Posted on 01/08/2022 12:32:12 PM PST by Kartographer
A letter penned by a young Army sergeant in Germany to his mother in Woburn was lost in the mail for 76 years until finally being delivered last month.
On Dec. 6, 1945, 22-year-old Sgt. John Gonsalves wrote to his mother, sending his well wishes and hopes of returning home soon.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston25news.com ...
Sweet
Now that’s what I call snail mail 🤪
What was her reaction?
If the USPS didn’t have a monopoly on first class mail we wouldn’t be seeing this sort of sloppy service.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the completion of their appointed rounds within 76 years or so.
They choose the path where no one goes.
USPS... guaranteed delivery in a century or less.
More than curious. The letter was written/posted half a year after the ETO was over. Not sure when the cutoff was but I had family in the occupation and those guys did not have to buy stamps. We still have envelopes and letters from the time and the younger guys who didn’t have enough points to come home had to stay and man the occupation. They didn’t use stamps and pencilled on “air Mail.” And it’s curious that the envelope was trackable to the widow——same surname but same address? And no forwarding marks? I’m guessing the letter was stuck in a family bible?
We have a shoebox full of letters that look just like this. one.
“The Greatest Generation”!
Indeed they are, no doubt about that. However, give liberals and career academia types enough time and they will warp “TGG” into a bunch of greedy, racist, white privilege heathens.
It’s coming and probably just around the corner.
Meh.🙄
At least the Postal Service had the integrity to deliver the letter and take the slings and arrows.
When FedEx delivers a package late, they make a movie about it.
BTW, the widow who received the letter was ecstatic.
Very cool story. Did the post office charge them extra postage? 😉
I was curious so I looked it up.
The fastest snail in the world can travel 6.5 inches per minute. The distance from Berlin to Boston is 3788 miles, as the snail crawls. So the fastest snail in the world can cover this distance in 70.2 years.
Depending on the exact locations of mail drop and receipt, and within the error of the measured speed of the snail, 76 years could be exactly how long it would have taken a fast snail to deliver this letter!
I know the postal service recently announced that delivery times would be a little longer, but this is ridiculous.
People are people—No Greatest Generation. Some people are saints, some sinners. HUMAN BEINGS each and every one. The Allies did terrible things to win the war. We are not saints. War makes all monsters—some more than others. If Americans GIs were so great ask all the French women they raped? War is hell.
Maybe not. Even snails need some down time.
Nevertheless, I applaud your spirit of scientific inquiry.
Only a bureaucracy as bloated as the USPS could delay a letter for 75 years.
“The Greatest Generation” was a book penned by Tom Brokow. As with anything by Brokow, it is a lie. They certainly reviewed the greatest return on their Social Security contributions for one.
I remember many years ago reading an article about an 80+-year-old guy in a nursing home who had his WW1 draft notice delivered to him. It had fallen down behind the sorting table and wasn’t discovered until the PO had been closed down and they were removing all the equipment.
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