August 16, 1943

I know that you just missed my lovely letter last week, but the lights went out before I finished it. They've changed our schedule around. The lights go out earlier but we end up with an hour and a half less sleep. With all our night flying last week, every time I sat down last week I fell asleep. The instructor woke me up four times in one class. I finally caught up on my sleep yesterday. I the days are starting to get shorter now. Not much but enough so that one can notice it.

Oh, I must tell you. A B-24 "Liberator", that's a four motored bomber like the flying fortress, has it's nose berries in the ground a short way from the barracks. It came in for a landing a short while ago and the brakes wouldn't work after it got on the ground. He rolled the whole length of the field which is a mile long, then tore down the fence at the end of the field. The fence tore off his front wheel and let the nose drop onto the ground. The nose plowed a furrow across the highway and buried itself in a plowed field. Nobody got hurt. Did I ever tell you that I sat up in the cabin go one of these? We have all kinds of ships drop in here, anything from a "Flying Fortress to P-40's. Major Foss the marine ace was here last night, you read about him in the papers no doubt.

I took another cross country trip today on instruments with the hood over the cockpit. It was a triangular course that finally ended up here at the field. When I took the bag off my head, guess where I was? Nope. Nope. Nope, I was directly over the field. Nor too bad huh? I hope I do so good if I ever get caught up in a fog and have to do it.

The hours in the air are going up much faster now, they've been flying our ears off.

I still have to pass my 50 hour check although at Basic here, I have over 75 hours.

It's really cute of Joan to be writing me letters. You give her a big kiss for me and tell her I'll write as soon as I have time.

"Switch Off"

Love and Kisses As Ever

Al