A box that sat in our family’s possession for decades, full of handwritten letters. Written by my grandfather to my grandmother Grace, from a troop transport ship crossing the Atlantic in December 1942. Letters, written in a doctor’s rolling scrawl so gloriously illegible it defeated nearly everyone who tried to read it.
Well, nearly everyone. Years ago, my Aunt Shirley sat down with those letters and started transcribing them. She got through a few of them, and then life, as it does, got in the way. That partial transcription sat alongside the letters in the box.
His name was Captain Dr. Thomas A. Carrigan. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, 47th Armored Medical Battalion, 1st Armored Division: “Old Ironsides.” North Africa. Italy. Anzio. Rome. The Po Valley. Running mobile medical stations, caring for wounded soldiers, close to the fighting.
Here are a few entries from the letters as his journey across the Atlantic begins December 11, 1942:
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December 15th, Tuesday: “All the ships tried their guns today, and there was quite a racket from all sides. Both the tracer bullets and the bursting anti-aircraft fire were used. The latter from the battleship New York and the Cruiser Philadelphia…. The excitement has worn off now and realization is setting in.”
December 17th, Thursday: the day Grace was leaving for Texas, pregnant with their first child he wrote: “Oh! Darling how I feel for you and miss you… how well I realize now that you are my very strength and soul.”
Christmas Eve 1942, his convoy passed through the Strait of Gibraltar at midnight under a full moon. He wrote: “Well this is Christmas Eve and you can see land to the right, which is probably Spanish Morocco… It is a bright moonlight night, and we certainly make a beautiful target.”
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There are so many more letters in that box. Aunt Shirley made a start. This summer, I’m determined to have a go at the rest.
He made it home, but not long enough for me to every meet him. Today I honor him through these few threads that speak of a caring husband, a doctor tasked with healing in the midst of carnage, a man who gave so much to this Nation.
And a grandfather I’m only just beginning to know.
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Captain Dr. Thomas A. Carrigan U.S. Army Medical Corps 47th Armored Medical Battalion · 1st Armored Division “Old Ironsides” World War II
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