Arnold's Story: March 23, 1944

Ralph Winger wrote from Pasadena with news about classmates and his Cal Tech commencement. We learn that Arnie recently had the mumps.

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Arnold's Story: March 12, 1944

On leave from Army Air Forces training in Connecticut, Arnie visited New York City to see the sights and attend church services. I am not sure which church he would have gone to, as the only church near Rock Center is St. Patrick's Cathedral, and it seems unlikely he would attend a Catholic mass.

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Arnold's Story: March 2, 1944

Arnie must be in the Winchester Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut started in 1918 as a tuberculosis center, now the West Haven Veterans Administration Medical Center. (This hospital was established and named for William Wirt Winchester, who died of tuberculosis, by his wife Sarah Lockwood Pardee, who also acquired and built the Winchester Mystery House, cited earlier in this blog.) He may have had the mumps at this time.

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Arnold's Story: February 12, 1944

February 12, 1944, letter from a Cal Tech pal named "Dix" to Arnie. Parris Island, South Carolina, is a Marine Corps recruit training center. An important ship building company during World War II, Kaiser Shipyards were a cluster of shipyards on the U.S. west coast, mostly around Richmond, California.

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Arnold's Story: February 6, 1944

February 6, 1944, letter from Arnie Nevis to his family in Glendale. Arnie is in Seymour Johnson Field (now an air force base), North Carolina, having recovered from a recent illness in the hospital, possibly the mumps.

Cadet Services No. 4 "Men Unashamed to Pray" February 6, 1944, cover

Arnold Hastings Nevis

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Arnold's Story: January 27, 1944

 January 27, 1944, letter from Dolly Nevis to her brother Arnie:

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Arnold's Story: January 23, 1944

A January 23, 1994, letter from Chuck Cutler to Arnie:

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Arnold's Story: November 5, 1943

This is Arnie's first surviving letter to his parents when he was in the army. He write from Camp Kohler, a former migrant farm worker camp, a temporary detention center for interned Japanese Americans in 1942, and by 1943, an Army Signal Corps camp site. Today it is a subdivision of Sacramento.

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Arnold's story: September 25, 1943

 A letter from Charles "Chuck" Cutler in September 1943:

I suspect that the magic Mystery House is the Winchester Mystery House in San José, California. Wendell Willkie's book One World was published in 1943. 

next post  November 5, 1943

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Arnold's story: July 1943

The previous posts were all about my Uncle Leonard and his experiences in World War II. Today I start posting about my father, Arnold Hasting Nevis. Leonard is the older of the two brothers, and there were two younger sisters as well. My dad went by Arnie his whole life, except that his parents nearly always called him Arnold, rarely Arn. He was born in 1921, so he was twenty when the war started for the United States. Like his brother, he was keen to sign up and defend his country and to see battle against the enemy. As his son, I was truly surprised at his youthful fervor to serve in the military since later in life he seemed rather embarrassed by it and rarely spoke of his time in the Army. I learned of his eagerness to sign up only from my mother. 

Arnie graduated from Herbert Hoover High School and was attending California Institute of Technology at the beginning of the war. His parents convinced him to finish college before enrolling in the Army. But he first had to clear up an attendance problem with his physical education class.

He enrolled in Officer Training for the U.S. Army in July 1943. The City of Glendale honored his enlistment:  

The earliest letters to the family have not turned up; the first is from November 1943. But a letter from Charles "Chuck" Cutler dates from July 20, 1943:

undated photo of Arnie Nevis with unidentified friends, 
probably from the late 1930s or early 1940s

next post September 25, 1943

previous post January 1975

first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943

Leonard's Story: Epilogue – January 1975

If you want to read from the first letter, click here.

Leonard, Dolly, Laura, and Arnold during World War II

Arnold, Bill and Leonard Nevis, World War II

Dolly, Bill, Leonard, Laura, Hazel, and Arnold in the front yard of 501 East Mountain Street, Glendale

++++++++++++++++++

Arnold writes an addendum in January 1975:

     As I recall, Leonard di[d] come home by December, 1945 -- on a
hospital ship to Letterman Hospital in San Francisco.  He was very
sick (below 130 pounds -- some fifty pounds lighter than his usual
weight).  A less sick Major and friend said to my parents that
apparently the doctors and other patients were afraid Len might now
make it during those weeks they steamed across the Pacific -- but
he did!  (HOME ALIVE IN '45) -- and wonders of wonders!  He was well
enough to get a 5-day pass from the Hospital in San Francisco to
be with the family for Christmas, and I got a 5-day pass at Salt
Lake City Air Base (I was on my way to Japan and Korea), so I too
got to see him and be with the family for Christmas!  Len was dis-
charged from the hospital and out of active duty a few months later,
and I returned from Korea late in August, 1946  The war was over
for both of us!

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