Letters, 1945/1946

Containers:

Box 1, Folder 4

Scope and content:

Scope and Contents Cunningham is sent to San Francisco in August of 1945 pending assignment to the USS Arkansas. Writes on October 16, 1945 that he hopes "to be aboard my ship by the end of the week." Describes "Navy Week" in letter of October 28, with the "many people visiting the ships now at the piers here." Mentions that among those ships are the carrier Bunker Hill, the "huge" battleship Iowa, the battleship Colorado, the submarine tender Fulton, the submarine Capitaine and the Arkansas ("Arky"). Just two letters were written from aboard the Arkansas. He mentions sailing to Pearl Harbor toward the end of November. By December 3, he is back at San Francisco. By Christmas he has joined his family in Washington, PA and is on terminal leave. Writes of taking classes at the Presbyterian Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) "on the GI Bill of Rights arrangements for 'refresher courses' for chaplains and other professional men whose careers were interrupted while they were in the Service." Says that "the special courses that the Seminaries thought would prove so attractive to ex-chaplains are almost a complete 'flop,'" adding that "there is practically no demand for them." Speculates that this is due to the fact that "a good many chaplains had churches waiting for them, others will not go back to the ministry, and some are remaining in the Service; besides which, a good many must feel as I am inclined to feel, that the churches should be sending their ministers to sit at the feet of the Chaplains and learn a few of 'the facts of life', instead of assuming that the chaplains have 'lost touch' with religious truth and procedures." Is discharged from the Navy as of midnight, January 27, 1946.

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