Dear Dad,

I have been meaning to write you a personal letter for sometime now but there has been a scarcity of free time around here. This afternoon we had a lecture and a couple of movies on pressure chamber and high altitude flying.

This is a fairly new procedure by giving us pressure chamber flights all through our training and further classifying you as a high, medium or low altitude pilot. They are blaming most of these unaccounted for crashes on faulty oxygen equipment and its use. From what they were telling us some very amusing things occur in the chamber, we must be able to stand 10 min. at 18,000 (feet) without O2. Then you put on masks and go up to 38,000 for an hour, he said that about all of us would get the bends during this time, some bad enough that they would have to come down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTSSTA9VAb0

Y

our letters have been coming good and regular and they are really swell to get. You spoke of Allen Lake being a navigator, they have a little shorter training period than pilots. Alot of the flying crew are being made flight officers rather than 2nd Lt. now. There isn’t much difference, the pay and uniform are the same.

I was surprised about what Sam did with the car.^[1]I don’t know what Sam did to any car. He is here at SAAAB but from what I hear has been in the hospital ever since he came.

I saw Bob Compton again the other day and he can’t get in the specialized training program. He has about three other choices and ones as bad as the other, they are, armament gunner, engineer gunner, and regular gunner. You can tell who the boys are that are getting knocked off and they are also three good reasons why not to wash out.

I got a letter from Cleda yesterday and she said that she was going to have Mrs. Perkins for a meal. If she doesn’t I think you should tell Mrs. P. the reason and I know she would understand. I was hoping that you would have her for a meal while she was there. I am sure everything will go well while Elaine’s are there.

I am glad you received the picture I was sort of worried about it because Phoenix is a good ways from here to do anything about it.

We start out Sun. on our bivouac and return Fri. from what I hear it isn’t all peaches and cream. As a matter of fact our menu will be K rations. I don’t know in what kind of shape we will be in to start pilot school Sat. morning.

The Lt. told us tonight that our orders officially came through making us all cadets on the 30th of this month. That extra $25 won’t be hard to take. I have about $50 on hand here also will be paid an extra $25 at the end of this month for back flight pay from Tempe as well as our regular $50 for July. I might send some home but I want to get some travelers checks to keep on hand.

Here’s hoping you have a nice visit with the folks and tell them all hello.

With love,

Tom