March 11, 1945

Mar. 11, 1945

Dear A.P.

I guess I have kind of neglected my writing to you of late so here is one going your way.

Well here it is Sunday again and nothing special in the way of a schedule.  Most every Sunday so far has been a day of rest with no flying but next week we have a change.  Next Sunday we fly the second mission in the afternoon.  That means no rest on the one day a week you want to have off.  Well I am rather used to looking at a schedule rather than a calendar.

So far we have had no real hard work but rather a full schedule.  We usually get up at 0530 or 0630 in order to have breakfast and get to class on time.  Our first class is at 0700 and they continue till 1700. we then have the rest of the day to ourselves.  Sometimes it means getting to bed right away to meet a formation at 0230 the next day.  It makes you rather tired after the second day.

The other day we flew the second mission.  We got up at 0230 and went to briefing at 0330.  Our take off time was 0530 but we got off at 0600 instead.  Our mission was to have the navigator checked out on cross countries.  I had to file a flight plan for the route because we went along the airlines.  I had to call each station on the way.  The experience was brand new to me and along with my other duties made me very nervous.  We of course went to the line in the dark.  Nothing seemed to go right.  It was our first solo hop with the crew and they were very dependent upon me.  We had no flashlights due to my own negligence which made things all the worse.

The lights on the ramp shine in your eyes rather than on the ramp and made me almost night blind.  Then the lights in the navigators comp. shined up in the pilots compartment making it almost impossible to see the instruments.  Then we had a heavily loaded ship, not exactly overloaded but about 4000 # from the maximum.  I had never flown a ship like that.  Then I have an engineer who knows practically nothing about the ship so when the lights went out he didn't have any idea what was wrong.  I had to get the lights going myself.

Then they have good sized hills all around this field so that when the ship so heavily loaded didn't climb too well I was almost ready to give up.  I just held on and kept the power on until there was no danger.  For all I know we just made it over the hills but actually we probably went over them with plenty of space to spare.  We couldn't see the ground it was so dark and the light from the navigator's lamp made the instruments unintelligible.  Then we couldn't see any other ships in the air so I half expected to get run down any second.

Then I sighted what looked like a star because it was where stars should have been and found after looking at the instruments that we were in a steep bank.  It rather scared me especially when our airspeed was so slow and anything can happen in a heavy ship with the nose too high.  I finally got things righted and not until later did I realize what a strain it had been.

I never was so glad to see the sun come up as I was that day.  For that 2 hours before day break I had felt like I was running through a field full of ditches and gullies full of barbed wire fences in the middle of a moonless night with my arms full of high explosives. I felt like letting go of everything and letting the stuff explode.  Sun brought security again and a feeling of knowing what was going on.  I finally did let my pilot take over and went back to have some coffee.  I drank it black and shook so bad that it almost spilled.  Finally after 6 hours in the air I got back to the base and finally to the room where I was too tired to roll over.  I was almost shaking all over.  I guess I fell to sleep and slept 3 hours and woke up refreshed.  However the feeling of futility of that morning will last for a long time.

I really like my job and get the biggest kick in the world out of it but it gets so nerve wracking at times that I only wish I could be home in bed rather than making little moves and decisions which effect the lives of 9 others besides my own.  I am not afraid to make a wrong decision but I only hope I make them on the ground rather than in the air where it is so important.  Maybe I will be an old man when I get home at least I will have aged a little.  However I believe everyone will still recognized the kid in me.  I will know that I am ready to settle down for a while and live a peaceful life with no responsibilities for awhile.  I guess it will be rather hard.

I don't know if I should write this or not and get everyone's hopes high but if we finish flying ahead of schedule we get an eight day leave.  It will mean getting home again for a short time which will be a break.  However I am not planning on any such thin to happen so please don't you at home plan on it. It is just something to think about.  It sure would be swell.

I hope you are saving for that plane and not just thinking about it.  I am sure I will have enough money before this thing is over to have one so I think we had better have a plane fund like the camp fund for the future.  I have a government check for $144 here and a check for $350 coming next month so a lot is going home next month.  Someone besides me had better start saving.

What has happened to Bill?  He never writes though I hardly blame him but I would like to hear from him.

I guess I have written enough for 2 letters now.

With love

Austin