Dear Willard and Grace;

Well, if you look at a map of France, you will find this place on the channel coast not far from Le Havre. It is here that we have come to be “processed” for our furloughs to England. By that I mean, getting clean clothes, money changed, showers and getting all that stuff out of the way so that we won’t have to do it once we set foot in England. The only hitch to it is that we have to stay here from 1 to 3 days waiting for shipping space.

That I won’t mind as long as the weather stays like it is now — beautiful. This afternoon I and some other fellows went down to the beach for swimming and sun bathing. I’ll really get brown if I stay here long.

Anyway, after I get in England, (the furlough starts after arrival) I intend to go to Wales to spend a few days looking over the scenery there.

I suppose you wonder what made me decide at last to take the furlough to England. Well it’s the travel time. I could have taken it to southern France with travel time on to England, but nowhere else with travel time. Many of the fellows who went to southern France claimed that they didn’t have such a good time whereas mostly everyone did have an enjoyable visit to England. Consequently, since I couldn’t take a furlough to any other place on the continent with travel time, I just picked England.

Guess that will be all for now. More dope about the trip later.

Russell

Etretat, France