Letter 442

Husum Aug 17th 1943

Dear Egon !.

Today I will answer your letter , I was going to write from Hamburg but I had no time. The Connection train in Hamburg was on time, the train from Bremen went none stop to Hamburg Main station, from there I took a slow train to Altona, and another train to Husum from there. Hanburg looks worst than I had imagined, whole parts of the city lay in runs, mainly between Dannertor and Altona, but the Michael tower is still standing. The Main station is only damaged in a few places, The staion in Altona is damaged too, but between Main Station and Elbe River there is not one house standing. Harburg is less damaged there are not many people to see in Hamburg, and the trains are full, inside the Harbor many ships were hit and sunk. In one place they were laying on top of each other. He who has not seen it can not believe it when told. Here in Husum it is nice, I like it, we are in a Camp here and it was build only recently. The buildings are not as big as in Lehre, I have not seen much of Husum yet, because a Sgt met us at the station to take us to camp. The camp is next to the air field, and we see them all day taking off and landing. Mainly Fokke Wulf 180’s last night we had an alert at 11.15 PM and the all clear sounded at 3 AM. Have ever been in a shelter that long?But not much has happened here, yesterday we got parts of the gear and weapons. Today in examination and so far we had no drill yet. The food is good here too, and there are 10 of us to the room. There are some here from Wesermunde, we shall stay here 3 months maybe 10 weeks too, at 5 .30 we get up, and bed time is 10 PM from 6 to 10 PM we have free time.

Yours with greetings from Husum Erich

From: Sailor Erich Funke , Husum, Navy Base 2/-18 V.S.A.

To: Mr Egon Funke Wesermünde Hafenstr 128