"Every looked forward to mail call. A destroyer or fuel tanker usually brought our mail. When mail arrived, it went to the Post Office where it was sorted by division. When ready, the boatswain piped mail call and it was announced over the public address system. The division police petty officer went and received the mail for his division then took it back to the division’s living quarters where he distributed it to the men. Some times it could be weeks between receiving mail. Outgoing mail usually went to a tanker or you waited until you got to a port. All outgoing mail had to be censored by a group of officers. Things you couldn’t mention names of ships, names of places or locations of any kind, names of officers and military leaders. You couldn’t talk about battle, going into a war zone or coming home even in general terms. You could discuss family and doing stuff with your buddies. Sometimes you wouldn’t understand why stuff was cut out. You placed your mail in the mailbox unsealed so it could be censored. Men worked out secret codes with their loved ones."
- Paul A. Wieser
"March 10 – Still in Majuro for how long no one knows – Mail slow (none since February 11). Swinging to and fro with the wind. One day is much like the others.
March 14 – Received some mail – the daily routine, play deck tennis (a game the officers played with a volleyball net and disks), a little exercise. Movie, sleep, etc."
- Edward J. Gillespie, an officer. Officers were allowed to keep journals, but no one was supposed to keep a personal diary for security reasons.
"When the NORTH CAROLINA was still in Brooklyn Navy Yard, I had the duty one night and having nothing special to do I roamed around the ship. A notice on the bulletin board caught my eye. It was an offer from a group of women called ‘The Women of the Forests of America’ or something like that. It was an offer for men who had lost their parents (I had lost mine.). They would enjoy sending little gifts to us sailors. I did not have anything else to do then, so I sent my name into their office. Well, I found out later that they had sent my letter to all of their chapters in the U.S. Nothing happened right away and we were ordered out to the Pacific. I sort of forgot about it as time rolled on, but one day when we were deep in the South Pacific mail call was sounded over the loud speakers. I received a personal call from the mail clerk to come back and pick up my mail. An unusual invitation as our division mail clerk would normally pick up the mail and issue it to us himself. Anyway, when I arrived at the ship’s post office the mail clerk was angry. He said, ‘Ashe, here is your mail, THREE bags full! I had to lug more mail for you back to the ship than for everyone else onboard.’ In spite of his anger, I was delighted and somehow hauled the three bags back to the Supply Office (I was a storekeeper). It all came from the ‘Women of the Forests of America.’ Every bundle of letters, every package, big or small, was from them for me. What a great day! Obviously, I couldn’t handle them all. I gave bundles of mail to the single sailors and packages to the married ones. A lot of laughs erupted in opening packages when wool scarves and wool socks were found. It was 100 degrees in the shade in the South Pacific. There were other good things like stationary, pens, pencils, candies, cookies, shaving supplies, soaps, etc. A lot of letters came from daughters of the women’s club. This started a lot of correspondence and months of great letter writing existed after that. Some even met each other later."
- Walter Ashe
"When mail came the call was probably the favorite of any sailor aboard any ship in the United States Navy during World War II or any other war. When you heard the call you also heard a roar go up on the ship and everyone would run to his division and the mail call officer would run down and get the mail. Sometimes this would go on for hours, as they would get a stack here and there and then start calling out everybody’s names. I don’t think there was anything that beat this! I especially remember Christmas of 1944, we started getting mail and some packages and at this particular time I got two boxes from my mom, one was full of cookies. I’m not sure of the other one was or not. Everybody always shared their packages with each other, but one of my boxes that the cookies came in was so burnt that we couldn’t even eat the cookies. The other box was burnt some on the outside but we could still eat what was inside. We figured that one of the ships carrying the mail was torpedoed and they managed to save some of the things on the ship."
- Bob Palomaris
"Letters from home and also packages were always a happy occasion for us. I think those were what kept us going. Reading about what was going on back in the states and about our families was a big lift to our morale. Hearing from your girlfriend or wife was the most important. We also wrote a lot of letter home and to friends. Sometimes we would not get mail for a month or more and this would build up the anticipation until we got our mail. I think the two most important calls were ‘chow’ and ‘mail’ calls. Some received new of death in the family or friends and some of us received ‘Dear John’ letters. These always hurt the most."
- James Masie
"During the war everything was censored and whatever you wrote home to your friend or wife or your girlfriend, before it left the ship it would be censored. So we managed to work some kind of pattern out where you would say, ‘how are you darling, I miss you today.’ That would mean we were either going out of Peal Harbor or coming into New Caledonia. Then we would have another message like way, ‘well, how’s my father and the family, are they all okay/’ That would mean that we were just in a battle or were underway for another island and so forth. All different messages like that."
- Herbert Sisco
"Our mail was really censored. My folks received lots of letters with holes in them where the censor removed something. I often thought the censor must have gotten a kick out of the love letters I wrote to my girl friend."
- William R. Taylor
"We were not supposed to tell anyone where we had been or where we were going. Thus, there was censorship. The junior officers censored the enlisted men’s mail and the more senior officers censored the officers’ mail. It was done in the wardroom (officer’s dining room) and we were equipped with razor blades and stamps (post marks for the envelope stating that the piece of mail had been censored). The mail was put in piles on the tables. About a dozen officers censored the mail of about 3000 men. Obviously, every letter did not get read. Most of us did not read letters of people we knew. I remember that one time I cut out so much of a letter to a ‘loved one’ that I wrote a note about what kind of information I had cut out. Censors didn’t discuss what they read."
- Henry E. Little
