For a child, packages were more exciting than letters, and my father's WWII surprise packages always contained something special for my brother and me. As an adult, I have come to realize that what he sent was not your usual WWII combat souvenirs. Throughout the war, he made a point of purchasing items from local villagers whenever possible, sometimes paying them in WWII "military" issued money, while at other times trading with them. On the front lines of combat, money is not always what people want or need. He also collected some battlefield souvenirs, taking only what he knew was legal.
In his book, Chappie World War II Diary of a Combat Chaplain, on 17 December 1942 my dad wrote about his Moroccan shopping experiences in North Africa. His first package, shipped via Army mail, arrived just after Christmas. It contained all sorts of wonderful things that he had bought in Morocco. Among the beautiful hand-made leather items and carefully wrapped china pieces, he had tucked numerous packages of gum and rolls of Lifesavers candy. With sugar rationed In the US during WWII and most of the candy being sent overseas to our troops, that candy and gum made us the most popular kids in the neighborhood.
My mother, however, was more delighted with the beautiful, china coffee-sets (three different ones) that had miraculously made the trip undamaged. My dad loved coffee, so those beautiful French-made sets caught his eye.
For me he had included two china "egg cups," something I had never seen. Eating an egg out of them became my favorite "grown-up" thing to do. I am sorry to say that only one of the set survived my childhood.
But even this package, with all its wonderful surprises, didn't make up for not having my dad with us for that first Christmas. From the news, we knew that the Allies had invaded North Africa and successfully captured Casablanca. What we didn't know at the time was that the fighting had just begun and that it was going to be a long time before we would be sharing a Christmas with him.
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