June 19, 1944

Luke Field

June 19, 1944

Dear A.P.

I hope I can write a letter on these two sheets of paper because it is all I have now and can get no more till tomorrow.

First let me say "Happy Birthday".  I hope this letter comes somewhere on time.  I don't think I know for sure how old you are but I guess it is close to 60 years.  That seems to me to be a long way.  I guess you said in your last letter that you were close to 60 so I guess I am right.  I can hardly imagine you as that old because I used to get the idea that after 60 you retired and looked old and brittle but I guess you kind of pushed through.  I guess you are going to keep right on just as your father has.  Well Congratulations and best wishes for next year.

I'm sorry I can't get a card to send but this will have to take the place.  I don't leave the past weekends because I have nothing special to take me away.  I go to the swimming pool and get a good tan and drink Root Beer all afternoon.  I also see 2 movies so my weekends are very enjoyable.  I am also saving a lot more money which I may use later.

Mother wrote and sent along some pictures.  I guess you know what I am talking about.  I got quite a kick out of them.  Everyone looks just as they did a year ago.  If you have any more taken please send them along.

I am glad you are getting so much fun out of Real Estate.  I doubt that you could interest me right now but maybe after I get home again.  You have got to work hard so we can have a plane when I get home.  By the way what kind of a radio license did you get and just what can you use it for? Please write something about it in your next letter.

Of course you know we use radio every day and it doesn't mean much to me.  I guess your radio deal is a lot different from mine.  I probably couldn't get a license to talk over it.

I have finished my instruments and got a instrument certificate saying I can fly in instrument weather and make take offs in weather with 500' ceiling and 1 mi visibility.  It means I can fly an kind of a plane in the "soup".   I call it quite a victory.  Right now I am back trying to learn to land the AT6 right and do other basic maneuvers.  I like my instructor very much and get along pretty well with him.

Yes, I got my watch all right.  Thank you very much.  I hate to say anything that might worry people but I had the watch only 2 days and lost the crystal out of it.  It had to go to the PX to get a new one.  It also lost 10 min that day so I don't know if it was due to the lost crystal or the watch.  I will see pretty soon.  I guess it is all right.  I almost feel like getting a cheap shock water proof watch for flying.  However I will see how this one stands the strain.

Mother wrote the other day and sent a clipping advertising T.W.A. 

(This is borrowed paper)

Well she has a very good idea and the expense doesn't bother me but I would hate to get grounded in Kansas City on the way back and have 12 hours to get to my next post.  It would be swell to come home but I would be foolish to try to come home in 10 days.  I might show up.

Flying is coming along all right I guess.  I am no hot pilot yet but I guess I still have an even chance of getting those silver wings.  Just think I have spent a year of hard work to get something everyone strives or wishes they could strive.  More fellows my age would like to be in my shoes.  I can see wha they want but I doubt if they can imagine the work it was and still is.  I have about 8 weeks to go and still have hopes.  A lot of fellows have given up and are now dropping out.  They all seem so tired that after the first E ride they give up.  After they are definitely out they seem to again come to live.  It seems that way with everyone.  Everyone is almost worn out.  Everyone is tired, all need a vacation but has 8 more weeks to go.  They have washed out 3 of our flight.  I hope they get no more.  They are bout to get another because he washed out a plane today.  Well it seems to be the breaks I guess.

I must close now.  Let me say Happy Birthday again and many happy returns.

With love

Austin

My address is just as you find it on the envelope.

April 24, 1944

War Eagle Field

April 24, 1944

Dear Mother:

I guess you heard the Kay Kyser program the other night. {Link is not the to actual program, but to another from the same year in DC}.  It sure was a lot of fun to put on.  Everyone here enjoyed it immensely.  Kay Kyser really has quite a sense of humor.  Also his program is well gone over and planned before he goes on the air.  There was nothing hap-hazard about the way it was put on.  The contestants were the only unknown quantities and one didn't even seem to be a quantity at all.  I refer to L. Pounds who by the way is a big wingding around here.  He had himself put on the program even if he didn't know what goes on half the time.  He really has one of the slowest functioning minds I have seen.  I suppose I could do no better myself.

Kay Kyser

The fellow Shearin flies with me.  He is from Tenn. which you found out from the program.  He is a great big fellow and is some character.  I guess he is just a typical southerner.

Of course the program was full of over statements about the country and the weather.  However once you have been here and know a conditions in other parts of the U.S. you are very glad to leave.  Not that it is dusty all the time but we live in a kind of funnel here so that 3/4s of the time we get pretty strong winds.  The ranges of mts around tend to send the wind down this valley.  All the program amount to was a lot of fun for everyone.

I have had 3 different instructors for transition flying already and have had one instructor for instruments and will get another next week.  Most of the men have taken the chance of getting into the A.T.C. rather than get another job when this school closes next month.  I guess I am just hard on them anyway.  I lean a lot from each one because each has quite a different style of flying.  Each one harps on different details and therefore I should get most of them pretty well straightened out.  However what I learn helps and of course hinders in that each time I spend too much time learning a new technique and not getting some of the essentials such as chandelles and lazy 8's and acrobatics.  However they are not as important as just plain flying ability.

I think I am pretty nearly ready for check rides so my career in the Air Corps will be determined pretty soon.  I feel sure that the next 40 hours will put me over the hump.  They are getting rid of men in Basic pretty fast and when they get to advance they are too valuable to wash out for no consequence.  I am sorry to hear that Fred B. was washed but that is just one of those things.  

We have the floor to clean now so I will close.

With love

Austin

February 25, 1944

Ryan Field

Tucson Ariz.

Feb 25, 1944

Dear Mother:

I am going to try to dash you off a letter in what remains of a half hour.  I am trying to write in bed before lights out so try to decipher it the best you can.

I have got a bad cold and in between barks I will see what I can do.  I don't dare go to the dispensary because once they get you in that door you have a heck of a time to get out.  I can't afford to lose any time now because I have closet to 50 hours and the check rides start agin.  Also if I lose any time right now I am pretty sure of being left here another month.  That can't happen because things are running along pretty smoothly now.

 By the way I am sure of staying for the rest of my training out here in the west.  You see I have a fair chance of getting all the way through now that is unless something comes up we don't anticipate.  Therefore start saving your money so you can see me get my wings if I get them.  I guess that I am looking quite a way ahead but today I feel pretty good about my flying.

No much exciting happens around here.  I guess I wrote about the Corsair that came in for last weekend.  The pilot was a Marine Captain and the brother of one of the cadets here.  That kid sure had a swell time strutting around with his brother.  We all had a good look at the plane and you can bet we were all thrilled to get so close to such a plane.  All the instructors seemed to have the look as if they wished they could be flying Corsairs instead of teaching dumb cadets the fundamentals.  I guess everyone wants to join the Navy and fly Corsairs now.

We have a few mishaps around here such as broken "props" etc. but nothing else happens.  The lower class is not yet soloed out and so things are quiet at that end of the field.  Some of our boys still ground loop.  But not many of them.  Cross wind landings is what kept me from soloing in 6 hours and I think I have now caught on to them that they will never screw me up again.  I have at least accomplished that.

My bunk mate is leaving tomorrow for the A.T.C.  He washed out because of dangerous flying and for other reasons we don't know.  I am sure going to miss him.  We have had a lot of fun together.  He is from Kentucky and isn't much of a hillbilly.  He had a tough break.  I must stop now.

With love

Austin

Have you received your box?

September 5, 1943

Beloit College

Beloit Wis

Sunday Sept, 5

Dear Mother

Well! it must seem like a long time since you last heard from me and it also seems like a long time sine I last wrote.  It was last Saturday that I wrote last and at that time I was about to go on "open post".  I don't remember what I wrote so I will begin by just writing the news.

Thank you ever so much for the box which I received on Tuesday when I was CW.  What's that?  It means charge of quarters and it is a little job every has to do at some time or another.  It consists of a period of duty from 1700 to 2400 when I get relieved by another man who works till 0800.  You are in charge of the barracks and your duty are trivial but numerous.  You ring the bells for formations and study periods as well as for bed and lights out; you collect the mail and make hourly inspection to see that everything is in order and that all the lights are out and no one is A.W.O.L.  The candy came in very handy and tasted very good about 2400.  I was all alone and you can bet I took very good care of it.  My first thought on receiving it was that it must have meant a lot to use sugar for such a purpose.  I just want to say that I really appreciated it and was very glad to receive it.  The powder has come in handy alright and I am glad I have it.  And the film was a very unexpected surprise.  Maybe I'll have to send some more pictures home now.  I suppose I will get a letter pretty soon with your reaction on the last picture.   I am saving the film for the flying field which incidentally is in next weeks training.

Next week and the following weeks are the ones we have been waiting for all this time.  Next Tuesday and for several (4) weeks in a row we will fly 2 weeks in the afternoon and 2 weeks in the morning.  We have really been waiting for this.  The usual procedure was to fly all day for 2 weeks and then the next flight fly 2 weeks and then both leave together. Well they seem to think that this arrangement of flying half time for a month is better.  I rather think that the other system is better because you can concentrate on the thing night and day whereas we will also have studies during the day as well as fly.  Any way we are glad to get started.

We don't know much about what we are getting into.  We do know that the planes are "cubs", red in color except for 2 yellow, they fly over town and that is really a lot of fun.  Some of the fellows have some flying time and others like me are very enthused over the thought.  I will write about it as soon as I can and you may be sure that I will find time for a short note in the middle of the week.

Another shipment of fellows left yesterday.  With them left the "wash outs" of the present flights.  Two of our boys have washed out.  A fellow by the name of Harmsen from N.J. just wasn't what they wanted.  He just wasn't on the ball.  In his short stay here he had piled up 160 tours for everything in the book.  He had been gigged for everything from insubordination to a dirty floor in his room.  He was the most untidily dressed person you ever saw and only took a bath when the fellows told him that he was going to get GI'ed or else.  He just broke all the rules and thought he could talk his way out.  But what a mind.  He had one of the most intelligent minds I have ever seen.  He was really a very good student even though he asked too many questions and made the class very conscious of him and his questions that were off the subject but had a connection to it.  He didn't have discipline and will never have it.  They are sending him to radio school and the Commandant of Students here thinks he will do a good job there.  He will end up as a radio man gunner and that is really too bad for a fellow with his ability and lack of judgment.   

The other fellow was a very mediocre person but knew what he wanted.  He had just as much chance of becoming a pilot as anyone but blew his top to Lt. Manning when he couldn't see his wife and mother whom he hadn't seen for 18 mos and had come 2300 miles

Somehow he ended up with a blank page in the middle of the letter!

to see him.  It was hardly necessary because he would only have to wait several days to see them.  When he was asked at that meeting with the Lt. if he liked it, he told him no and told him what he didn't like.  The Lt. said that he would see what he could do about it so this gentleman will get back his Sgt. rating and go into the ground crew.

We moved last week into Haven Hall about ten yds from N. Dorm. We have a room overlooking the river and a pretty good place to be.  We get a fine breeze all day and the sun shines in all afternoon.  The one trouble is that the breeze also brings a lot of dirt and grime from the factories and the rail road track on the other side of the river.  Even so we like the room better than the one we had.  Of course my address is not changed.

I got one of the biggest compliments of my life yesterday.  I got an English paper back that was a test.  I thought that I had done a very poor job on it but across the top were these words, "Intelligent Paper".  The English teacher and I will get along very well together from now on.  My spelling is not too good but I almost passed the last test.

I also tied for having the second best paper in history.  That test was rather tough but I got the second highest mark in the class.  Now I have about run out of news and shall reread some of your letters to see what you would like to hear.

I almost forgot the newspapers even though they are the main thing cluttering up the place.  I was sure glad to get them and some news from the "home town".  All the fellows got a kick out of my picture.  They thought that I was a lot fatter now than I was.  Well that is a fact.  I weighed somewhat over 180 lbs.  That means that I have gained 25 lbs since that picture and about 20 since June 7.  I almost think that I might get fat.

About that Methodist Church I knew I had to go to church soon or I wouldn't know what to do when I did.  This church was the nearest to the campus and the only church I know.  They gave us a little card to fill out and it was from this that they sent what ever you got.  I did get an invitation to dinner but it just so happens that I had also signed up for a picnick at the swimming pool and I didn't want to miss it.

Our schedule is full until Oct 2 and then we are expected to move to Santa Ana.  Everyone from this college has gone to Santa Ana and I see no reason why we should be the first to change the procedure.  Of course I don't know what we will get for "open post" out there but you better send the information about the addresses out that way.

I got a letter form Mrs. Weeks this week.  It was really a card with a message on the back.  It was a very attractive card and I appreciated it very much.  Please thank her for me. By the way I will tell William in his letter but you can also.  Don't forget because it was very nice of her to think of me.

I got two cards form William from "Old Orchard" and I was surprised to receive them.  He seems to enjoy life quite a lot now adays.  I will write to him too as soon as possible.  I liked Mary's letter a lot.  I thought I had lost it but I finally found it in another "pile of stuff" (this is impossible).

As for Bill Cunningham keep sending them along.  I enjoy his stuff very much.

So the "refugee" arrived.  Well what do you know about that?  I hope she fits the baby carriage.  Nancy Jean is kind of a nice name.  I rather like it.  Give "Bertha" and the baby my love.

You talk about a meat and butter famine.  Out here there is still plenty of everything.  We seem to get the best of everything.  We get get Beef and Gravy 2 suppers and one dinner.  We get cold ham once a week.  We always get a stew once a week to finish up the leftovers.  We get one pot of butter a meal and all the cream we want and all the milk.  You can drink.  The Beloit people do not seem to be short of meat or butter but they are much nearer the supply than you are.  I am (was) going to send you a few interesting things I found in the paper today but as I read it I can only find one little item.  This may interest you the way it did me. I have never seen anything like it in Mass. papers.  Out here you see a great number of people wearing these hay fever masks.  It seems that the ailment is very prevalent out here.

Tell Mary that the service men out here are well taken care of in the way of girl friends.  I guess some of the fellows have more than one in more than one place.  My roommmate has a girl back home and you ought to hear some of his letters.  His mother and sister came from N.Y. to see him this week and that is where I spent most of my time (with them).  We really had a swell time.

I have to close now.

With love,

Austin (the hot Pilot)

{Some of the clippings his mother sent from the local newspaper!  They don't write them like this anymore!}

Funny that they don't tell you the Coast Guardsmans name.