Shortly after the start of the Battle of the Bulge, Allied commanders were so desperate to get fresh troops from England to France that planning was not the best and the troop transport Leopoldville, loaded with two U.S. infantry divisions (262 & 2??) and Belgian Congo troops, while five and a half miles off the coast of Cherbourgh when on the night of Christmas eve 1944, U boat U-486 sent two torpedoes into the side, total losses were 756 soldiers and 56 crew, over 500 were saved by the H.M.S Brilliant, one of the four destroyer escorts with two troop transport ships. 555 soldiers of this infantry division were onboard and apparently Bennie Skaggs of Co. K was among them, as their are no letters from him after that date. As was typical of that period no news coverage was allowed on this tragedy. Lot includes 32 V-Mail letters from Bennie to his parents and others back in Kentucky from overseas post, England; these date from 1943-Oct. 1944. There are 77 letters from Bennie while in the Army and stateside from 1942-1943. In addition there are nine letters & one V-Mail from Pfc. Maurice Simmons 864 th Bomber Squadron, 30 th Bomber Group, stationed in the Pacific theater dating from Feb. 6 th 1943- Dec. 10, 1944. Another letter is from P.F.C. Sunlet, Co. A, 4 th Bat., 1 st Infantry Division, postmarked Sept. 27, 1943. Also included are two letters from Cpl. V. Eskridge, 410th Signal Company, Aum, 13th AAF. Archive also includes a shoulder patch from WWII 70 th Infantry; plus a few photographs and negatives, a .50 caliber bullet and circa 100 other letters most dating to WWII written by various Skaggs family members, Irvington & Louisville Kentucky, Evansville, Indiana and elsewhere. Archive also includes a scrap book from the 1920s from Shelby Country Kentucky..None of the letters in this archive have been read so there is much to be discovered. Condition some with damp stains, but nearly all ledible.