Harry Kellogg III: The Red Sky: The Second Battle of Britain

Diary of Burt Post Sept. 4th, 1946

Baby Ede is still crying up a storm. Glad I can give Maxine some relief in feeding her. Kind of hard to write in this diary while poking a bottle in the kids face. Man she is a cute one. Blond hair and hazel eyes it looks like. Too early to really tell. Nothing like looking into your babies eyes as you are nursing her.

I see in the paper today that my old classmate from high school is doing it again. Old Joe McCarthy is telling tall tales. In the previous elections he lied about his opponent’s age and said he was senile. That Joe always was a bully. He’s not too bad at a party but can be a mean son of a gun if he doesn’t like you. He always liked me.

Got a bonus today for that patent. Guess I’ll have to invent some more stuff so Ede can go to college.

Diary of Burt Post September 5th, 1946

Nothing much happened today. I got very disappointing news. The Chevrolet station wagon with the wood paneling was cancelled due to the plant it was being made in switching back to war production again. So their goes our plan of driving to Florida to visit my parents. With the rationing starting again and our old 1938 Ford being too small for our family it’s pretty much out of the question for this year. I was hoping that Chevrolet would not follow Ford and drop their new models for this year. This war is really messing the economy up.

Maxine will not be happy and she will let me know it too.

Diary of Burt Post Sept. 6th, 1946

Heard from Uncle Frank over in Michigan. He’s been visiting with my sister. Detroit is really starting to gear up for war again. I guess the workers are finally getting the picture that this war is for real and Old Joe Stalin is not the nice uncle we were led to believe. No more strikes.

I personally hope we don’t us the A-bomb on them. The pictures that came out of Japan just before this last war were mind numbingly gruesome. I guess conventional war is just as bad or worse but at least you can save some of the children and women who have done nothing wrong but to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can’t believe our military has shown such restraint.

From what I read the plan was to cut back on the ground forces and bomb whoever attacked us with our super bombers and A-bombs. So far I’ve heard nothing about our bombing campaign. There is a rumor that one raid was tried and went horribly wrong. I wonder what it was?

Walter Winchell is basically ignoring the war. He is concentrating on Hollywood gossip. I bet it gets him in trouble someday. That Edward Murrow is doing some interesting reporting. Too bad Ernie Pyle got killed. It is so interesting to hear Murrow reporting from across the oceans live from thousands of miles away. It sounds like the Soviets are making steady progress through the Pyrenees. Losing Spain will be a devastating development.

I hope Truman and Ike are thinking hard on a solution. Things are looking pretty grim right now.

Diary of Burt Post September 7th, 1946

We had Spam tonight. What is that stuff made of anyway? Maxine did a good job of it but this rationing is getting on everybody’s nerves after a year of plenty. It’s harder to go back once you tasted the future. I hope it is the future again. Things were looking so good. Truman was following FDR’s lead and putting the country back to work again on an economy based on the little guy and his wants and needs and now we’re back on rationing.

I guess sacrifices have to be made if we are to defeat the Russians. I just don’t know if it’s worth it. Our whole lives given once again to war. It just doesn’t seem right.

My younger brother Phillip, shipped out already to parts unknown while our older brother Dick goes to another training. He sure has been trained in his two years of the Army. Was he a swimmer; 6’2” with big hands and feet. He flew through the water at the YMCA. Still holds many of the records there. Then he went and swam across Green Bay. Now that was a feat rarely done and in record time too.

I wonder if they will use his swimming skills. From what I heard about the army there is not much of a chance.

Diary of Burt Post Sept. 8th, 1946

Had a great meal today. Maxine got back to cooking after the delivery and boy did she cook up a good one. Her mother had been filling in and don’t get me wrong, she is a good cook but there is something about Maxine and her spices.

Read an article today from the New York Times. The writer was discussing the two atomic bombs that we dropped on Japan. According to this report if bombs the same size hit New York more of us would be killed than the 460,000 estimated Japanese. The writer concluded the only way to avoid such destruction is to spread out and disperse our cities or to ban war.

I know most of my friends would like the latter.

Rumors that the Russians are planning to attack Britain just like the Germans did. Why hasn’t Truman sent them more aid? I heard it is a bunch of Southern Democrats holding the money hostage. Can you imagine blackmailing your best ally? What a bunch of jerks.

Diary of Burt Post Sept. 9th, 1946

Some doctor died today who was scheduled to appear before the judges in Canada. They moved the trials of the Nazis to Toronto from Nuremberg for obvious reasons. Although I’m sure Stalin would like to get his hands on some more of those murderous bastards. I guess this doctor poison himself rather than stand trial. Good riddance if you ask me. I don’t like the death penalty but if some guy feels so guilty that he’ll commit suicide I say give him the pills.

Looks like a bumper crop of food this year for us. I know Europe was hurting even before the war. I wonder if Stalin would stop this foolishness if we offered him some grain or food? He did give back those prisoners so I guess he’s not as insane as the press makes him out to be. I kind of admired the guy and the Red Army for what they did to Hitler.

Ede slept pretty good last night. I guess you can only cry for so long.

I’ll try and find some vegetables at the farmers market today and get some fresh farm grown food in the house. Maxine can’t do the shopping yet. Maybe I’ll drive down to Lodi next weekend while I’m in Madison. It’s just a little out of the way and my Maxine’s uncle runs a canning factory.

I’ll see if he can spare a case or two of something. Nice of the company to let me use a car. I guess that last patent I worked up for them is going to pay off after all. I hope they changed that left rear tire. It was almost bald last time I used that car. They say that the rationing shouldn’t be too bad this time. After all the Reds don’t have a navy to shut down our imports.

Diary of Burt Post Sept. 10th, 1946

That killing in July made the news again today. Still no arrests in that massacre in Georgia where those Negros were pulled out of their car and shot over 60 times. Two men and two women shot down in cold blood after one was released on bail. Nobody saw nothing. Sounds pretty fishy to me. One was a decorated veteran.

I got a letter from Phil. That’s two in a week. Pops says he’ writing them in Florida twice also. Something must be going on for him to write that often. Something big. He can’t say where he is of course but his letter had a kind of dried out smell and sweat stains on it like he had dripped sweat as he was writing. Makes me think he’s somewhere hot. Enough of that before some FBI guy gets a hold of this and I get in trouble.

Can your diary be used as evidence? Isn’t that like self-incrimination?

We decided to plant a Victory Garden once again and Maxine is looking ahead and getting seed catalogues sent to us. I really hate rutabaga but it does make for good pasty filling. I guess the old Welsh miners knew what they were doing. They sure make good pasties up north in the UP of Michigan. I’m glad Maxine learned how to make them. Pretty handy in the old lunch pail. Bob and Ade are jealous when I pull that still hot pasty out of the newspaper wrapper. Nothing like a hot lunch on a cool September afternoon.