July 19, 1945

San Marcos

July 19, 1945

Dear Esther:

Well here is the letter you have been expecting.  I suppose I am a little slow but really I am just short of time.  Most letter writing breaks into my social life and you can't have that.  We are going to have some movies here in class now so I have a lot of time while they try to figure out how the contraption works.

We are scheduled to fly tonight but not many fellows will show up. Most of them went on sick call and are off flying for a couple of days.  That means we will only have to fly a couple of hours instead of the regular 4.  

Pop wrote and said you went to see Grandma recently.  I wish I could get to see her again but this darn leave situation is a pain in the neck.  I guess Grandma would like to see me too.

The moves are all over.  They were a couple of U.S. propaganda films about Japan.  You have never seen them and probably never will.  They are called "Our Enemy Japan" narrated by Joseph C. Grew. It was the 4th time I had seen the picture so you can imagine I was slightly bored to say the least.  I just wish someone would wise up and burn some of the films everyone in the army has seen 4 times.  I guess they are saving them for the kids they draft, so they can bore them awhile.

You should have seen the wonderful certificate I got from the civilian defense which by now much be pretty well gone by.  Anyway probably Pop got the same thing saying that they were "grateful for my patriotic service and loyalty during World War II".  I showed it to everyone and the consensus of opinion was that I should be able to go to heaven with all the big dogs now.  Maybe I should just get out of the Army I am needed so badly at home.

Oh yes, by the way, there is a way to get around this leave deal.  So far 10 fellows have left.  Each one has given 3 stock excuses, either their wife had to go home to have a baby and that they had to take her, or that they were going to get married, or that a long lost half brother is coming home after 3 years in the So. Pacific and they want to see him.  Now which one should I use?

Each week I get the paper and look at all the news from the servicemen.  It seems that all the kids younger than I am are getting into the war and getting pretty ribbons while I sit on my dead fanny here in Texas.  You should get a ribbon for being stationed here but they won't hear of such a thing.  All you ever see in the papers around here is how Texas and the United states are winning the war.   They sure think it is a great state.  What I was going to say is; what am I going to tell my kids and their kids when they ask what I did in the great war?  I will have to make up a good story and stick to it.

I guess everyone has noticed that I have a box number.  They had such a mess over at the mail section when they had to go through a whole stack of mail just to find my one little mangy letter that they decided to make boxes.  Now you can go in and look in your box and if no mail, they don't have to look through a stack of mail.  By the way I was only kidding about the one letter, I really get more than I write and am thankful for it.

I always get letters from Pop but seldom write.  The same is true with Mother but I write to Mother  little more frequently.

Well I have got to cut this gab and scram.  I don't know where or what I will do until 7:30 when we fly but I guess I can find something.

Mother has a birthday coming up on the 1st of Aug. is that right.  Anyway if I send anything it will be on the First.

With love

Austin

June 11, 1945

San Marcos

June 11, 1945

Dear Mother:

I got your first letter addressed to San Marcos today.  It was the first piece of mail to this new address.

Yes I have received a lot of mail lately but mostly because they messed up my mail box.  They had been putting my mail in the wrong box or they had been reading off the wrong names and putting it in my box so that I wasn't getting the mail.  It finally got straightened out and then I had a whole raft of mail.

They are now trying to make navigators out of us.  We are going through the regular course down here.  We are going to get another pair of wings if we complete the course.  We are not going to get very much time in the AT-7 except in studying navigation.  There is nothing in AT-7 training that can be very beneficial except that I have never flown a twin engine ship.  It will be good experience for me but for a lot of others it means nothing.  Our training in Ardmore was considered completed when we left so this is not extended training or anything like that.  It is just a navigation course because they have nothing better for us to do.

They have a very large pool here of pilots and navigators.  Most all are combat crews such as I and they are here "spinning their wheels" waiting to be sent to B29s or B24s or anything which will eventually lead to overseas.  We are permanently stationed on this field  to take this course which may mean most anything.  Anyway this course is not appreciated so it is not doing much good.  We are just going over stuff we have had before and no one is very serious about it.  No one wants to be a navigator so do not try to do the work.  I just wish they would give me a flying job so I could work everyday and then I would be happy.  I have no desire to go to school anymore.

Bill Sampert and I went to Dallas Sat and got back this morning at 1200.  Of course we stayed with his folks and they were swell to me.  They try to stuff me and fill me up so much that I can hardly see.  We went swimming and Bill hit his lip on his knee and cut it open so much so that it took 3 stitches to put him together.  His poor mother broke down when she saw him and almost had a fit.  She is much too nervous and worries too much about her one and only.  I believe if he ever gets married and leaves home his mother will have an awful hard time.  When I compare mothers I am awful glad that you don't worry too much and are not so nervous.  At least I hope you don't get as upset as Mrs. S. got over such a trivial thing.

I suppose I could write a lot more but I want to write to Mary so you can read her letter too and get all the latest news.  I guess really I haven't a lot to say except that I could tell you about this field but even that hasn't much of interest.  It is just another training field but a little worse because it is in the training command.

Well I have a letter to C. Davies to get off so I will try to do that now if I can.  I have heard a couple of "POPs" on the radio lately and they are very good.

With love

Austin

January 19, 1944

Ryan Field

Tucson Ariz.

Jan. 19, 1944

Dear Mother:

I got your letter yesterday and was very pleased as usual.  It only takes 4 days for mail to come along now instead of the regular 5 to Calif.  Yes we are a little nearer home but there still seems to be a lot of desert between me and home.

Letters never meant too much to me before I got to Santa Ana because I still felt that I was near home but when the mail took so long in coming it began to mean  a lot.  Yesterday, although I didn't fly, around noon time I was tired and felt worn out.  I felt as if something was on my mind but I couldn't find out what it was.  When I got the letter at noon mail call I lost a lot of the tired feeling and began to feel good again.  It seems rather strange what a letter will do but it is no exaggeration to say that the longer you are away the more important the mail becomes.  It has a lot to do with morale.  When you are under tension the way we are to put out our best for only one hour a day the moments we can get away from it all help a lot lot to cure the tired feeling.

Now as for the interestingness of my letters I am sure I could not say as I only write them and get too little time to read them.  Therefore you must find many many mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and general silly errors.  {Graciously edited out by the transcriber.} Anyway they may convey some of  the ideas that come into my head and some of the things I see along the way.  

My training is coming along on schedule as far as I know.  We have progressed far enough so that I am now learning to land.  Today I made 4 landings and take offs.  None were any too hot but I guess the instructor hasn't given up hope for me.  We had a very strong wind at 300' and diminished until the ground wind was practically nil.  This required a number of changes in the flying altitude. (We just got some "good" news.  We are going to be restricted to the past for 2 more weeks.  That means that I won't see any of Arizona for another 2 whole lousy (such language) week ends.)  Oh Well!  Tomorrow we will do landings again I guess and they would be done under better circumstances if we can help it.

I have learned the procedure for many of the elementary maneuvers but have 2 more to go before I have a 20 hour check flight.  I have only 0509 hours put in all ready so I don't think a check flight after that time will offer any great obstacles.

I should tell you something about my instructor.  He is about 5'4" tall and is really a shrimp beside me and the other tall fellows who fly with me.  I don't know whether his teaching us is an accident or a design of the high ups.  You would think that the big fellows would be taught by someone somewhere their size.  However he makes up for his size in his flying because he can really make a plane perform for him.  He must have infinite patience to teach a new bunch of "dodo's" each 2 mos.  Of course he loses patience once in a while and he bangs the controls around a little but if you don't take everything he says to heart you can learn from his impatient moments.  They always say a lot of things they don't really mean and try to impress you with others because in the future your life will depend upon what you retain from all you are told.  They are really trying to get you "on the ball" and I might say they really know the right methods.  If not they would not have the important job they hold.  If anyone learns to fly safely he can figure that his life will later be saved by what has been told and taught him by the very unglorified "Primary Instructors".

Some one has brought the "mumps" with them from Santa Ana and that is why we will be restricted to the post for 2 more weeks.  I guess I can save some money again.  I have about $50 that is burning a hole in my pocket and I guess that before the next restrict is up that you will get the money to put in the bank for me.  In 2 weeks we will get paid again so I won't need the 50.  I rather wish I could spend the money because I get so little enjoyment out of it if I just send it home.  It's going to be a long war yet so even though I should save more I don't have to save it all.

I wrote to Mary the other day so I hope she enjoys her new job, I guess I didn't know if she really had it or not.  I hope she can have some fun this winter.

I wrote to Mabel (a card) the other day and told her not to get too mad at me.  So she thinks I have changed by getting to fly.  Well my change may be apparent when I get home but right here I don't see much difference.  I may be browner and a lot heavier but aside from that I can see little difference.  I may not be so peace loving as I used to be and I might be getting a little wild but I guess I haven't changed so much that you won't recognize me.

With love

Austin    (Mr. Hyde?)

P.S. Did I forget to write anything.

June 17, 1943

Jefferson Barracks

Missouri

June 17, 1943

Dear Mother;

My morale has come up 100%.  I got 3 letters today and they sure looked good.  I got them this morning at 11:00 mail call.  I expect that I would have received it yesterday at 4:00 but we had no mail call.  We are also over the typhoid shots and I feel a lot better.

About that watch I spoke about, I saw it in the main P.X.  It is a 17 Jewel Swiss movement and looks exactly like two other watches I have seen that cost $50 and $45.  The only trouble is that I haven't enough money as it costs $26.50 and I have about $20.  I may put some money down on it and send for the rest from the bank account.  However don't send any money till I send for it.

I forgot to write that I saw Harold V. {ed note - a friend who attended the same church} Sunday and he was sure glad to see me.  I almost missed him as he was about to go to town.  He looked swell in his uniform and a new pair of shoes.  He lives in a two story bunk house where as we live in little 8 man huts.  He is in the second story and the hottest part of it.  He seems to be having a swell time even thought he hates this heat and weather more than I do.  He has only 2 Mass. boys with him where as I have 50 fellows from Mass. with me.  They are swell fellows.  The fellows in the hut represent a cross section of America; they represent the major religious faiths and you can imagine some of the arguments we get into every so often.  But all the same I would not trade them for someone else.

When you wrote (we don't write about him!) I forgot and didn't realize just what you meant until I had reread the letter a couple times.  I still haven't forgotten him (you know that).  I know he won't know me when I get home.

I feel terribly ashamed to say that I don't miss home.  I do however feel sometimes that tomorrow I will be going home and when I realize I am not, I wish I could.  The chief reason is that we are busy from 5:15 a.m. till anytime after 9:00 p.m. when lights are put out.  We have a definite schedule to follow until 4:00 and then the time is our own to write letters, do our laundry shine our shoes, make our bed, take a bath and a multitude of other things that have to be done.  We can always go to the movies or go to the P.X. or go to the amphitheatre and see a Broadway show.  I saw Hellzapopping (spelled wrong) and thought that it was kind of corny.  {Watch this scene from the show, Hellzapoppin'.  It's probably the most athletic and energetic Lindy Hop I've ever seen!}

This business of writing letters is some job.  I would like to write to all the fellows, Mabel, Grandma, and Grandpa Rounds and everyone but I can hardly write more than 3 letters a night, so if you see or write to any of them, tell them that I am thinking of them and will write as soon as I find time.  I am missing Chow now and will have to sneek in late.

I have something else on my mind but I can't remember what it is so I will sign off.

With love,

Your Pvt. Austin.

{ed. note - The paragraph about "(we don't write about him)" was so confusing to me that I went through the letters his mother had written him to see if I could find out what she was talking about.  In her letter she describes seeing young robins in the garden.  The next day she found one dead and guessed that (we don't write about him) had killed it.  Is it possible that they had a cat or dog with the personality of Lord Voldemort (You-Know-Who)?}