SAAAB
Santa
Ana Calif
Oct
16, 1943
Dear Mother,
I haven’t
written for several days but I was very glad to get your letter. It came in 3 days all the way across the
country. In fact it came a day ahead of
mail sent from Beloit when they forward it to us. Anyway the mail seems to be coming through
pretty well. I am now beginning to
realize that I am far away from home.
Well M days
are continuing although all of the tests are taken and the results are coming
in. Some of the fellows have been
“eliminated” already and the rest of us are beginning to hear about our tests
and some of us are rather worried, in fact everyone will live under a strain
for the rest of the M days. My roommate
was washed out by the psychiatist (no dictionary) and the reason seemed to be
that his nervous system was not built to stand the strain the cadets will have
to go through. He was very disappointed
but still has hopes of passing when he goes before the board today. The examiner seems to be able to tell just
how you will adapt yourself to training as well as tell if you can complete the
kind of training you want. As for me, no
news is good news and if I don’t get called with the names on the list today I
can feel a lot safer. There will be 25
names today from 270 men. I have got my
fingers crossed.
I never
told you about the hair cut I got. It’s
a beaut and that’s what I mean. When you
get here you really get a GI hair cut and they took more hair of my head than I
have ever had cut before. I’ll even
wager I had more hair when I was born than I had when I hit the door to get out
of the barber shop. I have a wiffel or
something. I can’t get my hair to sit
down. Even when wet it stands on
end. I can’t part it and it seems rather
unruly to me. However I don’t have to
comb it any more and I can wash it every night.
My head don’t itch any more and I may not get bald because I don’t
scratch my hair out anymore. I sure
would hate to go home now and let you see this mop-less head.
I better
explain that film. Before we left Beloit
our flight got “off the ball”. We fooled
around too much and just because we were leaving some of the fellows got wise
with the instructors and everyone in general.
As a result instead of getting a lot of free time the 4 days before we
left we got nothing but hard work and a lot of grief. We got up at 6:00, cleaned our room went to
chow and came back to do our details. At
7:00 we fell out with gas masks for drill. We had drill to 12:00, 2 hours of
which with gas masks on. We then had
chow and had our first class at 13:00 and another at 14:00. From 15:00 to 17:00 we had P.T. and from
17:00 – 20:00 our time was taken up with evening chow and other duties. We had to study until 22:00 and then could go
to bed only if we didn’t have more than 3 giggs for each week. Other wise we went out for 2 more hours of
drill. Therefore our day ended at 24:00
(if you weren’t on the ball). It was
rather rough and you can see time for picture taking was nill. Also our open post for the week was taken
away. We were going to get out Friday
night to say goodbye to everyone and get out Saturday morning at 9:00 to go to
town and do our shopping for the trip.
We got neither. The biggest slap
in the face came when we got just 1 hour to go to town and get back. It took us at least 20 minutes to sign out,
10 minutes to get to town and back giving us a mere 30 minutes to do all we
wanted in town. That was not enough time
to do anything but the bare necessities and you couldn’t hear many kind words
around. You can see therefore that I
just couldn’t use the film that was sent because I did not foresee our future
at Beloit to be so strenuous.
Well it is
still foggy around here and the aerial activity has been cut down some. I haven’t been able to see the hills for
several days. Usually about noon and after enough sun comes through to allow
take offs and landings and we see a lot of B17’s in late afternoon. Often in
the morning the fog is so heavy that you might think that it was raining. It is much like the dewy days we have at home
some times.
Well I
don’t know what to write. I wish that
more news would come and I am glad that you are going to have the paper sent.
Of course I won’t all ways be in this squadron as long as I am here but will
move from the C.C. area (classification center) to pre flight. They will get the paper to me and I can send
my new address when and if I get one.
Please
write more news about what goes on in the neighborhood if you can. Probably you do write as much as you can
think of there probably is much going on.
Well I have to get to fall out soon so I will close.
With love,
Austin
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