July 16, 1944

Dear Emily and Bill,

This pen is trained to write the same things over and over so if I repeat a few things in the letter that you both already know, just skip over it lightly. All kidding aside, I put out at least eight to ten letter a week now. Most all of them go home.

You've got to give Eddie and guys like him a lot to credit. They're doing a rough job and doing it well. I guess I told you about going up on the front whenever we get time off. After looking things over, it's a lot safer on the ground, but you have to have too strong a stomach to take what you see.

Thanks ever so much for the pictures, they came out extra good, especially considering they were taken indoors at night. What candle power light were you using? Remember the letter I wrote and told you not to send pictures, well I'm glad you did send them. It seems it's alright to have pictures now, although they never gave back the ones we turned in. The picture of both of you that was sitting on the table beside Frankie, came out pretty well even if it was a picture within a picture.

Ma and Pa look the same as ever. Ma's face looks a little thinner and Pa's hair a might grayer. I'm twenty four now, with a few wrinkles on my forehead.

This afternoon I was doing a little bit more experimenting with my stove. Nobody around here trusts me with one hundred octane matches. So far so good, except I need a shower. Speaking of the shower, we have two belly tanks stuck to the top of some poles with the tops cut out of them with two special stoves sitting on them to heat the water. It works amazingly well. I had nothing to do with that particular project.

Come to think of it, I'm the only officer that runs around here in coveralls. At least it keeps my mind occupied in my spare time. Some of these guys will go batty sitting around sweating out the missions.

In one sense, I enjoy these sorties we go out on. Flying around blowing up and shooting up tanks, houses, bridges, guns, anything that the target might be. I guess I'm the destructive type. Here's hoping they keep a big Air Force back home after the war.

Charlie's crate will be flown only by him. By the time he gets through putting gadgets on it as he'll do, he'll be the only one that can start it. I doubt if I could fly it now. What kind is it? I lost Charlie's and Fred's addresses quite a while ago.

Mom, (she's a grand person) will have to shoot off an eight -eight artillery cannon to get me up in the mornings because I'm getting to use to the noise.

My combination bed land and desk lamp have over twenty five aluminum rivets in it along with having a piece of a fuselage and about a square foot of sheet of aluminum bent into the desired shape, of course a light socket and bulb. It is light green with a polished reflector and an orange cord. Very colorful one might say. It even has an adjustable top on it, a thumb screw holds it in it's desired position.

Does Shirley still want to go to school? If she wants to start right away, you could give her the one hundred dollars I sent you and I'll keep sending you the money. I told her I'd send her a hundred dollars a month. I've got one hundred dollars (five thousand francs) in my pocket right now to send to her but this money order system isn't so good here in France.

July 17, 1944 This is just about twenty four hours later with nothing new except I did host get back from another mission. Boy oh Boy I had more fun up there today then I have had in a long while. They haven't hit me yet, here's hoping they keep up the bad work.

My flight leader took some pictures of my flight the other day. He's having some duplicates made and when I get them I'll send you a couple. Our own photographer develops them for us.

There is a could of good looking French girls down the road but damn I can't speak French.

Good luck to you both As Ever

Al