Dec. 1, 1943
Wed. 9:20 P.M.
Dear Folks:
I guess I can just as well write you a few words now. I am now at Harding Field, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I got here yesterday and I’m leaving here tomorrow at 1:00 P.M. It’s like this: Half are staying here and half of us are moving on to a field about 40 miles from here. It is Hammond Field. As usual I am missing out on the best deal. This is a swell place. Baton Rouge is almost as big as Grand Rapids. The food is swell. The living quarters are wonderful. We each have a room all to ourselves. The rooms are about the size of the living room. Somebody cleans the room and even makes my bed for me. It is very pleasant here.
But——they tell me that where I’m going the living quarters aren’t so good. We will eat with the enlisted men. We will be near a little town with a population of 6,000 which is real small.
We are all in an R.T.U.* which isn’t so nice. We only get 80 hours and we will fly the P-47. We will be here for 10 to 12 weeks and then we will be ready for combat. I won’t go back to Dale Mabry because we are now in the 2nd air force instead of the 3rd.
We will be the first class to go through at Hammond so the people will probably treat us real good.
We stopped over for a few hours at New Orleans and 2 other fellows and I went walking through the French section. We had our picture taken by some supposedly famous building. I’ll send it along so you can scare Clarence with it.
Well let me know all about you and also tell me what to get for Christmas. Oh yes! Here’s my address: Lt. Alva D Bessey, 498th Fighter Sqd., Hammond Army Air Field, Hammond, LA.
How is Dad making out with Wilson’s? Well I’m getting sleepy.
Yours truly,
Alva
* RTU is a replacement training unit. They were units established to train replacement crews and personnel for overseas units. This system helped to ensure that overseas units received qualified replacements.
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