Saturday Noon

Aug. 1941

Hello Folks:

Well, since you were kind enough to write to me last week I guess I should be decent enough to return the favour. Anyway, I have nothing to do in particular. This week I am on early party, that is, I go to dinner at 10:30 and be back to the hangar at 11:45 so there will be one crew here during the noon hour just in case something crops up. There scarcely ever is so that means we have nothing to do from 12 till the 1:15 parade and even then we hardly have anything to do. Last week we got a few jobs but this week seems to be void of work. I do a bit of typing for the major just to pass the time.

I suppose Pa has the wheat ground ploughed now and the wheat planted. I would like to know if you have threshed yet because if you have I may go to the Ex next weekend. However, if you can manage to get the machine next Saturday be sure to let me know because I will come home for sure then. Eddy Hamson and Couling & I were also going to go up to his summer cottage on Georgian Bay, but his car has been playing up and now we may not go so I will likely be home again as usual. I was thinking Bernice [his sister] was planning to go east then too, so wrote to her to see if she would like to spend the weekend at the Ex with me, but on further consideration I believe she said she was going this Saturday (today).

I suppose Ed [his kid brother] will be going back to school on Tuesday. It will seem kind of lonesome starting off all by himself, but I guess he travelled alone most of the time anyway. Is Mary Lou going to go back. It will be harder for her to get back and forth too. It seems funny to me now how we used to worry about how we got to school and now I think nothing of a hundred miles or so.

I was just looking up my passes and find that I get a 48 the night of the Harriston Fall Fair so will be able to take in the dance at least. Probably there will be one on a Saturday when I go home. Clifford and Ayton usually have theirs on Saturday and I have a standing invitation to Widmeyer's anytime I wish to take it.

Last Sunday night Neath got to Harriston about two o'clock fast time and we got here just as the six o'clock siren sounded. We had two flats and the second one we had to fix. He drives too fast for the condition of his tires anyway. We came around by St. Thomas so we would be on pavement all the time and that took a little longer. Sonny (one of the fellows) brought his girlfriend down to her relatives so we had six passengers which made it a little uncomfortable too. I was glad we didn't run out of fuel too.

I suppose you heard about one of our planes crashing down near Lake Erie. The guy put her into a spin (part of their training) and when he couldn't get her out by the time he got down to 1000 feet, he jumped and let her go. He landed all right but the plane went into a kind of bush or swamp and cut a big swath of trees down before it stopped. Some of the parts they never found. The parts are laying on the hangar floor and it sure is a mess. There wasn't a piece more than four feet long on the whole thing. The motor is all broken into pieces and the pieces are twisted beyond recognition in some cases. I didn't see it in the paper but they say one guy walked into a spinning prop in Brantford the other day and got carved up and that two Ansons collided in mid air so I guess those guys would be killed also. It is a tough break for Brantford because they had a good record. So far our sheet is clean as far as men goes but last night during night flying three planes ground looped and smashed three wings and one oles leg (Oles invented it). When they light on one wheel it pulls the tire off sideways and lets the wing down in the mud. The prop went into the mud about a foot but it is still O.K.

A fellow who was down at Dunnville last Sunday brought me a note Tommy Noonan [a cousin] gave him so I must drop him a line too. I imagine he doesn't like it there as well as he might.

I have now taken up trumpeting and the major cornered me t'other day and made me take one out of stores and wants me to be duty trumpeter next week. That was after he heard me play too, believe it or not. They are very simple anyway after you memorize the calls. It might mean an odd pass for me and any favours that are going and to get ahead in the Air Force you have to be on intimate terms with higher ups and that is the way to do it. Now I have worked for all three Sergeant Majors who are over me so it means quite a bit.

As I said, I thought I was going to get trying for my *A* but now they have added a clause saying that anyone who remustered to higher grouping during the present trade test period (July 1 to Oct 1) as a result of a trade test in the preceding test period (in which I tried mine) cannot try again in this one, so I must wait till December. The pay will not come any sooner but I just wanted to have it off my mind.

Well, I guess I could go on indefinitely but say nothing so I will trying to bring this narrative to a three point landing and taxi it into an envelop before she ground loops.

Be seein' y'u

Bill

One of our new G.D.'s: "I got a bad headache."
M.O.: "How are your bowels?"
G.D.: "I was not issued with any sir."
M.O.: "Have you been constipated?"
G.D.: "No sir, I signed up voluntarily."
M.O. " Don't you know the King's English."
G.D. "Is he?"

Got a letter from Jim and he says he is master of 6 new Galt boys so he must be having the devil's own times trying to keep them from making a blunder. I know what it was when I first started to work and I had a little experience on these ships which the Galt boys didn't get. It's a good thing they got a Galt man for boss.