November 24, 1943

Hi, + Hooray!
Yesterday I did all my Christmas shopping + just now I put about 15 handkerchiefs in the mail (air-mail). Maybe they will arrive before Easter. They all came from Givan’s Irish Linen Story, New Bond St. , except Doug’s which I got at Walpole’s previously. The ladies’ cost 3/9 or ¾, men’s 7/0 or 5/0, + Toots’ 1/3 . 1s= 204
Total bill at Givan’s 3/5/10. Now you know all. I got the cards at Selfridge’s. While I was in Town I killed a little time walking around + saw Grosvenor Sq for the first time. That neighborhood is a Little Washington. Seemed to me practically every house was occupied by some American agency- from the Embassy on down. We are in quite turmoil around here this week, with Thanksgiving tomorrow, a big inspection the next day, + a change of stations impending. We had quite a to-do last night because we had only half enough turkeys to go around, so this morning I went to see the QM about it + was assured that everybody in the ETO is in the same boat, regardless of what the newspapers say. Some are giving our food to the enl. men + the supplementary pork loin to the officers + nurses. So now everybody is ashamed to squash anymore. But we have cranberry sauce + pumpkin pie + the nurses are going to decorate the mess hall so it should be a satisfactory Thanksgiving. Yesterday we contracted ? from three barracks down to two, so now the old homestead isn’t so empty. In case you have heard from elsewhere, Al Neubert ? died of meningitis very suddenly a month ago. Nobody else caught it. It was most surprising from all points of view. Best wishes to everybody.

Much love from B