George Kessler ‘37, a World War II veteran, graduated from UGA with a degree in animal husbandry. His daughter, Sandra Kessler ‘67, found a series of letters Kessler wrote to his mother while stationed in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines from 1944-45.
While Kessler was stationed in the Philippines, most of the fighting between the Japanese and allied troops was over and the country and its people were devastated. The people of the Philippines welcomed the U.S. Army with open arms, often inviting them to their homes for meals.
The letters are filled with stories about the Philipino culture and customs and his work as a staff sergeant with the Army Signal Corps. Kessler was very concerned about the extremely hard freeze at his family’s farm in Effingham County. Many of the letters offer encouragement to his parents, aunts and uncles who were trying to maintain their farms, crops, and animals in spite of a very harsh winter and low rations. Most of the young men who normally would be working in the fields had been drafted, having no idea how long the war would last.
All correspondence was censored but Kessler was able to pass a few comments past the censors. On April 1, 1945, George wrote his mother, “The news has just come that we are invading the island of Okinawa, about 300 miles south of Japan proper.” On April 9, 1945 he wrote, “The news was certainly good last week with Russia canceling her neutrality pact with Japan. This will surely help to bring the Japanese to surrender terms earlier than expected. It looks like the German armies will have to be completely captured or killed.” On May 21 he wrote, “You can rest assured that the Allies are going to bring questionable characters to trial for war crimes. We have observed a few such cases here.”
He returned to the US via ship in December of 1945 and was discharged from the army in January 1946. He returned to Adel, Georgia, where he resumed his position as the County Agricultural Agent and married Sara Frances Sanders ‘38. Kessler retired from the Georgia Extension Service as the Lowndes County Agricultural Agent in 1975 and passed away in Valdosta in 2001.
