Spring 1942

Dear Berne:

I got your letter the other day. I didn't know you were still at home. I suppose you will stay there now, eh. Thanks for the socks. I was just beginning to need them as my last year ones are getting a bit thin.

I haven't got away to I.T.S. yet but it won't be long now I hope. Practically all of our old gang is remustering. There are five of us fitter Corporals and one Lac, all from Galt and two or three airframe guys from Galt. There was a time when we were the key men around here but that time is gone; now the station is so big and it is beginning to get like a big station and there is too much red tape, and discipline is getting tougher. We have been here over a year now. On our anniversary we were inspected by Air Vice Marshall Croll and that night test flight hangar caught fire about seven o'clock. Luckily it was before pay day and everybody was staying in. There were twelve aircraft in the hangar worth about four hundred thousand but we got them all out and got the fire stopped before it did very much damage. If it had happened a few hours [later] we wouldn't have a test flight. There were about two hundred guys around and the lights wouldn't work as the fire was at the switch box and the planes were packed in line sardines. There was only one wing tip smashed and a jack ripped a hole in the belly of a Norseman. It was a wonder there weren't more wings smashed the way those planes were coming out. The trail of the Lysander was practically in the fire but it didn't catch so everything was saved and only a bit of wood got burned and a couple of flying suits.

I had a letter from Razz and he says he likes England and that they are getting better meals than they were over here.

Is Sarah Moatz dead yet. I guess she has lived a fair length of time and anyway people die fast these days. I have seen a lot of men's brains on instrument panels lately. There are a lot more planes in the air these days and a lot more crashes. They have about fifty new Cessnas up at No. 3 and they are really going. They have only had two minor crashes with Cessna's, but they are still new. We are assembling a hundred Moths here now. They have U.S. Army Air Corps stamped on them but I don't know whether they are going there now or not. I imagine Yanks will be sent up here to train in them.

Say Berne, you don't need to worry about getting your tonsils out. They froze mine and yanked ‘em out while I sat in a chair like a dentist's and there wasn't much to it. I didn't even bleed.

Well, I guess that's all.

Love,
JBBD