Will, a member of the American occupation forces in Vienna, apparently working in headquarters, writes describing the situation there:

      “… Finally we are in Vienna for good – a small party of men still (Headquarters only) and in a little while our whole occupation army of Vienna area will be moving in. The boys are all saying it was the most welcome reception they ever had – probably on account of the experiences under Russian occupation but also in general. They all complain about the Russians till one tells them that the Germans and Austrians in Russia did so much worse things than looting or molesting of women. And then, even these have stopped in Vienna since quite a while – The worst thing is the food problem at present, people are on rather less than starvation diet and do anything, literally anything for a bite of food or a cigarette that will dull their stomach. I have seen famine in Italy, enough of it, but I’ve not seen it on such a scale before. Our work here is manifold and mounting, even after two short days already, two short days of providing quarters and office space sufficiently to operate preliminary. Though we do not have as good quarters yet as we shall be getting in a short while, we do have quite agreeable preliminary quarters. Our first news sheet was mimeographed today. I’m enclosing it and would ask you the favor to save it for me. It’s a nice souvenir. I’ve been able to get a few provisional Austrian stamps which were only issued in Vienna City a short while, some of them already searched for. Shall send them to Ruthie as soon as a registered letter service is established. – On the 2^nd mission to Vienna I took a few snapshots of the top commanders that turned out pretty good. On the 1 picture is our general and a maj. General before departure, on 2 are 3 generals, a stranger and my colonel, on 3, 3 Russian officers with Mark Clark’s deputy and some of our officers, on 4 our generals shaking hands with Russian generals and some of our and French officers standing around. All were taken at the frontier where big ceremonies took place, guards of honor, bands playing national anthems, speeches by the generals and so forth…”