December 25, 1942 found the black soldiers and the white officers of the 93rd Engineers deep in Yukon. In our book, We Fought the Road, we shared two memories from that day. For December 25, 2019 my Christmas present to all of you is to share those memories here.
Another Holiday Story from Lt. Timberlake
For an interviewer many years later, Anthony Mouton, a young soldier in Company A remembered beef hash for Christmas dinner—and loneliness. Mouton and another soldier, John Lockott, spent the day in their tent listening to one cracked record, played over and over. Serenade In Blue by Paul Whiteman and Helen Forrest reminded them of home.
The evening before, on December 24, young white Lt. Turner Timberlake penned a letter to “Dearest Mother and Folks.”
Tonight, he wrote, is Christmas Eve. Tonight is the night that years ago I waited eleven months and 23 days for. Tonight is the night that sort of ties a rope around the families of America so we can say that we are bonded together. Best of all, tonight is the night that mother and dad will do their darnndest to make those kids dash down the steps at six in the morning with joy and glee that somehow just bespeaks the nature of our family.
I wish I could be home, folks, but tonight I’ll just sit here and have a Christmas smoke dream, dreaming of those times of joy that each year would, without fail, drown our home in a mist of greeting and good cheer for all. Golly and how Pop used to just lie in bed waiting for those rascals to get up and with joy he would be pulled from his covers and carried downstairs just like he was a kid of old.
But tonight somehow, folks, Christmas is different. All the fellows are gathered around talking of the times they had and the wonderful things they received, but tonight we are all gathered here just waiting for either a chance to make America have more seasons of joy or a chance to say, “Well, we tried.”
But really, Folks, we aren’t down hearted. We are just thinking of you all back home. And what more in this world could a man want than the right to think of home and what his home meant to him. It’s wonderful, Folks.
…I hope and pray with all my heart that this Christmas makes you proud and gives you the right to say, “Well our boys are doing their part.”
Chris and I think that on that long-ago December night, Lt. Timberlake spoke, not only for himself, but for all the young men, white and black, who spent that Christmas in lonely tents in Yukon.
What a great post! Yes, the young Lt. truly spoke for all those young men who were remembering their loved ones and stoking the fires of past Christmas memories.