Tom has just arrived the the airbase in Salinas, California, where he will get in more flying time in the AT-10’s and A-20’s, all as part of his training to become a night fighter pilot.
8-8-44
Dear Folks,
Just finished eating and I must say that it is really good to have some good meals again. We arrived here Sun. eve. We processed yesterday, and this morning went out to shoot the carbine. It is a pretty nice little gun but not very accurate over 300 yds.
The base itself is pretty nice, that is it seems that we are here for just one thing and that is to learn some more flying. The housing quarters are shacks something like that you would expect to find in a combat area but it is home for the time being. At the present time I am in the officers club, the C.O. who is a Col. is here and seems to be a regular fellow, he is a command pilot and even so is a pretty young fellow. We are supposed to be here at this field for about 2 weeks, that is if we start right away, and get in about 30 hrs. of inst. flying in the AT-10s and then go down the coast to another airstrip and get some gunnery in the A-20’s. I _______ around here we shoot down radio controlled airplanes it seems like a waste of good air-planes. They look something like a Culver Cadet only they have tricycle landing gears. We don’t do any flying for about 5 days, and during this we will get some ground school, which will finish that for the time being any way.
We haven’t heard about a furlough so it will probably be in about 3 mos., the rest of the night fighters that stayed at Lemoore will get one before coming here. The boys that came with me here are about the 15 best that were in our original group. We are all hoping that they form a new squadron out of us rather than sen us across as replacements for the combat sqds, however I would like a few old timers mixed in with us, it might not hurt to be babied around a little at this point.
I ____ you are wondering what the seal in the _____ is, it is the 4th Air Force arm patch, which is like all the regular air corps patches off our clothes, that is the one that I have on in the picture, and put these on. It is some job getting them all changed, and I still have some that aren’t done. about 5 of us are going to the show and it starts in about 15 min. so had better get going. I’ll be _____ of you.
With love,
Tom.
Just back from the show, it is really cold here and awful foggy tonight, definitely not flying weather at the present time.
Good night.
