The History

The USS Waller, a Fletcher-class destroyer, was launched from the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Kearny, New Jersey on August 15, 1942 and departed New York on November 31 for service in the South Pacific. [1]

Radioman 1^st Class Morris D. Anthony reported onboard the USS Waller on September 17, 1943. [2]  The veteran sailor, having served on escort duties on the battleship USS New York and on Destroyer Squadron 22 operations on Waller’s sister ships was a good match for the destroyer which had quickly become a combat veteran.  Through the end of 1943 and into 1944, the USS Waller was taking part in operations throughout the Solomon Islands.  During this period, the USS Waller was clashing with Japanese destroyers pressed into service as transports and supply ships.  This use of destroyers to resupply garrisons in the Solomon Islands was known as the “Tokyo Express.” [3]

Throughout the rest of the USS Waller’s participation in the Solomon Campaign, she shelled multiple enemy positions.  The USS Waller had turned to make a port call at Pearl Harbor in early 1944, to give her crew much needed rest and the opportunity to receive mail.

The Letter

My Dearest,

We are just entering port and I’m anticipating several letters from you.  Now don’t dare disappoint me.  I know you wouldn’t but the P.O. Department might.  Anyway, I feel quite sure I’ll have mail from you.  It’s the most important thing in my life out here.

It’s a very nice day Dearest and I love you very much.  Of course that’s not just ‘cause it’s a mid day.  I’ll write some more on this letter after I hear from you so it will bring us up to date as nearly as possible.

We’ve had a pleasant and uneventful cruise.  I hope to have many more of them but the most pleasant one will be the one that heads us back toward home and you.  I hope that it may be soon but as yet I can see no possibility of it.

It’s just about [illegible] time and time to go off watch.  I’ll write more this afternoon or this evening.  Bye for now Precious.

Love
Morris

Darling –

I received about six letters from you today and your package containing the [illegible] candy and the books.  Your letters were especially sweet today Dearest.  I love you so very very much.  I know almost exactly how you feel or as nearly so as a man is capable of understanding the woman he loves.

You know how I’m looking forward to seeing you again and how I’m longing for the end of the war so we can be together for “keeps.”  Our minds seem to be functioning pretty closely together on anything pertaining to the two of us.

I have a rather helpless feeling that time is slipping by and we’re not getting much done.  I feel a sense of personal loss because so much of my life is being spent away from you.  Also that we’re growing older with no children.  A subject most Dear to you I know.  I do believe our lives will be much richer in the future because of the lonely times we have had and for the things we have written each other and our thoughts of one another.  You are the most essential part of me and even while we’re apart you have always given me the things I most need when I need them.  You send your love and I am happy because I am loved by you.  I look for understanding and you give me that also.  When I see things that aren’t good I think of you and my faith and peace of mind are restored to me.  No I don’t think that being separated as we are makes our marriage any less the beautiful thing it was while we were together.  And we were good friends before we were sweethearts and sweethearts before we were husband and wife.  We have been most fortunate that as we moved from one relationship to the other that we didn’t lose the old relationship but added the new also.

It all adds up my Sweet to the fact that you are the most Precious thing in my life.  My main purpose in life is to make you happy and in doing that I shall also achieve my own happiness.

Sweetheart I could go on like this but your mind is on the subject too and I know you also have thought of us in somewhat the same way.  Dearest I would like so much to hold you in my arms and talk for hours, or just talk or just hold you in my arms.  Don’t you think it would be a good idea?

I’m rather afraid I overestimated just how much I had to say but maybe not.  I hope you don’t mind if I just speak about anything that comes in my mind, but I warn you that the conversation will be mostly of you.  You’re the subject nearest and Dearest to my heart.

I haven’t been doing much post war planning yet but I expect to get around to it some of these days soon!  I’ve been doing lots of post war dreaming though.  I wish I should be a little more practical but I don’t want to be.  I would much rather make love.

Darling It won’t be too long before I will be ready to go off watch so I must draw to a close.  Goodnight Sweetheart.

Your Own
Morris

SOURCES:

1. Dictionary of American Fighting Ships Online. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/w/waller.html
2. Ancestry.com. U.S. World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011.

Original data: Muster Rolls of U.S. Navy Ships, Stations, and Other Naval Activities, 01/01/1939-01/01/1949; A-1 Entry 135, 10230 rolls, ARC ID: 594996. Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Record Group Number 24. National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

3. Dictionary of American Fighting Ships Online. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/w/waller.html