March 16, 1944

War Eagle Field

Lancaster

Mar. 16, 1944

Dear Mother:

I received your letter of the 9th yesterday.  It took quite a time catching up with me but it did all right and I was very glad to get it.

I don't like California for more reasons than one.  The weather around here is such a disappointment.  All the mts. around here have snow on them and it feels like there should be snow here soon.  Actually the snow has come and gone and it should warm up soon.  We get so much wind here that it makes it seem a lot colder.  You see we are situated between 2 good size ranges of mts and the wind just howls down through this valley.  I guess it wouldn't be so bad if we had an idea that they had a winter out there but they always tell you how wonderful it is, this land of the sunshine and flowers.  Well I guess everything like this is bad when it is new.

We started ground school yesterday and it promises to be hard but interesting.  We get code and radio theory and the procedure for running our B.T. all in one class.  That radio procedure in BT is a lot of fun because they have a real radio upon which they can p ice up all kinds of stains you can tune in the tower here and listen to the operations control officers giving orders to ships landing.  You can pick up radio beam signals and radio range station signals which are not at all interesting.  They send out code all the time and its the same thing all the time.  We have a course in navigation which is not too much of a course.  It is just a case of learning how to plot a course and learning how to stay on the course with wind, magnetic variation and deviation.  We will do a lot of work plotting our cross country courses.  There is really not too much to a navigation course if you do contact flights.  However we have a lot to learn about radio beams and such but I don't know if that comes in navigation or in radio.  We also have a final course in meteorology which is the final course we will have on weather.  We will be able to predict weather conditions and future weather when we finish.  We also have a course in aircraft identification.

We had 2 tests that we had to pass if we didn't want to go ground school.  I think I passed both.  They were identification and code.  We had a 6 words code check which was slow enough even after laying off for 2 months for me to pass.  The aircraft test was not too easy because they had shots of German and Jap planes we had never studied.  Even so I just passed.  I guess I will have a chance to get "sack time" at night and write letters.  You may get a pick up in letters.

We have very little time in the morning to do anything.  We get up at 5:45 and have our first class at 7:00 which gives about 1:15 minutes to do everything that is required.  After we have eaten breakfast and made our bed we have little time to clean up around, however everything must be spick and span for inspection.  As we haven't had an official inspection yet we don't know just what is wrong so we may have a lot more to cram into this morning than we have now.  Things are getting organized slowly but surely and we are all getting acquainted so it is not going to be such a tough life after all.  In fact when we get to flying and get to use the PX and some of the recreational facilities it will be rather nice around here.  I guess they are just trying to make officers out of us and some of us don't catch on so quick.  I guess none of us catch on too quick.

Well I hope Pop sells a lot of houses so you can come out when I graduate (If I do) and pin my wings on.  You will have to come all the way because I will never get out of the west coast area now.  They have so many fields for all kinds of training here that they won't send me near home for any of the training.  I might get to Western Texas but that is none to near home.  I guess it is time for chow so I will sign off.

Your loving son

Austin

Just for fun, a news clipping of A.P. describing him as the oldest builder of houses in Wilmington.