2/12/42

Dear Mother.
I am sorry not to have written sooner but we were writing exams and we just finished yesterday and now I have a little leisure time. We have been held over a week so I may get about 5 days leave if we work it right
and I am sure going to try. I am getting a little tired of this flying in below zero weather. Those damn Ansons are not the warmest thing to fly in but they have sure got the ferry bottle beat. I went up in gunnery in a Ferry bottle and I sure fired those machine guns off in a great rush and got down in a awful hurry even at that I froze my cheeks. I have still got a few days to fly yet and we expect to get out of here by about the middle of next
week but we don't know where we are being posted. I don't think that I will be going to Regina. The latest rumour is that we are going to Portage and that won't be to bad as I can easily get home on a 48 and have plenty of time to spend there. As far as I know our course is still 6 weeks at A.O.S. and I hope it remains so. We had a chicken dinner here on the station Monday and it was really good the only trouble being that they wouldn't give you a second helping even if you got down on your knees and begged for it. It is really cold in this country and there has been a ground fog over the station for two days. We went up yesterday and I finally got a direct hit on the target and the pilot pretty near went crazy. On the back the pilot got lost because you couldn't even see the ground. We finally steered him over the airport and we landed allright. I was never so glad to see the ground and to feel it beneath my feet.

I got a letter from Melville but I lost the thing or I would send it along. He told me that he had got a leave and that he was going to visit Scotland as he was getting tired of the English limies. By what he tells me English beer is pretty potent and it doesn't take much to put him away. He says that he doesn't like the stuff at all so maybe he will reform a little. He didn't mention having received your parcel so I guess he hadn't received it yet. He said that he was going to get a promotion so I hope he gets it. Well I think that is all the news that I have got for you right now so goodbye for now and write soon.
Orval