HARVARD CLUB
27 WEST 44th STREET

April 30, 1942

Dear Mrs. Quinlan,

I spent a very pleasant few hours at your son's squadron in England last month. He looks exceedingly fit and is very highly thought of by his superior officers and associates, and having the time of his life. He feels he is doing a useful job.

While I was there he had an interesting operational tour over Essen and picked up a piece of flak which he asked me to send along to you. He found this flak had penetrated the nose of his machine and gone through the board behind him but without doing any damage to himself. He thought you would understand this as an indication that he is living a charmed life and will get along famously. I know that it may be a little disturbing to think that such things as flak fly around, but on the other hand the fact that there are certain occasional war hazards cannot be concealed. As it happened, I was in the Air Force in the previous war doing somewhat the same job as your son - -on bombers- -and I think my mother might have been a bit startled to receive a bit of flak, but would realize that there is a Providence looking after us that would permit a bit of flak to hit a machine but very little to hit an individual.

Very sincerely yours,
Vernon McKenzie