January 23, 1944

Dear Family,

Things are pretty quiet down here. I've only been to town a couple of times.

I took a hight altitude cross country this afternoon. It was supposes to have taken two hours but these dog-toned ships really burn up the airways and I made it in less then an hour. Imagine it, over two hundred and fifty miles in fifty minutes and at that I was doing a series of slow rolls all the way around.

Pa, when the Pontiac begins to eat a little oil, don't feel bad because one of these 2,000 horsepower engines use about three gallons an hour. That's one that's in good shape. In plane language that's about four bucks. The oil tank holds about twenty eight gallons. Wow! That by the way is a military secret.

Yep, I ran that five miles around the field again this morning.

We start on gunnery tomorrow. That will make life more interesting. Here's hoping I can hit the targets.

Three girls were going to come out and pick us up in their car tonight. Johnny, George and myself and we turned it down. We must be going nuts. One of the girl's father owns a boat and we were supposed to go fishing this morning but none of us had the day off.

Love & Kisses As Ever,

Al