Wednesday
Sept. 1943

Dear Mother:

People continue to pour in here and now even though we have three sittings for meals in our mess some of the recent arrivals have to eat in an airmans mess. Perhaps to enforce attendance at afternoon lectures or to help keep track of all the men we now have to stay on the station until 5:00. This doesn’t bother us a great deal—we simply retire to our room and play a vicious gambling game called ‘red dog’.

One of the more recent arrivals here is Don Poole. I see the Courier said he was a sgt. but he is a P/O now. F/O George Sargeria and his wife live quite close to us and I went over to see them one evening. He is stationed at Dartmouth where F/L Fuller is. One Sunday I went over the Dartmouth station and climbed over various types of aircraft. Some of the boys from our G. R. course are stationed here and one showed us over his ship. It was a Douglas Digby—an old type of ship but quite large and very comfortable. Imagine steam heat and a bed for instance.

I finally got around to going up in the decompression chamber for the second time. After 40 minutes at 35.000 three of the 8 in our chamber got a form of the bends and had to be taken out. This is a sharp rheumatic pain in one or more joints which may get worse or may disappear. After 50 minutes I got it in the right elbow but as there was only 10 minutes to go I lasted out. It disappeared when down to 31.000.

I hope you are managing to cope with the fruit picking alright despite the difficulties of getting help.

My photographs arrived O.K.

I went to see “Heaven Can Wait” about the same time you did. I see a lot of shows—most of them pretty awful. We have shows in the mess but unless you get in long before it starts you are out of luck for a seat. But if you do get a seat it will be an armchair or sofa.

Love to all of you
Tony.

[Note: Transcription provided by collection donor.]