Thousands of WWII letters from Indiana

[IndianaGreen]

Thousands of WWII letters from Indiana

Charlestown, Ind. - Thousands of letters from southern Indiana military members who served during World War II are now online as part of the Indiana Memory project.

The Charlestown-Clark County Public Library houses the collection of 1,600 letters and other correspondence with Jesse Dorsey, who ran a cement company newsletter during the war and wrote to about 350 servicemen and women from the Sellersburg and Speed areas of Clark County.

The library used a grant and help from Indiana University to scan the letters and cards from the Dorsey collection into a digital format. It took two years to digitize the collect, said library director Tamsie Meurer, but the letters can now be read online at http://www.in.gov/memories.

"This is the largest collection we had on paper," she said. "It was the best way to preserve the originals and not have them handled a lot."

Some of the handwritten letters requested bits of news from home, while others described homesickness or conditions overseas.

"I am OK and still kicking even though I do get a little lonesome and homesick," Marion Pope wrote to Dorsey in December 1944. "But I know I can stand it if the rest can and we seem to be doing OK out here and I am in for anything to get this over and get back for good."

Bob Jonas wrote a letter in November 1943 from a "tropical jungle" in the southwest Pacific.

"There is lots of pretty spots and there is some that is not so pretty," Jonas wrote. "I will say it was a lot prettier before the war as it is pretty well tore up now."

http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=11163612