September 11, 1943

Dear Mom, Pop, Marie, Shirley, Avis,

We haven't had very good weather for flying. We're right next to the Gulf and we get a lot of bad days and all the ships are grounded. I got my four hours dual in last Tuesday and soloed. I was up for about forty minutes when they called us all back to the field.

Most of the boys haven't soloed yet. Tony has only about 3 hours in the air on the AT-6 and that's about average for most of the students.

My room mate and myself happen to be lucky. We've got this Captain Baker for an instructor and he just got back from the Tunisian front and the Sicilian invasion. He was flying P-40's over there and was on some 80 odd missions. He is sort of an elderly fellow and he is the easy going type. He tries to do all he can for us two fellows. That's why we both soloed before the rest of the gang.

The only way we found out about him was that he had a big write up in the Sunday paper. Otherwise we would never have found out. He never talks or brags about it.

We get a lot of radio navigation down here, flying the beams and that sort of stuff.

Two days later: I started flying instruments today. We fly four hours a day on them and that is rough. It lasts one one week I hope.

It costs me $2 today for my boners. This is not a hint for money, but our stars cost 50 cent apiece. Just four starts, that's all I got today.

Love and Kisses,

Al