September 24, 1944

Sept 24, 1944

Dear A.P.

Well the thing I have been worrying about is about to happen.  Ever since primary I have feared that someday I would be given an assignment to fly heavy ships.  A single engine pilot wants to fly alone because he feels he is safer that way with none of the responsibility of a bomber pilot.  The pilot of a single engine ship is the heart of the ship where the pilot of a heavy plane is just one of the cogs in the wheel.  I want to be the wheel but the higher ups have other ideas.

They have decided that they will try to replace the heart of an eagle with one from a sparrow.  Now they have got to make the sparrow act like an eagle if possible.  There are going to be a lot of eagles acting like sparrows.

What I mean is this: tomorrow I expect an assignment to B17 school.  This is almost the worst thing that can happen to a fighter.  The orders came through and all we know is that 7 out of our bunch of 60 will not go.  How I hope I don't have to go but my chances of not going are not too good.  All I can say is that when our bunch of fighter plane pilots hit the B17s there are going to be a lot of B17s acting like fighter planes.  Also I doubt if there will be many good pilots among the bunch although in P39s they would have been a hot outfit.

B17 Bomber
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If they had told me that I was to be a B17 pilot while I was in basic I would have a little respect for the big lumbering 4 engined clay pigeons.  right now I would rather resign than to stay and fly them.  Nothing I learn from my next station will help me as a civilian pilot.  I will become a "Stick and rudder" man and by the time the war is over I will have lost all the qualities of a good pilot, namely coordination, and self reliance.  You know I will still be saying "they can't do this to me" even when I am out on some raid and the shells are bursting all around that flying box car.  

Well so much for the bum luck that seems to be dogging my trail.  I had to work on an inventory today and last night so I didn't leave the post.  That is another thing that makes me mad.  All week you stay on the post because of regulations and the one day you can leave they make you work.  I guess I don't have much to write about except my misfortunes.

Say, tell Mother that the ring can be sent along anytime.  It will catch up with me in my travel all right.  I had begun to wonder what had happened to it.  I began to think about it the  first of this month and heard nothing and thought maybe you all were saving it for a surprise which does not seem to be the case.  I hope that it has been sent by now but if not see that something is done about it.

Well we are having a wonderful dust storm now.  It is just covering everything with a layer of find powder.  It would be nice if the powder were a pretty shade but it is just a dirty color so not very welcome.  Nothing we are getting there is very welcome.  I guess the wings are the only things I got here that made me very happy.

As you see I am very discouraged and need something to help my morale.  Why does the Army do things the way they do anyway?

With love

Austin

September 22, 1944

Sept. 22, 1944

Dear Dad:

I hope you don't disapprove of the heading too much.  Here it is the day before Mary's birthday and me a couple of thousand miles away.  I sure wish I could be home again for a short time.

You know I have a feeling that I shall not be here too much longer.  It's just a feeling but we have heard some pretty good rumors.  They now need tail gunners on B29's and 2nd Lts are expendable.

Well I guess I can't get off the post tomorrow as I had hoped.  I have been given special orders to report to the PX main office to officiate at an inventory.  I don't know just what is in the wind and  I hope it won't be too boring.  You know there are a lot of pretty girls working in the PX so maybe I can get to meet a few.  Also there are a lot of malts and milk shakes which may go well if we can get the major to leave for awhile.

Tell Mother to not take my last letter too hard.  I guess I was a little sarcastic and exaggerated the situation a little.  Things are not as bad as they look up.  All I want is a good assignment in Calf, anyway to get out of the hold Luke Field has on me.  Luke is a kind of jinx field for me and I feel that the sooner I leave the better.  I guess maybe I have got itchy heels.  It just seems that I am stagnating here doing nothing.  I want to get going again.  I guess it's hard to settle down to nothing after an active 14 mos.  I guess you must know what I talk about.

You know I find something out here that makes me want to stay more and more.  People seem to be so much nicer to you out here.  There are so many things going on.  The people are so much different.  I almost wish I were free to spend a year out here to bum around and really find out what the west is like.  I guess you can remember your days out here and I bet you wish you could come back and look around and look up your old friends.

You know i have been wondering whether I should encourage Mother to come out.  If she doesn't come right away it will be too late because the rich tourist trade will begin to come.  Most of the  people that come, come here like the wealthy from around go to Florida.  This is a winter resort and I doubt if Mother would enjoy it as much as in the spring.  Next month will be the time for her to come if she comes at all this year.  Maybe you had better talk to her about it because I guess you could convince her one way or the other.

I had no idea what things cost out here on the field when I got back but I am now beginning to find out.  Meals are costing between 60 and 90 dollars a month which to me is an outrageous price to pay for your eats.  However we have no place to eat except the Officers mess and we pay more than 2 dollars a day there.  They collected $20 at Gila Bend for board and room: I also have quite a laundry and cleaning bill each week.  It must run to $4 a week.  Then I have an occasional "Coke" or soda and that knocks off $.50 a day to say nothing of entertainment which has under it bus tickets, theater tickets, dance admissions, meals in town, gifts and a hundred other things.  maybe there is a reason why they say we try to keep up a bold front anyway.  It isn't so easy as I had thought.

This letter seems to be getting deeper and deeper and I am getting nowhere.

I guess I really have nothing much to say and have taken 3 pages to say it now.  We are on the old schedule reporting 9 and 2 each day which effectively breaks it up.  I also have 3 P.T. periods and 2 retreat formations I am making.  I also have been moving into another barracks so I guess I am busy after all but it is the wrong kind of busy that grips me.  We still have classes on Wed. Fri and Sat which we take in.  Even though this doesn't seem like much it really breaks up the day so that you have an hour or two and then have to be somewhere.  I never can get off the Post unit after 5 o'clock. If I get a chance I will have a picture taken.

Tell Mother to get those shirts on the way.  I may go to Calif in the near future and may need them.  You know my wish is a command.  (consult A.A.F. regulations)

I will have to sign off as always.

With love 

Austin

September 20, 1944

Luke Field

Sept. 20, 1944

Dear Mother:

Luke field is again my stomping grounds and I might say I am none too pleased.  I might just as well be a poor civilian as to be what I am now.  We are again back on the 9 and 2 schedule which completely ruins the day if you have other formations to meet.  Each meeting they give out details and I got one today for next Sat.  I and 6 others will make an inventory of the PX Saturday night and Sunday morning. 

Now of all the times for an inventory they picked the best.  In the past they have been on Wednesdays and during the day but now they want us to do it on the one night a week we have free and the only morning we have to sleep.  It was a job formally done by the civilians but is now done by 2nd Lts's for whom because of an oversight by higher ups, they have no flying jobs.  2nd Lts are now taking over jobs formerly done by W.A.C pvts and feather merchants.  Boy if that isn't a case what is?

I'm not the only one dissatisfied with the way things go because there are 60 of us doing jobs done before by W.A.C.'s and non-commissioned ground personnel.  It sure makes you feel swell to know that you are ready to do something worth while in the war effort by be sidetracked into a grounded job even while they are screaming for replacements in the theater of operations.  It sure makes you feel good to see brand new P51's, P47's and P38's leans on this field ferried by WASPS while qualified Army pilots fight to get a mere 4 hours a month just so they can collect their flying pay and each one would give his leg to just have a chance to fly a P51.  Somewhere someone fumbled the ball and we at the bottom are the ones on the short end.  But I am resigned to my fate and will hold out to the end.

I forgot all about Mrs. Week's dollar.  You can send it along right away if you wish.  Please have her put her name on it so I won't send it in an odd moment.  Please don't encourage too many people to send money as I will have no place for it.

Well if that box is ready you may as well send it.  I guess I am here for a few more weeks and even if not I guess it will catch up with me.  Maybe if you send it they will decide to send me somewhere else.  It will be time to wear winter clothes in Arizona in 2 mos but next month they put them on in Calif so I guess the sooner I have them the better it will be.  I hope the shirts fit all right.  I don't think I have changed much since I left.

I have sent Mary a birthday gift and it should arrive long before this letter but if it has not please write me.  It was sent Air Mail form the store.  You know I had no idea what she could want.  She seems so self sufficient that I imagined she had most all she wanted.  Anyway I kind of thought that what I sent would go good with her nightlife at school.  Now please don't have to write and say it's not there because what I have just written may create a wrong impression.

I will have to close and go to supper.  Erma Blaisdell is a lot better and expected to have none of the ill effects of her malady.

With love

Austin

September 19, 1944

This is written in a big hurry

Dear Esther:

I got your letter yesterday and I might say that it was unexpected.  I already had a couple of letter in the morning mail and then this one.  You see it was not that I didn't expect it but that it came in an unexpected time.

It seems that Betty is having a lot of trouble with all her family.  If I remember correctly the "refugee" was a little shy but she seemed friendly enough when I left.  I guess maybe I frightened her.  Well I guess she will get used to having strangers around if she is one of Betty's children.

So Harold was home lately.  I'll bet William was especially glad to see him.  William must miss having friends his own age around.  If what Mother said about Harold was true I guess the loosing 10 lbs didn't hurt him physically but maybe some mentally.  I guess I gained a lot more than I lost. I think I put on about 20 lbs but am slowly losing it because of the lack of activity.  However while at G.B. the last weeks I gained a couple of pounds.  Maybe the Army doesn't go wrong when they allow some fellows to take A/C training and disqualifies others for reasons mental and physical.

As for his record of not getting a gig I would say he has done well.  Maybe that is the trouble, he worked too hard trying to get and stay on the ball that he has missed a lot of the training down there that you don't get form the books.  I hope Harold doesn't have to go back to the G.I's because he will hate it after the way he has been treated lately.  I don't think he really wants to go back without that commission no matter what he says.

I was just thinking that maybe you had better not write anymore letter or company time because you might get fired but then I might not get a letter if you didn't.  I guess you are indispensable so you just go ahead and write all the letters you want to me on company time.

You know I think Mother is worried about me.  She asked in a letter today what kind of a girl would stay out all night with a strange fellow?  Well I don't know what kind of a girl she was if they can be classified but I see no harm in living at night rather than during the day.  After all you can meet a girl at 9:00 in the morning and stay all day and not create any talk.  Well you can assure her that that was the first and last time because I enjoy my sack time too much to waste it at dances at 4:00 in the  morning and on hard bony old nags which riding schools call horses.  I have had enough of that.

I realize Mary has a birthday soon and it will probably be by when you get this letter but I will try to do something.  I have no idea what I shall get but I am going to town today and will find something nice for her.

I am so glad to hear that she is going to school this fall.  I only hope she has found what she wants.  If she ever needs any money please write and I am sure I can send a gift along that may help her out a little.

Will I must close now and go to dinner.  I am very hungry because I had only a 10 cent breakfast.

With love

Austin

September 17, 1944

Sept. 17, 1944

Dear Mother:

As you see I am back in Phoenix and at Luke again for awhile.  I am back a little ahead of schedule.

I have some very bad news from the Blaisdells.  Erma has come down with the disease called Polio which if something like Infantile Paralysis.  I was out there today and she had awful pains in her legs and arms as well as a bad head ache.  Betty put her to bed and called the Doctors.  He didn't get there till 4:00 PM and immediately called an ambulance.  He said that they had caught the case in the most early stage and I might say I don't know just what that may mean.  I hope they have it in time.

I was called upon to pilot a plane to Texas and back but could not get cleared from Luke because of weather.  We finished gunnery a day ahead and that is the reason they called upon us, meaning me and 3 others.  So seeing we are signed out of Gila Bend and yet not back to Luke we are anywhere we want to be.  I made a fair score in gunnery.  I called it fair even though the authorities think otherwise.  I am an "expert" which means I got better than 180 points.  In fact I got 250 a little more or less.  I believe that the scoring is at fault when they let a poor shot like me get an expert badge.  It is much too easy and the standards should be upped a little.  However I shall take my medal and be satisfied.  I'm not proud.

Well I guess I haven't written all I should, but for the last 10 days or more time has again been scarce. Tomorrow or the next day we see me reporting at 9AM and 2PM again a full fledged member of the "92 Club".

I had a lot of fun Sat.  We were down in operations waiting for a clearance and when we found we couldn't get one we asked if we could take the planes up.  Of course an officer's wish is a command so up we went.  We had a pretty good time for 50 min rat racing and doing acrobatics and a little formation.  When we got down we stopped a command car and requested the W.A.C. driver to take us to our B.O.Q.  We then requested she wait and we used the car to run a few errands around the post.  It sure is a lot of fun having a chauffeur et all.

Life really treats you pretty good if you know how to work it.  I am slowly but surely learning the ropes so pretty soon I should know all the ins and outs.  So until then I will have to sweat out my next assignment.

With love

Austin 

September 17, 1944

Dear Mother:

Here are some more post cards which have very little meaning.  I bought them in Gila Bend but could find only scenes of Phoenix and the country none of Gila Bend.  I guess actually there is too little in the town worth photographing.  Anyway here is the story.  This is a picture of an AT-6 at sunset.  It is what we call a candy ship because of the color of it's nose.  You may wonder if the sunset is real and I must admit that we have many like it this time of year.  We are now getting clouds in the sky I guess the rainy season is at hand.

This is a picture taken on the "main drag". As you see the town is rather large and has lots of color and activity.  This picture was taken in front of the San Carlos Hotel and behind the picture up the street is the "Hotel Westward Ho".  You can see the Hotel Adams which by the way is one of the better hotels.  I doubt if you know what Phoenix is like even now.  {For a current view of this street, click here.}

This picture, as the card says, is taken from an original oil painting which is the case of 50% of the pictures you see stuck up around.  The walls of our mess hall at Gila Bend were lined with such pictures and many cowboy scenes with him doing his routine tasks.  They are all rather nice and definitely depict the country as it was 50 to 100 years ago.

I kind of like to contrast the scenes from cards 3 and 4 because of differences in the ground features.  This card is definitely Ariz. as I see it every day but the Indian seems to be riding in a country foreign to me.  Even so there are not too many trees and too much grass to make it unrealistic.  This desert card had to be included because after all this is Arizona.

With love

Austin

September 9, 1944

Gila Bend

Sept. 9, 1944

Dear Bill:

Enclosed you will find some cartoons.  I hope you get a kick out of them.  They came out of a paper put out each week at Luke.  I hope you get as much fun out of them as I did doctoring them up.

Today I sprayed 400 rounds of 30 cal ammo around the sky and only got 20 hits on the sleeve.  That darn target is sure hard to hit when you are trying.  I don't feel bad about it because there were a lot of scores worse than mine but a lot were better.  As it was I hit nothing the first mission but got 20 the next mission which shows a 100% better scoring record.  You would think that you couldn't miss the darn thing seeing I almost chewed the tail off it a couple times.  I hope to do better tomorrow.  The instructor is going to ride with me so I guess I had better.

One of my friends just finished dictating a letter to me to one of his old flames in Calif.  We asked her for a picture and everything and from what he says we can expect an answer by airmail.  She must be some doll.  I can't understand it because she knows that he is married.  I guess some guys have the old appeal.  By the way how are you and "Dot" getting along.  As for me I still am looking over the field. I hope Mother doesn't worry too much about me and the ladies.  I am not a lady killer yet.

How are you and the hush-hush coming.  We have heard nothing about it lately so you can see I have nothing to write about in that line.

We have some fellows taking the gunnery course here who graduated back in 1942 and have been flying planes around the country ever since.  They are not J.B.'s well we are but have about 2000 hours apiece.  They have flown every type plane in combat and otherwise.  you should see the formation they fly.  It is really close and looks swell.  They are better than a lot of instructors we have here.  As for their shooting they have not done any actual live shooting yet.

I will have to close to go to hit the sack.

With love

Austin.

September 7, 1944

Thursday.

Sept. 7, 1944

Dear A.P. 

I got a letter from Mother today and she reminded me that I owed you a letter so I am taking this the first chance to write.  We are going to the show tonite so don't expect too much.

Seeing your interests lie in my new schedule down here I will give you a bird's eye view.  We get up at 0600 and have until 0700 to get to the flight line.  We are on the line flying at least 3 hours and quit at 1200. At 1400 we go to ground school which is one big gunnery course.  At 1600 we go to P.T.  At 1800 we go to chow and are done for the day.  We put in a pretty constant 12 hour day but also have a little spare time.

Today we didn't fly because of the excessive wind which ran from 25 to 35 miles an hour and gusty which makes landing the AT6 rather hazardous.  Yesterday we flew 2 missions and had to make two solo landings after 7 weeks of no flying.  We had no accidents so you can see we have the best pilots down here.  The A.T-6 is a hard plane to handle in landing but was doubly so yesterday when we had a cross wind and a very gusty wind at that.  A lot of fellows at Luke Field right now would have piled them up. In fact flying would have been called off up at Luke.  I feel quite happy about the whole thing.

We flew 2 ariel gunnery missions yesterday firing a gun camera instead of ammunition.  It is a good way to save powder and also point out mistakes made during each pass.  In all you make about 15 passes each hour.  All are recorded as soon as you pull the trigger on the guns.  Therefore they can tell if you are leading the target correctly.  I'll sat that we are getting the best flying right now.  Even though I am rather rusty I am having a swell time. 

Gila Bend is no place for a vacation.  We have ants and all kinds of wildlife down here.  It is in the middle of the desert and gets an average of 20 degrees hotter here than at Luke.  However we are beginning to get cool weather so it is not too bad.  If you are willing to work you can have a lot of fun. I certainly will try to make the most of it even though this is a so called "hole in the ground".  It only lasts 10 days.

I have thought a lot about your buying that house in Walden.  Of course if you sold the house in Stoneham and went to live in Walden it would affect all of you a lot more than me and from the point of a good business deal it would be one of the best.  You would be getting a much better house in the exchange. As I say it would mean a lot more to you all at home than it would to me.  However I would hate to think of never living near my old friends again.  We would be in easy motor distance but not walking distance.  I guess it doesn't mean too much to me seeing that in several years my interests will be very much different than they are today or when I left 1 1/2 years ago. Maybe this would be a good chance to get away from a crowd and get into a new bunch.

I will have to close now and go to the show.

With love

Austin