July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California

This letter, sent to Elaine, was not found in her collection, but was kept by Dr. Cartmell in his collection of Tom’s letters. As a replacement for the letter he kept, Dr. Cartmell made a handwritten copy of Tom’s letter and left it with Elaine, in the original envelope. I’m including both copies here. The transcription copies are at the bottom of the page. I don’t know why he made the copy.
Tom explains his concerns about the animosity between flying officers and former infantry officers at Lemoore Army Air Field. The former infantry officer make all the rules, among them excluding the flying officers from the Officer’s Mess, and providing substandard food. A flight surgeon intervenes to help straighten out the problem.

7-23-44

July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 1
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 1

Dear Folks.

Just finished with a little washing, of which I was in great need of. Everyone has been afraid to send any laundry, because you never can tell when you will get that back. I did send some washable sun tans to the cleaners about a week ago, they were due back last Thurs. but as yet haven’t heard of them.

This place is really getting on everyone’s nerves, I think a person could get pilot fatigue around here not doing anything alot easier than he could flying all the time. Yesterday morning we started taking the same courses over that we had on our first day here. Sometimes I wonder just how in the hell we can possibly be winning this war with the army running things. However, this place is the most confused of any place we have been

Lemoore Army Air Field, 1943
Lemoore Army Air Field, 1943

One of the big troubles here is that most of the permanent officers here on the base were in the infantry before coming into the air corps. Those of us that are just stoping through are the only flying officers, not only do they resent us but they can’t seem to get the respect that they were use to. It is really a problem and the only solution I can see is to ship us out, here’s hoping they do it soon. One of the worse things is our food, you see we have a special mess hall where we eat. The other party makes all the rules so we can’t eat in the regular officer’s mess. Our food has been getting worse and worse, so yesterday noon one of the boys when he saw what we had went over and got the flight surgeon to come over to the mess hall. When he got there and saw the meal and heard what we had been getting things really happened in the kitchen and from what I hear he spent the rest of the afternoon up in base headquarters. We are all expecting a change Mon.

July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 2
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 2

The war news from everywhere sounds pretty good and it looks like Germany might fold up before so very long. Lets hope Japan does the same.

How is my niece and nephew making out by this time? Thanks alot for the pictures, I couldn’t tell much about Tommy but Karen is getting cuter than ever. I imagine that she is as proud of her brother as her Uncle Tom is.

Well I had better close as I have some other letters that I should write. I guess Dad went home this weekend, tell him hello and I’ll write him tomorrow sometime.

With Love,

Tom

July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California

 

July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 1
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 1, Transcription
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 2
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Page 2, Transcription
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Transcription
July 24, 1944, Lemoore, California, Transcription

A Young Man Went Off to War