. The town nearest me
is Louvain. Another one is
Tierlmont or it is called Tiennen.
While I was in England I was stationed
at the town of Bishop-Stortford. It
was about twenty-five  northeast of
London, and in France I was at
Beauvais. So now you know
just what parts of the countries I
have been around and have seen.

                (2)
    I think I can best explain most
of my experience by beginning from
July 17 when we sailed fro New
York. We came by the North Atlantic
route and in the middle of July it
was plenty cool. We had very
calm sailing until a couple of days
before docking at the Firth of Clyde.
We landed at Gousock Scotland on
August 26 at midnight and debarked
the next day. We went by train
to Stone, England and spent about
two weeks at this camp. Then we
departed to Bishop Stortford England
and this was our home from
Sep Aug. 17, 1943 until Oct. 5, 1944.
Nine days after being on this base
we had our first air raid alert
but soon become use to them

                   (3)
for during our stay there we
had ----- eighty three nights that
we had air raids and some of these
were two and three alerts a
night. Some of my letters may
have sounded rather mixed up
at times, so you know why now.
We had plenty of action right
around our field, and were close
enough to London to see and hear
all the anti aircraft guns. They
really did some banging etc. I was
in London on quite a few of the raids.
D-Day came as a surprise to most
of us, but we had a feeling something
was up because we were putting
in about 15 hours of work a day and
the planes were being plenty shot up.
We had B-26 Maruaders. Our work

                   (4)
was depot repair work. Crash
landings and all the badly damaged
planes that would take more
than a week to repair we received
them. At one time I worked 48 hours
haveing time out for meals only. I
worked at propellers and governors and
I am still at it. Most of our work
was the same thing.
      In August 1944 I was sent to
Kilkeel Ireland for .50 calibre anti
air craft machine gun school. I was
here for ten days of schooling and
sailed from Belfast to Liverpool
and was waiting to dock on Aug 25
when the news came over the
radio that Paris had been liberated.
It was grand news for all of us.
    On Oct 5 we left Bishop Startford

                 (5)
and went to Weymouth England and
sailed across the channel to France.
We landed on the famous Utah beach.
This is where part of the first invasion
of France took place. This was
on Oct. 9. We stayed at an airstrip
at St. Mare Eglise and flew by
plane to Beauvois France on Oct. 13.
Our first view of France from the
air. It looked rather beat up and
rugged at his base. The Jerries destroyed
every building. Everything quiet most
of the time here until Dec. 21 when
paratroopers were reported about fifteen
miles from the field. We were all
alerted during the German breakthrough.
On Marched [sic] 24th I moved to my
present location and here I am
at the present time.

               (6)
    May 7th we received word of the
war being officially over and we
were all very glad of it. This is
most of the highlights of my life
since leaving the good old U.S. I can
tell plenty more about this when
I get home and I don't know when
that will be. You can let the rest
read this letter and I can save a
lot of writing.
       Well I must close for now. Please
write soon.
                                   Love Ralph


The next letter will be posted on May 26th.

Background Information (and comments):

• I have tried to include bits of information and pictures about the places Ralph mentioned. Many entries are from Wikipedia and all the information may not have been completely verified, but it should give the reader some idea of the location. Misspellings are due to my interpretations of Ralph's handwriting.

Leuven (Dutch: [ˈløːvə(n)] ( listen)) or Louvain (French: Louvain, pronounced [luvɛ̃]; German: Löwen) is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in Belgium. It is located about 25 kilometres (16 miles) east of Brussels

Leuven is a city east of Brussels, Belgium, known for its breweries. On a central square is the 15th-century town hall, with its tall spires. The building is decorated with hundreds of statues of local figures, biblical characters and saints. Opposite, the late Gothic St. Peter’s Church houses a “Last Supper” by the Flemish Primitive painter Dieric Bouts. Nearby, Oude Markt is a long square lined with bars and cafes.

Tienen or Thienen (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈtinə(n)]; French: Tirlemont) is a city and municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, Belgium.

Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. It is just west of the M11 motorway on the county boundary with Essex and is the closest sizeable town to London Stansted Airport. Bishop's Stortford is 27 miles (43 km)^[2] north east of Charing Cross in central London and 35 miles (56 km) by rail from Liverpool Street station, the London terminus of the line to Cambridge that runs through the town. Bishop's Stortford had a population of 38,202, decreasing to 37,838 at the 2011 Census.^[1]

Beauvais (French pronunciation: ​[bovɛ]) archaic English: Beawayes, Beeway, Boway, is a city and commune in northern France. It serves as the capital of the Oise département, in the Hauts-de-France region. Beauvais is located approximately 75 kilometres (47 miles) from Paris. The residents of the city are called Beauvaisiens.

The Firth of Clyde is an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean off the southwest coast of Scotland, named for the River Clyde which empties into it. It encloses the largest and deepest coastal waters in the British Isles, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. Within the Firth of Clyde is another major island – the Isle of Bute. Given its strategic location, at the entrance to the middle/upper Clyde, Bute played a vitally important military (naval) role during World War II.

Gourock

Town in Scotland

Gourock is a town falling within the Inverclyde council area and formerly forming a burgh of the county of Renfrew in the West of Scotland. It has in the past functioned as a seaside resort on the East shore of the upper Firth of Clyde.

Stone is a Civil parish and market town in Staffordshire, England, 7 miles (11 km) north of Stafford and 7 miles (11 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent. It was an urban district council and a rural district council before becoming part of the Borough of Stafford in 1974.

Kilkeel (from Irish: Cill Chaoil, meaning "church of the narrow"^[2][3]) is a small town, civil parish and townland (of 554 acres and 6521inh) in County Down, Northern Ireland.

B-26 Marauder
A US Army Air Forces Martin B-26B Marauder "Dee-Feater" (X2-A) of the 596th BS 397th BG 9th AF with D-Day invasion stripes
Role	Medium bomber
National origin	United States
Manufacturer	Glenn L. Martin Company
First flight	25 November 1940
Introduction	1941
Status	Retired
Primary users	United States Army Air Forces Free French Air Force Royal Air Force South African Air Force
Produced	1941–1945
Number built	5,288[1] [Note 1]
Unit cost	$102,659.33/B-26A[2]
Developed into	XB-33 Super Marauder (Unbuilt)

Army Air Forces recruiting poster featuring B-26 Marauders.

The Martin B-26 Marauder was an American World War II twin-engined medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company in Middle River, Maryland (just east of Baltimore) from 1941 to 1945. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe.

After entering service with the United States Army aviation units, the aircraft received the reputation of a "Widowmaker" due to the early models' high accident rate during takeoffs and landings. The Marauder had to be flown at exact airspeeds, particularly on final runway approach and when one engine was out. The 150 mph (241 km/h) speed on short final runway approach was intimidating to pilots who were used to much slower speeds, and whenever they slowed down to speeds below what the manual stated, the aircraft would stall and crash.^[3]

The B-26 became a safer aircraft once crews were re-trained, and after aerodynamics modifications (an increase of wingspan and wing angle-of-incidence to give better takeoff performance, and a larger vertical stabilizer and rudder).^[4] After aerodynamic and design changes, the aircraft distinguished itself as "the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front" according to a United States Army Air Forces dispatch from 1946.^{[citation needed]} The Marauder ended World War II with the lowest loss rate of any USAAF bomber.^[5]

A total of 5,288 were produced between February 1941 and March 1945; 522 of these were flown by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force. By the time the United States Air Force was created as an independent military service separate from the United States Army in 1947, all Martin B-26s had been retired from U.S. service.

The M2 Machine Gun or Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun is a heavy machine gun designed toward the end of World War I by John Browning.