October 5, 1944

Dear Mom,

On my leave I went to a good many places in France including Paris. That's one town that comes close to being like New York. The gals really dress like a million dollars and plenty good looking. You should have seen me, I had a date with a little dame the first night there. She couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak but two words of French. My two words were "no comprise". However, we did have a good time. "Suitcase", that's one of my buddies, was along and he can speak a little of it. He would act as my translator.

I guess I didn't tell you but they made me Assistant Operations Officer. Don't ask me why, maybe because I overstayed my leave a couple of days. However, not a thing was said about it.

After I left Paris I hopped over to England. I spent one night in London then went up to "Blackpool" in a Flying Fortress. Blackpool is England's most famous summer resort. I spent one night there then flew up to Scotland. The hills, streams, trees, etc. makes me think of New England.

Glasgow has more stray women than anyplace I've been, so naturally I spent four days there. The Scotch are really a grand race of people. I like them much better than the English.

After leaving Scotland, I flew back to France and stopped one more night in Paris.

It was really funny. We had just gotten a cab to pick our bags up at the airfield and bring them back to the hotel. The cab was one of these snazzy French jobs and when we pulled up to the airfield, some special for the U.S.O. ran up to us and asked if we minded if Marlene Dietrich the movie actress rode back into town with us. My buddy Suitcase looks at him and says, "Hell no, bring Judy Garland along too" and he walked away. He kept following us and beating his gums about how he had a broken down taxi and he wanted to create an impression. Well he finally convinced us to wait fifteen minutes for the plane to arrive. The dog-goned thing landed at another airfield and we never did get to see her. It was close anyway.

Lots of Love & Kisses

Al