What Pen Would My Soldier Use?

[EdBurke]

War letters written by different ranks and by different assignments are usually written with different instruments. Navy enlisted often had fountain pens of some type as the small collection of letters home to Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan from WWI and WWII seem to confirm. The army letters home from camp are often written in ink, but letters from overseas are usually written in pencil. Some combat officers must have kept pen and in some part of their kit since there are letters home in ink from several officers. A neighbor of mine who enlisted at age 37, after trying to enlist twice, he was a Bank Vice President and took his pipe, his tobacco pouch and a BCHR Waterman 58. He took ink and ink tablets, but fighting in the Pacific he found that with a little coffee he could dissolve some bits of the Japanese blocks of brush and fill his pen with it. He found that sake worked a little better than coffee, but a combination was the best. Thick oily coffee with a splash of sake was the best at dissolving the crushed pieces of the ink block. Many soldiers did use pencils, but some of the college men brought their pens with them and somehow got ink. Remember something along the lines of 40+% of white and black soldiers from the South were illiterate to the point that they could not sign their name according to the 1944 results of the Army study. One man who came to my class and spoke was a U of Wisconsin Madison Sophomore chemistry student when the Second War began. He took a diary and a Parker Duofold with him to Pensacola and then to the Pacific. He was a radio repairman and was on Iwo Jima late on day two where he and his 15 man team had to kick bodies aside in order to set up near the edge of the airfield and then they were overrun at dawn. They only had side arms and when a company of marines arrived and attacked and managed.to drive the Japanese back, then they moved back onto the edge of the airstrip to set back up their tents and radio lab. He wrote about this with his fountain pen, he had a metal can with paper and a wrapped up bottle of ink. Iwo Jima was his introduction to the war and he stayed there until the invasion of Okinawa and moved on. He ran out of ink there and didn't get anymore until he reached Japan for occupation. So he used a pencil.There is a longer fountain pen story connected with man, but this post is about wartime.

[rwilsonedn]

EdBurke:

Great story! Thanks.

ron

[Shaughn]

That's on my list for the next time I make a big Amazon order. My granddad still sings Mauldin's praises (understandable, considering the cartoons of his I've seen), and I really want to learn more about the man.

 

May I recommend reading Todd DePastino's biography of Mauldin too? On the front cover Bill (looking awfully young) is depicted with a writing instrument.

[pen lady]

My Dad was an engine fitter in the RAF during the war, most of his service was in North Africa and Italy. He died in 1999 and after Mum died in 2006 I found masses of letters he'd written to her in 1944 and 45. In one of them, he mentions that his airfield in Libya was caught in an air raid, he'd lent his Vacumatic to a tent-mate and the pen was damaged. No details, but the letters continued until his demobilization at Christmas 1945 so he must have fixed it somehow. I never saw him write with a fountain pen and as I read the letters, I looked skywards and yelled "where's the pen Dad????" Few of Mum's letters to him survived, but I know she had a Conway Stewart Dinkie, I remember seeing it in her writing desk when I was young. Before she died, I asked her what became of it, "Oh, I lost it on the beach one day".

 

My Dad loved anything that was complicated and it was so typical of him to love his Vac.

[sumgaikid]

My grandfather was a driver for General Omar Bradley. I have a glass ink well and pen rest that belonged to the General. Not sure if it adds anything to the discussion but there it is if it does provide any clues.

 

 

Can't say for certain,but Gen. Bradley may have been a distant cousin

as that was my mother's maiden name.

 

 

John

[sumgaikid]

I would also add my vote for a pencil as most soldiers or NCO's wouldn't be

normally carrying a pen(accessibility and availability of ink while on the front

would be a problem). Still,if you want to explore the pen angle,you might con-

sider some of the third-tier,lesser known pen brands or the possibility of a

Canadian pen like the Parker Televisor or a British pen like Kingswood,Relief

(early English version of an Esterbrook),Burnham,Onoto,Chatsworth,Summit,

Wyvern,National Security,Mentmore,Golden Guinea........

 

One other thought--you could have your poor soldier win a higher-tiered pen

in a poker or dice game.............

 

 

John

Edited October 9, 2013 by sumgaikid

[afern401]

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/1942-WWII-WAR-PARKER-FOUNTAIN-PEN-SOLDIER-ACTIVE-SERVICE-VACUMATIC-CANADA-AD-/00/s/MTYwMFgxMzA1/$(KGrHqZHJCIE9EmD1OefBPdFzu83kQ~~60_57.JPG

 

I came across this on ebay today. Not sure if it was a successful advertising campaign, but it is certainly interesting.

[JotterAddict62]

Here are two Parker 51 pencils with the wartime clips.

[georges zaslavsky]

War letters written by different ranks and by different assignments are usually written with different instruments. Navy enlisted often had fountain pens of some type as the small collection of letters home to Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan from WWI and WWII seem to confirm. The army letters home from camp are often written in ink, but letters from overseas are usually written in pencil. Some combat officers must have kept pen and in some part of their kit since there are letters home in ink from several officers. A neighbor of mine who enlisted at age 37, after trying to enlist twice, he was a Bank Vice President and took his pipe, his tobacco pouch and a BCHR Waterman 58. He took ink and ink tablets, but fighting in the Pacific he found that with a little coffee he could dissolve some bits of the Japanese blocks of brush and fill his pen with it. He found that sake worked a little better than coffee, but a combination was the best. Thick oily coffee with a splash of sake was the best at dissolving the crushed pieces of the ink block. Many soldiers did use pencils, but some of the college men brought their pens with them and somehow got ink. Remember something along the lines of 40+% of white and black soldiers from the South were illiterate to the point that they could not sign their name according to the 1944 results of the Army study. One man who came to my class and spoke was a U of Wisconsin Madison Sophomore chemistry student when the Second War began. He took a diary and a Parker Duofold with him to Pensacola and then to the Pacific. He was a radio repairman and was on Iwo Jima late on day two where he and his 15 man team had to kick bodies aside in order to set up near the edge of the airfield and then they were overrun at dawn. They only had side arms and when a company of marines arrived and attacked and managed.to drive the Japanese back, then they moved back onto the edge of the airstrip to set back up their tents and radio lab. He wrote about this with his fountain pen, he had a metal can with paper and a wrapped up bottle of ink. Iwo Jima was his introduction to the war and he stayed there until the invasion of Okinawa and moved on. He ran out of ink there and didn't get anymore until he reached Japan for occupation. So he used a pencil.There is a longer fountain pen story connected with man, but this post is about wartime.

great story thanks for sharing

[balson]

my grandfather served as a scout in ww2. i don't personally know what he carried but i did inherit a military clip sheaffer balance in with a bunch of other pens that my dad found in a drawer of their old house. there is a possibility it was his wifes though.

[Offret]

Pencils were more common among the infantry soldiers. Pencils were also standard for air brigades for obvious reasons.

[GTOZack]

Pencils were more common among the infantry soldiers. Pencils were also standard for air brigades for obvious reasons.

 

 

that may be true my grandfathers brother flew in a B24 Liberator 'ole Tomato' he flew on many raids on latter stages of occupation of Philippines and onward to Okinawa and participated incendiary bombings on mainland japan.

he always wrote letters to my family back then, talking about things like ' when I come home Id like to help mama cook lamb with mint jelly and potatoes, hey and tell evie (his hs sweetie) to come over". These letters was a hope to hold onto , a distraction from the grisly reality back then. he used a Parker dufold on the ground, ironically his other two crew shared the pen but were a honest bunch and they made sure the pen stayed at my grandfathers brother bunk chest. The crew, especially radioman/gunner and bombardier carried about 3 pencils when they went up in the air.

Remember that Philippines is a tropical and very humid. sudden changes in temperature, freezing temperature at 30,000 feet to very saturated humid tropical heat on ground,. celluloid pens tend to bloat/break for some reason.

[sandy101]

Letters written by my grandfather (WW2 Navy) and Great Grandfather (WW1 infantry) are all in pencil - they wrote letters on military stationary which instructed soldiers to write in pencil only - much of this correspondence went through censors I've also seen a letter from an officer praising my great grandfather's bravery (from an officer) which was also written in pencil.

 

Here's a link to a history of biros. These "new fangled" pens were first produced in England for the RAF, so they could use them at high altitudes. They didn't go on sale to the general public until 1945, so it seems unlikely that a biro would be used. http://home.comcast.net/~aero51/html/other/biro.htm

 

 

If your soldier came through the UK, then perhaps he would have bought a pen in London whilst on leave, or it could be a gift from the family he met in England, or even a gift from a grandparent/father who fought in Europe in 1916-1918.

Edited October 29, 2013 by sandy101

[scrivelry]

Many men in fighting in Europe mobilized through Camp Shanks, about 15 miles north of NYC. I have no idea how often anyone got down there, but if he picked up a pen before he left, could plausibly have been anything cheap lying around NYC. Does anyone know if there was some pen that was common in NYC even if less so elsewhere?

 

T

[GTOZack]

Some censors during the war preferred that soldiers and officers to write in pencil. However they used microfilm to take pictures of each letter. Compacted Into I think 35mm flim. Individual shots. They ship those reels over in the states. And they blow it up. Start sorting them out. In some rare cases pencil marks are very faint. My grandfather knew this. He used darkest ink he could get his hands on. Which was Some black ink he traded a few cigarettes for. All this saved so much space and fuel shipping back and forth.

Edited December 13, 2013 by GTOZack

[Unky]

I have two letters written by my grandfather during the second Great War, both of which were written in ink. He was US army, sergeant and munitions specialist. I know he was in Germany, where exactly I do not know. My grandfather, like many soldiers, did not talk about the war.

[sadiemagic]

My father was a private in the mechanized cavalry and he went to the European theatre with a small brown striated Sheaffer Balance that my mother gave him. While my mother destroyed his letters after she caught me rummaging in an old chest where they were, she did save the cards and the envelopes the letters were sent in. I have the pen and use it occasionally.

 

All are written in fountain pen ink, none in pencil. So somehow he managed to find ink in Europe. Wish he were here today so I could ask him...

[Aquinata]

Thanks to all for this fascinating thread!

[hbdk]

I like the idea of a pen from a German officer, but obtaining such an item in 1943 would indeed be a job well done - at least if we have here a story set in Europe...?

 

I don't know how easy it would have been to obtain ink for a US trooper - here in Denmark ink was more or less unavailable during WWII, it is said that home made ink was sometimes made from chicory "coffee" which was boiled for an long time to obtain the right colour.

[Shaughn]

It's possible: Sicily was invaded in July 1943, mainland Italy in September.