Two letters written by my grandfather on the same day. My grandfather has finally made the application for Flight school.  He is not signing up to be a pilot, rather to get the training to examine pilots in his capacity as a physician. He first mentioned the possibility of signing up for flight school in his letter of May 28th. I am slightly curious to see whether the application was accepted although I think it probably wasn’t.

__________________________________________

Letter transcription:

Tue (postmark June 30, 1942 8:30 PM)

Dear Mother,

I’m writing this while on duty. Probably won’t write any more todays as this is the last day of the year and we must get all the work caught up before we leave. It might be 12:00 before we get away.

“I do it”. The Flight school-made application this AM maybe it was right maybe not-who knows.

I’m sending a small amount of cash home-deposit it etc.

Will write more later-

Love Daddy

______________________________________

Tue Eve (postmark July 1, 1942 1:30 PM)

Dear Mother,

When I wrote the note and sent the money I hadn’t received your letter yet so could not give you any satisfaction about your letter. Of course we can do nothing about the moving etc now until we find out about this other business. Don’t know how long that will be. If you haven’t said anything to anyone yet I wouldn’t until we find out for sure. I really don’t know how long the course is nor when the next one starts. When the next one start I suppose will determine when I’m shipped out provided I’m selected. That is, if I don’t get orders before the whole thing goes thru. That we will have to wait for a few days until we see what develops.

The two money orders I sent today were from the money I had collected back, as yet I haven’t received the uniform money. That will help also. Next month you will get a check direct for $170⁰⁰.

We got off duty today much earlier than expected about 1900. Tomorrow we have the biggest day on record, at least 30 platoons to shoot(?) 84 men to each platoon-figure that and see why we’ll be busy.

(page 2) Joe would get sent to Great Lakes and me way down here. Living conditions etc are much better there because the town is bigger and can absorb more of an influx of people. Norfolk even got on the radio Sun. nite. A program from Wash[ington] told of the conditions here.

The only thing I can tell you now is to keep a stiff upper lip until this other business goes thru. The application said Florida so if it goes thru there is no question about the location.

There have been so many Drs. sent out that it seems there are none here anymore. I think they are getting ready for the new crop coming in, and they should all be here by the middle of July.

Well, I must take a bath and get to bed

Love Daddy

©2012, copyrighted & written by Deborah Sweeney