Arizona
May 26, 1944
Dear Mother:
Here I am in Arizona again. I have been here 2 days and I have neglected to write because although I am not doing much I am getting acquainted with the post I am to spend the next 2 months or more on. Actually we will be here about 10 weeks and then maybe I will get 15 days to come home and see everyone again. I will have been gone more than a year when I do get home.
We had a rather uneventful trip down here. We left Bakersfield Calif. about 1800 Tuesday and arrived down here at about 1100 Wednesday one full day ahead of time. We got a 20 hour pass so I got to see some of the city of Phoenix and found it a rather pleasant place to spend a pass.
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| Air Field at Luke Field, Arizona |
The first thing that I saw that really opened my eyes was the number of P-40's buzzing around here. I have hopes of getting into one before my training is over but I think chances are very slim. The graduating class got a number of hours in them but they are being taken from the field and may be replaced with P39's which I do not like. That 40 is what I like the looks of.
Today I sat in the cockpit of a grounded mock up of one. The engine had been removed because of a damaged right wing. I kind of thought I might be too big but found out I am not. I need all the room available but I still think I could be very comfortable. Of course there are are a lot more gadgets and dials but I would be glad to be inside when they come to life.
We will not start flying until early next week. Then we will find out if we are military pilot material all over again. They have a pretty high wash out rate around here for an advance school. They may get 20% of us and maybe more. They have that many out of the present class so I guess I better not get my hopes too high. Most of them wash because they can't solo out or that they ground loop which is a very easy thing to do in these planes. Well if I get the normal breaks and keep my head out of the cockpit I guess I can get through all right.
This is the base where I will really gain weight. You get all you can eat of good food an all the milk and cream you can drink. Ice cream 2 meals a day and I bet we could have if for breakfast if we wanted it bad enough. Just think of eating a dessert of pie a la mode and chocolate frosted cake at the same time. I bet I weigh 190 before I leave here. I only hope it's not all fat. They must starve civilians to feed us this way. We get all the green vegetables we can consume. We get raw carrots and cabbage each meal as well as boiled peas and carrots and sometimes beets. Of course we have potatoes and meat but I think the green vegetables are better when you can have all you want.
This is swell country here but it gets too hot for my money. We have the coolers going full blast all the time and it is hot and summer is still just around the corner. They say it gets to 140 degrees in the shade around here in the summer and the shade is scarce. I hope they don't want us to be too active when the hot weather gets here.
Just because we are not too busy now does not mean that we will not be in the near future. In fact they have civilian help here that cleans our barracks and latrines so that we will have more time. When we get on schedule we get 7 hours on the flight line, 3 hours of classes, 1 hour of PT and 1 hour of drills each day scheduled. Besides that we have to eat and keep busy on homework and our own personal house cleaning.
I was going to write last night but I met a fellow I went to CTD with who is a class ahead of me. He told us a little about what was ahead. One of the things I like the sound of is a 300 mile cross country with a maximum ceiling of 200' ft. Most of the time you spend looking up at the cactus and chasing each other up and down the washes in the desert. You also get a lot more formation and "rat racing" term applied to chasing each other all over the sky. It's a wonder they don't have accidents here but I guess by now most of the fellows can handle a plane pretty well. I could handle a PT pretty well when I left primary but that BT still has me stumped. It was more or less like driving a truck I guess and I can never like that.
Well I have been writing from my bed which may explain the illegibility of this letter. I hope they are not all that way. We are not very well organized yet.
I am putting in a money order for $100 which you may put in the bank or buy bonds with and remove my recent expenses from. If you buy a bond make it out to the usual beneficiary. Please hurry the watch on its way because I am lost without it.
With love
Austin
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