Dec. 17, 1944.

Dear Folks,

I wanted to write you at least before the 19th. We received your card, letter and box, and enjoyed all of them. I started out by having one piece of cake tonight and ended up by polishing off three of them. Zoe began getting tired having to run back and forth between the dining room and kitchen getting them. The card was real nice and Dad I certainly appreciated your letter. As in your case I doubt if I can feel much change after reaching 21. These last two years have been mighty full ones and from all appearances these next two will be just about the same. Our chances of getting another leave are pretty slim but you never can tell.

I had to fly this afternoon and was suppose to have flown tonight but they didn’t have enough planes and I am still suppose to get another hour of day flying before taking it up at night. It is really a sweet plane but even though it handles nice it still tires you out racking it around. I took Any along this afternoon and let him fly it for about an hour. It was about the only chance he would be able to get up in front. He did a pretty good job, he had washed out of advanced pilot training so knew a good bit about it. They have automatic pilots in them so we let it do the flying while we changed seats. We will be flying about every night from now on. They will be mostly navigational trips over the ocean which are mainly to give the R.O.’s some navigation experience.

Salinas has closed up and they moved everyone over here. We got out of there just in time, for after we left 3 boys were killed. One spun in on a gunnery mission, another peeled off and dove ion the ground they the other they never heard from they think he went down in the ocean. Two others had a mid air collision but were able to land. All this happened at Salinas. All were in my class. Last night Harper and his R.O. spun in from 10,000′, Fletcher was behind him and saw it. The plane flipped over on its back and went into a spin. All these happened in 70’s. Last Sun an instructor and R.O. had engine trouble in a P61 and made a belly landing beside the field. The plane caught fire, the R.O. got out but the pilot had his feet pinned in and couldn’t get out. That makes it pretty tough all around. It seems like these accidents run in spurts because up until about a month ago we hadn’t lost anyone since we were at Mather.

I imagine your snowy season has really started by now, so Karen is probably in her glory. I can’t say as I blame her, I’d like to see some of the stuff my self. That is walk in it, there’s plenty on the mountains around here.

Oh yes, let me know where all you folks will be Xmas day and the telephone numbers. We are getting our telephone installed tomorrow so we might be able to call you.

Tell the folks at 828 hello.

Signing off –

With love,

Tom

Sunday

Dear Folks

Tom and I are writing at the same time – hope we don’t repeat each other. We were going to the Presbyterian church tonight to hear the “Messiah” but Andy and his wife were here for dinner and we sat around gossiping at the table too long – we called the church and they had standing room only (which is rather unusual) and none of us exactly wanted to stand all through it.

We have really been enjoying the food you sent – Tom is especially fond of the cake – we’ve eaten part of the popcorn but decided to stringing part of it for our Xmas tree. Wish you could see our liviong room. We have an enormous wreath of evergreen around our mirror over the fireplace – in parts we’re decorating the entire mantle with evergreen and red ribbon. It looks like xmas inside our home even though it doesn’t seem to have much Xmas spirit – maybe it’s because of the weather.

Love,

Zoe