Dear Folks:

It seems like a long time since I wrote to you last so guess I'll scribble off a few lines.

Last weekend we went up to Coleman in the Crow's Nest Pass for the weekend. We had a good time there too. The place sure is open to airmen. You can just take the whole town if you like. However we will have no more trips for awhile as Red McKilligan took his car back to his Dad at Smiley and they are going to drive back East for the winter. Red got sixteen days harvest leave to help his Dad do the harvesting; they are about three hundred miles east of here.

Our remustering doesn't seem to be gaining much ground although they adjutant said he thought it would go through now, but now we have a new adjutant and he isn't quite so good as the former one.

I am now Corporal Bell. It was effective on the first but didn't come out until last Saturday. It makes very little difference as there is no pay attached as yet. Four of the Galt boys got them and a couple others. They (stripes) are a pretty fair indication of the results of the last test I hope. I am on duty watch this weekend but my name is not on roll call so I am not even Orderly Sgt. for a night and don't have to go on parade. I will likely have to call the roll call all next week as my name comes at the end of the alphabet but that won't hurt. We start drilling and practising giving drill next week at nights to prepare for a drill test and do we need it. It is easy to do the drill but to give the command is different.

Have you threshed yet. I'd like to be home for awhile now as the fair is coming up. I could go to Norm Whetham's threshing in the morning and the fair in the afternoon as I did for the last two years I was there.

Things are beginning to liven up a bit in Calgary and I guess we'll have to spend more time here now for awhile as we have no means of getting around. We are wearing blues again and do they feel tight and stiff after those sloppy summer jobs. But they will be okay when we get used to them.

Well things are going along just the same here. Slow for awhile then all of a sudden we are on the jump. There are more ships in for assembly so we will be busy for another week or so. I will soon be getting Ansons together in my sleep. I am mostly showing the newest Galt boys all the tricks of the trade now. They are getting along swell so I just check their work and keep things going. Our orders are to teach them so that is about all you can do since there are so many of them around. They just go in the road at first but are going pretty good now. I have two darn good men now so I hope they don't change them around. I told them on our next ship I wasn't even going to say anything and see how they got along so they are raring to go.

So Razz is going across the big pond. I wish I was going with him. "Hammer" Mallet from Palmerston, one of our boys who went across, got shot up in an air raid but is going to be okay. Most of the boys over there are having a good time it seems. They say that Hurricanes can't catch the new Avro Machesters which are a four motor bomber so I guess the English aren't so slow where planes are concerned.

The Yanks think they have something in their Fortresses but the English big planes make them think they are going backward. One guy said he went 390 in an Avro Machester in level flight with a full bomb load, so they move.

Nuff said for now. So long.

Love JB