Letter to Colonel Carl Ristine from William D. Shain

fiph 1194 WM. D. Shain, liv. Attly, Judge Advocate Section, Headquarters, AFWESPAC, A.P.O. 707, % Postmaster, San Francisco, California. Manila, Philippines, 4 November 1946. Dear Colonel: care Rustine It is necessary that I run on for some length in this letter so will you prop your feet up on your desk and get com- fortable while you read. Before going any further however, I'll wager that it will not take nearly as long as it did sitting here in our office on a warm Monday night about fifteen miles East of Manila proper, using "hunt and peck" on a typewriter (no glass of Bourbon in one hand either) to write it. I am writing this for myself and a very good friend of mine (Maurice H. Samuels) whose address is the same as above and who rooms with me. Our work is about the same and he is the section chief He also has over fifteen years experience in the practice of law and is nearly my age. Our course has been paral- lel in that we both have recently come out of War service both at home and abroad. We were both accepted by the Civil Service in July of this year and were flown here by the War Department as civilian attorneys in the Trials of Accused War Criminals. We are doing "Review" work as assistants to the Staff Judge Advocate at this headquarters. We like the work, want to stay here for the Government and know that our work is satisfactory because our written opinions of tried cases are regularly adopt- ed by the Commanding General. We were both hired in San Fran- cisco with ratings of P-3 but were led to expect P-5 ratings upon arrival. We found, however, when we arrived here that this was not forthcoming. Although we were the first two attorneys that had been hired at home there were three who had been discharged from the Army here in Manila and managed to secure P-5 ratings. They are trial attorneys but we were put to work on the appellate end which should be higher. Most of the attorneys that followed us received P-3 ratings at home but the last four or five were hired in Washington D. C. and came over with P-5 ratings or better. I think that the reason why we have not been raised is simply because that the powers that are in charge feel that they have us here so why do anything about it (?). This brings me to my real subject. We heard over the radio recently that a contingent of personnel is in the process of coming to Manila to set up a claims board to hear claims by residents here for damage done x 59.8