July 28 /43.

Dear Mother:

The registered letter has turned up although not the other one. It had at least seventeen post-marks on it, including Miami and Nassau.

Heard today that my TCA reservation was through O.K. so in two weeks late Friday I should be in Vancouver. It hardly sounds believable but I hope it works out like that.

If I didn’t mention it before, the clothes arrived alright and the tie was the right one. Now that I have the camera I probably won’t use it, not having any 48’s.

This morning I got up at 0230 to fly with the dawn patrol. First we had the best breakfast I’ve ever had in the air force. This alone was worth getting up for and then when we got down to the Ops room the flight was cancelled so we hurried back to bed before they changed their minds. That was great. However this trip will have to be done sometime and a recco to Sidney to complete the flying part of the syllabus.

In the signals theory final exam written last week I got 88, tying for first place. Ship recog. is going to be a problem. We spent a year learning how to recognize about 100 planes so cannot be expected to learn almost that many ships in 6 weeks, especially as we spend less time per week on them. Previous classes have had a good system of mutual aid during the exam which the instructors overlook and this is the only solution. The models room is the only way to learn them and it is locked at night so you can see its a bit difficult.

29 Today is our holiday but I don’t know what to do with it. I wanted to get a suntan but it is cloudy as it is every Thursday. I have only had one day off here when it has been sunny. I suppose we will follow the usual routine of going to town after lunch and wandering aimlessly about until supper.

I had some low flying one night. We came home about 2130 and when we hit the island followed a small stream for quite awhile at about 100 to 200 feet up. It was rather like driving in a car I thought. When we passed over farms the powerful landing lights were turned on the house so no one could read our number. No doubt many people were surprised to have their bedrooms suddenly flood lighted.

Never mind about sending cookies along. We will soon be through here and we get sandwiches at night anyway.

With love from
Tony.

[Note: Transcription provided by collection donor.]