September 19, 1943

Dear Family,

This is the first real good day we've had in the past two weeks. We've had a hurricane flirting around in the Gulf and they expected it to hit here. All out planes were flown out of here last Thursday to keep them from getting damaged. Consequently there's been no flying for us. We still were kept busy by flying Link trainers and shooting skeet. The course requires that we get a certain number of rounds in shooting those clay pigeons with shot guns. The purpose is to teach you to lead your target. It's loads of fun and doesn't cost anything.

My instrument time was supposed to finish up yesterday but due to the loss of number of days I'll still be with them this week too. When we compete this instrument course, they give us an instrument card that authorizes us to fly in all kinds of weather. In order to get in any rime, in the past few weeks, we've been flying in rain and low stratus clouds. Some of the boys have as little as 6 and 7 hours in, whereas they should have about 30 to 40 hours in. The shortage of instructors doesn't help the situation either. In our previous training, each instructor only had three, four or five students. Now they have eight and nine.

Love and Kisses,

Al