September 6, 1945

Sept. 6, 1945

Dear Mother:

I don't suppose you actually did leave home last Tuesday as you said you might in your letter.  If you had left I am sure I would have heard from you by now and I could plan but I am just assuming that you are at home.

I have no idea how far you could of gotten with your plans but from your letter I got the idea you were coming and to get ready.  So I did the best I could in the short notice I had.

Maybe you all are thinking I am making excuses but you have not seen San Antonio.  It is the closest thing to a mad house I have ever seen.  It is so crowded it surprises me where the people all sleep.  The streets are crowded all of the time and everything looks like Saturday night.

Hotel reservations have to be made 2 weeks in advance unless they have a cancellation.  All of the motor courts and motels are full and I believe that the park benches are pretty well taken care of.  It is next to impossible to eat unless you go in at odd hours.

I had no idea you would decide in a hurry to come or even had an idea that you would take me up on it.  That is why last Friday I took off without checking the mail or anything.  I did not return until Tuesday late and found all the telegrams (one) and the letters.  I should have wired you right away but decided to call on the plane.  I placed the call at 1730 and it finally was through at 2330 and they rang for several minutes with no result.  It would have been 12:30 at home and I don't suspect anyone was up.  But I wish someone could have got up and answered because I felt it was very important, so much so that I sat on marble stairs for 6 hours.

Now I don't know if your plans went so bad that you don't want to try again or not but here is the deal.  Tell me in time to make reservations in Austin which will be a lot more comfortable.  I can really get things fixed up then.  Also I can get a V.O.C.D. and get off for 6 days or more.  It all has got to be arranged but please don't try to get in touch with me on a weekend especially a holiday weekend.

Now if you have left Stoneham and are already home again just disregard this and tear it up.

I went to my first and I hope it is my last military funeral today.  A very good friend and a swell fellow was killed in a crash last Friday.  He was my roommate here and I had known him all the way from B17 transition at Roswell.  He was from Alaska and because of that he was buried at Ft. Sam Houston not far from here.  The Army really did a swell job and made it a very impressive ceremony. His name was Varnell, you may have remembered the name from some of my letters.  He, Bill Ayers, and I had been triple dating together for some time.  His girl in Austin was very broken up; I guess they had planned to get married but maybe it is a good thing they didn't.  Well so ends the tale of another who gave his all but will be remembered only by his friends and relatives.  This sure is a rough life if you don't take it easy and take too many chances.  I am going to have a lot of grand children.

Well Addie Mae and I had a little misunderstanding last Monday.  So I don't know what is going to happen.  I wrote her a letter that was a little on the nasty side so I guess my future in Austin is all taken care of for me.  She is such a good kid I hate to hurt her but sometimes I get so mad I could lick wild cats and I happened to write a letter while in such a mood.

Theodore Roosevelt saying to William Howard Taft, "I can lick my weight in wildcats, C.Q.D!", and Taft replying, "Oh, that’s nothing; I can eat my weight in ’possums, P.D.Q!" 1906.

Well I guess I have written enough.  I wish you had come because I am sure we could have managed.  

With love

Austin

July 18, 1945

July 18, 1945

San Marcos

Dear Mother:

I really don't feel like writing but I guess you are wondering what has happened to your little wanderer. I'm sorry I don't write more but it seems to be just one of those things.

I had intended to write Monday night but I got side tracked.  I probably have written that I have a pair of swim fins but I don't think I told you that I also have a pair of underwater goggles.  You know with the combination you can have all kinds of fun chasing the little underwater creatures.  If you are quick enough you can catch pollywogs and things like that.  But as I was saying I got side tracked the other night.  We decided that if you can see those fish underwater why not try our luck at spearing them; so we made some fish spears.

Goggles have come a long way, thankfully.

We went down to Sub-depot and borrowed and begged until we had what we wanted.  We made the spears out of steel rods and made brass heads for them.  We put detachable long handles on them and had a lot of fun making them collapsible, so you can put them in a hand bag.  We just had a lot of fun.  Now you know why this letter is late.

Well I guess you know I am still spending my weekends in Austin.  Addie Mae and I really have a lot of fun together.  We go out Saturday night and go dancing or just go to a show or something.  Sundays I go up to their apartment and they cook dinner for me.  I lay on the sofa until dinner is ready with my shoes off and with a T-shirt listening to the radio after a really wonderful meal, they can really cook, back to the sofa I go and listen to the radio some more and go to sleep while they do the dishes.  Boy! what a life, almost like home.  Maybe you had better look out before you lose a son in the process.  It's funny though that I can have so much fun and just feel about them as I do any other girl.  I doubt if I shall ever get married.  I have more fun finding nice girls that can cook and have big soft sofas in the front rooms.

Just because it's funny.

Well we have to fly this afternoon.  They are kind of  half hearted by putting us through the AT-7 transition school here.  We are to get 10 hours a month in these sparrows and maybe get checked out. We go up and shoot landing and go out of the area to do single engine procedures.  There is not much to flying this plane but landing it is a horse of a different color.  The controls are so touchy and the least bit of movement has a terrific effect on the ship.  Also we are supposed to make wheel landings and a good wheel landing is a bouncy landing.  In fact if you can land in 3 bounces, you are considered a hot pilot.  I am not yet a hot pilot.  They are a lot of fun to fly for a change, but the time doesn't mean much as far as we are concerned.

It is time for dinner but I don't feel much like eating.  Breakfasts don't agree with me too well and make me feel groggy.  About dinner time I feel like I have rocks in my stomach and not hungry at all.  Maybe it is because I don't get much exercise.  However I drank a couple bottles of beer last night and that may be the cause.  I was just thinking that the next time Pop rather jokingly asks me if I want a beer I will take him up on it.  I don't really like beer but you acquire a taste for such things just to be sociable.

I was going to send you some pictures but the young ladies in Austin want to see them for some reason so you will have to wait a few more days.  How mothers suffer.

I heard the "Pops" Saturday night and heard them say it was the last one this year.  I guess I was halfway scheduled to be there rather than listening 1500 mi away.  But I suppose you couldn't do everything but I could close my eyes and visualize things.  Maybe I can get home when they are out on the Charles.  That could be fun also.

It seems to me that Pop is rather busy.  I just wonder what is becoming of all the money.  Maybe he is salting it away so he can retire but I'll bet he has got some scheme up his sleeve.  As for me I am going to buy a big car and an airplane after the war and the way it seem stop be going I will be out of a job very soon.  I hope so, so I can get back to B.U. and flunk another accounting course.

So William is an old Foran man.  Well I guess he can tell you just how the thing works which is a lot more than I could do.  My knowledge of Foran is limited to what happens when you twist this and that knob and why this and that happens when this and that do-dingest goes wrong.

I am afraid my letter is getting long and boring besides I ran out of ink.  Maybe I had better call it quits and go eat anyway.  I have got to write some more letters but I haven't got time.  My mail piles up, I have to write to Lenny, besides Esther and Mary and Pop always like to hear from me, besides all my other fans around town.  Maybe I can get a private secretary to mimeograph them off.

With love

Austin

How would you like to come to Texas?

June 26, 1945

San Marcos Field

June 26, 1945

Dear Mother:

I have had several letters from Stoneham in the last few days so I will write one for a change.

This is the last of the paper for at least of the envelopes.  It has lasted quite a while.  If you remember I bought it up in Lincoln right near the end of our stay there.  I guess it has lasted longer than any paper I have had.  Maybe I haven't written enough but really it was quite a lot of paper.

I got the clipping last week that came out of Press and everyone got quite a kick out of it.  I will keep it until I get home and then whoever can get his or her hands on it can have it.  That is the first time I have ever seen that particular pose.  I think it is the better of the two.  Anyway the boys thought it was good.

Samput got himself a girl in Austin and so I went on a blind date last Friday night.  She was one of these college girls who goes to a co-educational school to study campusology and for the social contacts.  We had a lot of fun dancing but she didn't act the age she was trying to make out to be.  She wished she were 21 but was only 17.  Tell Mary I am a little disgusted with the 17 year olds also.  It's not that we didn't have fun but that she was trying to impress me with what she knew and talking about all her dates and such stuff.  She had a date Saturday so I don't feel that I have to see her again even though I probably will because Samput wants me to go on a date with  him to Dallas next week when they both will be there.

Saturday was a quiet day with nothing special to do except entertain ourselves.  We went to Austin early and went from one air conditioned theater to the next in an attempt to keep cool.  There wasn't much doing in town so it was a rather weary day.

Sunday I went out to Bergstrom Field, near Austin, which is a troop carrier air base.  They have C46s out there and I went to eat dinner and look around.  I finally wandered down to the flight line and looked over the C46's.  They are one of the largest ships I have ever been in.  They are cargo and troop carrier planes but are often used to tow gliders.  They have enough room in them to transport 44 men with full equipment or 10 tons of supplies.  They can put whole airplanes in them if they find the need.  When I got back to town a young lady stopped me to buy a War Bond but instead she got a date.  She and another girl and sold $4,000 worth of bonds.  They took another fellow and I home and cooked us a meal and topped it off with a peach pie.  We had quite a lot of fun getting the meal which we finally ate at about 11:00 PM.  We all had to be up early Monday so had to leave early.

I started this letter last night but didn't have the energy of finish it.  It is so hot around here I just spend about all the time I can resting or trying to keep cool.  If I had a job to do I am sure I could muster enough strength to do something but as it is I have just about enough energy to get up in the morning .  As Ernie Pyle said, when you have anything to do and it is hot the Air Corp makes a lazy man of you.  We have so little on our mind I doubt if I could ever take a job again. 

Ernie Pyle, war correspondent

Most every day I go swimming at a place called Rio Vista Park in town.  They have a fairly good pool and the water is very clean.  It is spring water and cool.  One of the fellows has a pair of swim fins to put on your feet which are a lot of fun to play with.  You can paddle your feet and not have to use your arms.  However when you use your arms you can really move.  You can do all sorts of things with those fins.  I think I will buy a pair even though they cost $9.00.  I think I can have 9 dollars worth of fun with them.

I have some good news.  I am coming home on leave on the 6th July.  I am going to leave here on the 6th and drive with a buddy as far as possible.  We may get only as far as Dallas or Okla. City but may get to Chicago.  From there I will have to take the train.  Therefore I should be home on the 8th.  That will give me 10 days at home I hope.  It all depends on how long it will take to travel.  Most of the the transportation in Texas is so bad that it could take a day to get out of the state and then 2 more days to get home.  I am hoping to et a ride on an airline but that is almost out of the question.  So you can make all the plans you want.  I only hope we can schedule a few days where I can feel some good cool sea breezes.  Hint, Hint.

Well we are supposed to fly that darn double breasted sparrow this afternoon.  It is going to be a very boring 4 hours which will get me nothing more than flying pay for this month.  Boy this sure is a heck of a life.  I am getting rather tired of it.

Well I have to get to go eat dinner now.  I am not hungry because it is too hot but if I don't eat I might not get home pretty soon.

With love

Austin

June 14, 1945

San Marcos Field

June 14, 1945

Dear Mother:

I received your June 4th letter today.  2 days after the June 6th letter which gives the first letter about 8 days travel time.  It is rather hard to explain how such a thing happens but somewhere things get last.  It also seems rather funny to read some things that are explained in letters you received before.

I got my mail from the central mail room and read it in between classes.  Therefore I leave it all in the classroom.  I forget to bring it back to the barracks here so I can't answer many of the questions you ask.  However I will answer them as I think of them.

Today I am the fire guard in the barracks so I don't take PT this hour so this is a good time to write letters.  Each day one man has to stay in and watch things while everyone else is at P.T. I came up on the roster today.

The Samput's address in Dallas is:
Mrs. W. J. Samput Sr.
4420 Cole Ave.
Dallas Texas.

I am sure she would be glad to hear from you.  She could probably write you a long letter about our escapades up there.  Bill is engaged to a girl in California so is supposed to be behaving himself.  His mother doesn't know that we have dates when we go to Dallas.  Maybe you had better be very diplomatic with her.  Anyway she would be glad to hear glad to hear (my mind is wandering) from you.

Sometimes I wish I had some better transportation but with all the trouble you can have I am glad I can rely on my feet.  One of the fellows bought a 39 Chevrolet the other day and is having trouble already.  He stripped the gears last night and he figures it will cost $70 to get it fixed.  If some day I can find a good deal I might look into it but it will have to be good.  I might buy a motorcycle rather than a car.  But don't worry yet because I am just dreaming again I suppose.

I went to Austin again last night and met a fellow I knew from back in Advance.  He is stationed at a field in Austin and is flying C46's and C47's.  He is in the Troop Carrier command and makes most of his trips in the U.S. to the West or East Coast.  He says he doesn't like it but at least he is getting flying time which is more than we are.  He is the lucky one even though he doesn't think so.

Curtis C-46D Commando

Douglas C-47D Skytrain

This is really awful country to live in.  The bugs and all kinds of flying insects are just everywhere.  We have the biggest, most beautiful cockroaches you have ever seen.  We put down powder but they seem to just get fatter on it.  They don't have many mosquitoes but everything else.  Auto windshields just get plastered with bugs when you drive.  I guess they live well in the hot damp air.  At least we are not in a desert where nothing at all lives.

I have been having laundry troubles lately but I think I will have some clean clothes in a few days.  That is always the trouble when you move, you just have to live in dirty clothes while you wait for clean ones from the laundry.

If you can't read those last few letters it is because we have no writing facilities.

Well so long for a while.

With love
Austin

PS Is William actually getting interested in another girl???

June 2, 1945

Austin Texas

Juen 2, 1945

Dear Mother:

I guess you know by now that "there have been some changes made."  We are in Austin the state capital for a weekend but are stationed at San Marcus, another hole in the ground.  

Well I just can see everyone and hera everyone asking questions but there is really a lot of information.  We left Ardmore last Tuesday on a troop train and had layovers in Forth Worth and a little town called Milana. The trip itself would never take more than 12 hours but the way we went it took 30 but we don't kick because we had a lot of fun at each stop.  Sampert knows people all over this state and we went to see a girl who never knew him.  As it turned out she was married and gone away a year ago.  We went galavanting all over the country between stops and almost missed the train because we had trouble getting a ride.  But we got to San Marcos all right in good order and in fine spirits.

I am now minus a crew.  We are now all split up and everyone has gone to the 4 corners of the South. They have sent us here to a pool because they have nothing better for us to do.  We are destined to get our flying time in AT.7s which is a ship they fly student navigators in.  We will be co-pilots no less until we get time enough or until we go through AT-7 transition.  We are all ready for the airfares and now back in the training command, what a lousy life.

We are enjoying the weekend here in the beautiful capital of Texas.  We took off from the base and will not show up till Monday, we left Friday morning at 10:00 and are making a big weekend of it.  This is all the home of Texas State University and Sam and I are trying to get involved in something.  As luck has it we are not making too much headway except in wearing out our shoes and spending nickels and beating on doors and stuff like that there.  Anyway we are having fun and seeing what there is to see in the town.

Now my new address in San Marcos is 

St. __ L.__ 0-784076

Officers Section                              > It's Easy.

S.M.A.A.F.

San Marcos Texas

Please tell the Independent and everyone what sends mail from town.  Even though I have all the time in the world I may forget someone.  I have too much time on my hands to tell everyone.

This state sure is hot.  I have been all wet as long as I have been here.  Clouds blow over all the time but the sun shines enough to make me wish I were in N.E. where you have rain to cool things off.

I am writing from the Hotel Stephen F. Austin which is of course one of the very best in the city.  It is air conditioned and very cool.  It almost feels comfortable in here.  Our room is on the top floor (16th) and we can see the whole city.  It is rather expensive but we are having the first real vacation in a long time at least it seems that way.  It will probably be one big vacation for awhile now.

The only trouble is that we are back in the Training Command and they are rather strict about regulations.  We all need a little brushing up I guess but it's rather hard to take.  We don't have a colored orderly anymore to clean up so things are really rough.

I suppose everything is rather hum drum with Mary working again and the house empty.  I wish I could come home but there doesn't seem to be much chance of such a thing now. I think I will wait anyway and see what happens.  Maybe I can get a good leave rather than a couple of days.

With love

Austin