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President D. B. Tresidder Stanford University California
Dear Sir:
Your greeting to us grads of long standing finds two of us here in the land down under at this post on a coconut plantation between the jungle and the deep blue sea in Northern Papua.
Lt. Colonel G.T. Wright, class of [1927?], is chief of the Transportation Corps Section at the headquarters, and this WACO is having a most interesting job contributing to the history of this war in the SW PA. My main work is historian of this headquarters and all New Guinea [Bares?] as we roll up the [rear?] in this last long act in the Pacific Theater. Arriving in Australia with the first WAC Detachment in the SW PA, I was down on the mainland five weeks before coming up to New Guinea last June 1944.
Our WAC camp - "The [Wackery?]" as our Australian friends called it - down over the [Hump?] was a good location, as camps go; and my work there, also a phase of security, was exceedingly interesting. We worked long hours,
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[out?] had plenty of time for recreation, because we got [started?] at 0630 each [morning?] - after mess. Last November I was transferred to GH[O?] to go to the C.I. with the first echelon of WACs in December; but orders were changed at the last minute when I was ready to go north - and here I am. This camp site on the Pacific beach compensates for the keen disappointment of last December. And [I am?] seeing as much of this island as I can, for I've always liked "exploring." Some of these jungle trips are exciting - to say the least, especially when crossing swift rivers - over swinging bridges no wider than this page and with a single wire rope either side to balance one on such precarious footing.
Thus you have a brief cross section of my overseas experiences of the past thirteen or fourteen months.
My work will take me on a short trip to several bases north of here to become acquainted with the S-2 Historians whose work comes here to me to be compiled into the one history each month.
As far as post-war education is concerned, I do not expect to return (after so many years); but feel that academic work - and recreation - should be geared to the mature adult experience of combat weary men rather than to the pre-war callow youth of little or no experience. My work as a college instructor gave me that idea before I left teaching in 1933 to review motion pictures. It seems that college courses were too apt to cater to those who wanted to gain
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a college degree with as little effort as possible. Judged by standards of the post-war period from the 1920's on, later students have had much more "spoon-feeding" than we had, and in too many cases do not seem to know how think for themselves. That group seems to be too much in the majority - at least that was the case back east. Perhaps these war years have made a difference, for the better.
This letter began as a few lines of greeting, but seems to have outgrown the idea.
Though I have lost touch with Stanford since "Daddy" MacDowell retired, I often think of my happy year there studying for my M.A. and enjoying all that Stanford had to offer, including the Thursday evenings at Dr. Jordan's home.
It has been a real pleasure to chat with you - and I hope this may give you some idea of our life and work out here so far from civilization. As yet I have met no other Stanford grads, but there are several of us at this post from U.C. (which I left for my fifth year at Stanford).
Sincerely, Jean Pauline Smith 1st Lt. WAC G-2, NUGSEC, Historian
