WWII Letter Bomb Disposal Squad, “We led a column of tanks into Cologne Germany"

Description

It's not often you find a WWII letter of this caliber for sale on Ebay. Most letters of historical value would normally be sold at finer East or West-coast auction houses. With that said I am proud to offer this original
WWII one page typed letter signed, written by 1st Lt. JONATHAN DAYTON STODDART, in
command of the 76th Bomb Disposal Squad.
The letter is dated March 13, 1945, Belgium and come with Censored envelope.
The
postmark is March 25, 1945. The envelope is censored by Lt. Stoddart and signed J. D. Stoddart, 1st. Lt.
Ord. In this amazing letter Lt Stoddart writes:
“We led a column of tanks into Cologne”
If you know anything about the fighting in Cologne you will know the danger he and his men faced clearing the way for tanks and the infantrymen.
Very little is written about any of the U. S. Army Bomb Disposal Units in the official records because of the nature of what they were doing and the danger to the men.
Lt. Stoddart was one of the bomb disposal men who survived. At the end of the war, in the ETO, he
was the Senior Operational Bomb Disposal Officer of all central Europe.
Because of US Army censorship rules it is rare to find a letter where military action is written about so candidly. When you do find them they are mostly written after the war when censorship rules were lifted. So this is a true real time action letter with a key end of ETO war date.
About
JONATHAN DAYTON STODDART:
Here is some of what I found on the internet about
JONATHAN DAYTON STODDART
, most of it from the Washington Post and the U. S. State Department:
In 1940 Stoddart enrolled in Cornell University and two later dropped out to enlisted in the U.S. Army. Where he volunteered for the new bomb disposal school at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. He was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in 1943, was given command of the 76th Bomb Disposal Squad and served in the European theater from 1944 to 1946, which included England, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany.
He was awarded the Purple Heart, a gift of fortune as most bomb disposal officers received the award posthumously. Discharged from the Army as a captain in 1946, Mr. Stoddart graduated from Cornell and received an M.A. degree in 1947 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Medford, MA. From 1948 to 1951, he was an instructor of International Politics in the School of Government at George Washington University in Washington, DC, leaving as a reserve captain.
During the Korean War he served 18 months in Army Intelligence. In 1957, he received the Secretary of the Army's first fellowship award and spent a year stationed in Paris studying NATO. He then worked in Washington, DC, as a civilian consultant on European and Middle East issues until 1959, when he moved to the International Security Affairs Office (ISA), Secretary of Defense, where he served as United Kingdom/Scandinavian Desk Officer. In 1961-1962, Mr. Stoddart was the Secretary of Defense nominee at the National War College.
On his return to ISA, he was designated deputy to the branch chief for the Near East, South Asia and Africa region. In 1966 Mr. Stoddart was assigned as ISA representative on the U.S. Embassy staff in London, where he served as politico-military attaché, counselor for politico-military affairs and counselor for political affairs. In 1969 Mr. Stoddart returned to Washington as Office Director, International Security Operations, State Department. From 1975 to 1979, Mr. Stoddart served as political advisor to the commander-in-chief Allied Forces, Southern Europe. He was then stationed in Mons, Belgium, with the rank of Minister as international affairs advisor to General Bernard Rogers, who was Supreme Allied Commander, Europe."
Here are some excerpts from a U. S. State Department interview of
JONATHAN STODDART about his time in the ETO:
1942,
"I went to Aberdeen to the Ordnance School and basic training, which I found deadly in all respects. How to repair artillery pieces, move ammunitions, repair tanks, or change a flat tire, disciplines which I was not very good at or interested in. Somebody told me that there was a brand new school that had just started which was all volunteer - very hush, hush - and being run by a British cadre. This was the Ordnance Bomb Disposal school. So, I went over with a friend and talked to some of the guys and we volunteered. Subsequently, after about five weeks time I was a tech corporal.
One of my officers said I should apply for officer's candidate school (OCS), which I did .... Then I volunteered to go back to Bomb Disposal School as an officer, which I did in mid-January 1944. The officers course was a tough regimen as, per British practice, only officers could defuse bombs, booby traps, mines, and ammo [ammunition].
I went overseas in April, 1943 stationed in Dorset, southern England where I trained with a British Bomb Disposal unit. We had a very unique setup, organized with an officer and six enlisted men. I had a tech sergeant, a buck sergeant and four model T corporals. The intelligence aptitude was very high with these guys because they had all volunteered. My tech sergeant was a member of the state legislature in South Carolina for instance. He was in his mid thirties and had volunteered.
My unit was the 76th Bomb Disposal Squad (separate). In a bit of inspiration, we dubbed our 2 # ton truck “The Spirit of '76.” ..... It is probably the most dangerous job in the military ..... You didn't think about that. If you calculated the risk, I guess none of us would have done it. It was always the other guy that was going to pack it in. The appeal was that you had a sense of independence. You were of the U.S. Army, but you were really outside of it in many respects.
I can say now, Stuart, looking back over a period of 57 years, it was the only job I have ever had where I didn't have some SOB looking over my shoulder while I did my work. People left you alone. We had our own administration but we were dependent on a larger unit for logistic, medical support, rations, pay, etc. That sense of quasi independence was a very compelling thing to all the young guys.
Disposing bombs: I was in England until D+15 when I went to Normandy. I was assigned to an Aviation Engineer Battalion that put down aluminum matting strips in developing forward airstrips for our C-47, P-47, and P-51 aircraft. My job was to go around and make sure before the engineers started to level a strip to put planking down that there wasn't any dangerous ordnance around.
Actually when we were in Normandy most of our job was getting rid of mines, booby traps and unexploded artillery pieces. I stayed with the Aviation Engineers across France, up into Belgium, did a little work in the Dutch panhandle and finally into Germany. So, I was in four campaigns in Europe. (I worked with all the Armies) With all of them actually at one point or another. In the breakout from Normandy that took place through St Lo I was with 3rd Army following Patton across Normandy down to Chateaudun on the Loire and then up to Etampes and into Paris two days after liberation.
That was a great experience. Then when I got to Belgium, we spent time with the 1st Army and the 9th Army. During the Battle of the Bulge we were assigned to Montgomery and the 21st Army group. The fate of all Allied forces north of Rundstedt's drive into the Ardennes, induced a nervous period as we were billeted between Brussels and Liege. And in mid-March, we crossed the Rhine with the British and Canadians and went up to Bremen with the Brits because under the terms of the Four Power agreement to subdivide Germany, that part of Germany was to become the British zone but the U.S. was to have access to Bremen as a port of entry and use of its airfield.
So, I went up to make sure the airfield was secure in terms of possible booby traps or mines. The North German Lloyd Line ship the Bremen was still along side the dock, and although we had virtually obliterated Bremen and Hamburg in bombing raids, this 55,000 ton ship had some shrapnel marks along its side but was basically intact.
I was ordered to make sure that it was secure. It was going to be six men and myself going through this monstrous ship, an unappealing assignment. I got a bunch of Germans to do it. They could pull the handles on the flush toilets. The Germans liked to booby trap flush toilets. So we bounced around depending on what particular unit my superiors wanted to assign my squad in disposing high explosives".
After ETO war end: "I went down to the American zone, Nurnberg, and it is hard to believe that I was the senior operational Bomb Disposal officer in central Europe at that time. I was a captain. Fast promotion was another great attraction to Bomb Disposal. We used to say that you went up fast, literally and figuratively.
It was my job to collect all the Bomb Disposal squads in Central Europe in a central location, which we did in the small town of Burgfarnbach about 10 miles west of Fuerth, which in turn was an outlying village of Nurnberg. I requisitioned a castle and 17 young women who were in a displaced persons camp in Nurnberg to serve as cooks and cleaning women, etc. They were Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, two Russians and several Poles, an eclectic group.
My basic job was bringing all of our Bomb Disposal prima donnas together and sorting out personnel to decide who was going out to the Pacific. We actually had a couple of officers killed while I was running my little castle in Burgfarnbach. I told our 9th Air Force headquarters that they were going to have a mutiny on their hands. The guys had survived the war and now they were blowing themselves up by defusing German munitions. I said that this was a job we could supervise" (let the Germans do it)
Where is the value in this letter grouping?
When you buy a WWII letter of this type you are not just purchasing a common artifact of WWII. This letter
is unique and an investment on two levels:
First, it preserves history that will be of value to future generations.
Second, it will go up in value as years go by.
In this grouping I provide a number of facsimiles that give evidence to the importance of this
Bomb Disposal
Officer
who wrote the letter and the significance of this individual’s contribution
in defeating the
Third Reich
during WWII.
The six facsimiles letters also add value, they may very well be more significant than the letter itself because what the facsimiles do is tell a deeper unpublished contextual story about Lt.
J. D. Stoddart,
who fought to liberate the world from the
Third Reich.
I believe it is the story or narrative that is the most significant aspect of this WWII artifact that you are bidding on.
What you will get:
This grouping includes everything pictured in the listing. The
original WWII letter
dated March 13, 1945
and censored envelope. Three 1945
(recently printed)
photos of the bombed city of Cologne.
About the seller:
I have been buying and selling Americana, rare books & documents, since the early 1970’s.
I have sold large collections and important individual items to some of the largest
libraries, Auction Houses, Rare book rooms, Universities and Museum in the US.
I have published unique Americana works which are in University and private libraries throughout the world.
Some of the proceeds from my sales go to
support WW2
Primary Source Material for class rooms at High Schools in my area
. (If you are a teacher and are interested in
WW2
Primary Source Material for your class room please email me.)
My main goal is by selling WW2 and other historical Primary Source material; I can distribute letters, documents and items around the world that tell the true story of the courage, bravery and sacrifice, made by millions of Americans and the Allied Forces during the war.
When you by a Primary Source letter or document to add to you collection you are doing what Thomas Jefferson did hundreds of years ago (Jefferson sold his library to the USA to create The Library of Congress) in preserving American history, which will be handed down to generation of future American and the World.
When you buy from me you have my guarantee that what you are buying is authentic.
Email me if you have questions.
See photos for condition and letter content.
Bidding conditions and mailing below:
I ship Priority Mail US Post Service, three day delivery.  The reason why is virtually all of the items I sell are one of a kind and even though an item may not have a high selling price it is sometime priceless to the buyer. Also
Priority Mail US Post Service is insured and is tracked to
guarantee
delivery.
US buyers only. (I do make some exceptions for foreign buyers but you need to email me to get approval for bidding.
You must have bought over 25 items on eBay, Paypal preferred and you must have a good rating in order to buy on this item/items.
I have a 100% rating and have sold many rare and important document, letters and items on Ebay so you know you will receive this original item.
See photos for condition.
Email me if you have any questions.