Larry A. Smail's Blog

The following letter was printed by the Schenley Distilleries magazine in August 1945. The magazine was called REMARKS OF MERITS. My dad, Allen

Allen K. Smail on the right.

K. Smail, wrote to the company he worked for locally just prior to the war and after the war was over. The Joseph Finch branch was located here at Schenley, Pennsylvania in southern Armstrong County until the early 1980 era. The printed letter was edited for space. Any wording in parenthesis are my extra notes. Dad would have been 94 on June 4, 2017.

Allen K. Smail (I have this uniform.)

Allen Smail, Finch writes: “I really enjoy getting REMARKS OF MERIT. It sort of brightens up these weary days to be able to read about the happenings around there and also to find out what your old buddies are doing. It makes you feel good to know that you are being remembered by the folks back home and you strive all the harder to get your job finished so you can get back to those folks and share in the things you are fighting to preserve… now that it is over over here, we are allowed to tell of our experiences and places where we have been.

In England I was about thirty miles from London at a 9th Air Force Airbase. Being so close to London we were subject to a lot of air raids. Later when the Buzz- Bombs  started coming we were right in “Buzz-Bomb Alley.” We were lucky as none landed on our field but they did drop all around us. From England I flew over to France by C-17 and landed near Paris but moved to Chartres. (D-day 13)I didn’t stay there long, but moved on to a little town in Belgium named Jodigne. I met up with the Buzz-Bombs again. We had between three and four million gallons of gasoline and oil there and with those bombs dropping around I considered it a good place to stay away from. (Buzz-bombs in World War Two were explosive like missiles that would be fueled up and sent towards a target by the Germans. They made a buzzing noise until the fuel was spent. Silence would then tell anyone hearing them that the bomb was now free-falling. My dad told me how frightful it was, especially, once the buzzing stopped.)

We were almost caught in the Bulge last December, however the Germans were stopped in time. (My dad told me he of hearing the artillery, etc.  approximately forty miles away.) I’m now in Frankfurt in Germany working with the Ordnance as a guard. (I have his MP (Military Police) arm band here at home.) I suppose you have heard of the K-9 Corps in the Army. Well, I’m in something similar to that only I’m hooked up with dogs that are used for guards. They are trained to attack and bite any intruder who might wander on your post. It’s just too bad for anyone who doesn’t stop when you halt them.” (My father’s dog was named Wolf.)                                                                                                      

Dad and Wolf. He loved this dog!