1943.4.6

April 6, 1943
Tues 5:30 P.M.

Dear Folks:

Well I don’t know whether I’ll have more time to write now or not. Yesterday I got up at about 5:45 A.M. and never got done until 9:45 P.M.

At 8:00 we had P.T. until 10:00. In this we had try-outs for the cross-country team. The first ten men were to be on the team. I was sixth so I am on the team. Today we ran and I came in third. My time today was 11 min. This is for a distance of about 2 miles. The whole course is 2 3/4 miles I think. Well at 10:00 we had drill. Dinner at 11:00. At 12:00 we had to go get some guns. At 1:00 we had a lecture. From 2:00 til 4:00 we had instruction in taking a machine gun apart and putting it back together again. From 4:00 til 5:00 we drilled. At 5:15 we ate.

Right after supper we had to load stones on trucks. We had to do this cleaning up because Madame Chiang Kai-shek or something like that and the under secretary of war came visiting here today. Well we done this until 7:00. Then we ran in and grabbed our gas masks and right out again. We had to go on a maneuver. We went to the edge of the woods. Our job was to get through this to a creek on the other side. In the woods there were men with guns and blanks in them. If they saw us we would be “dead.” They also attacked with gas. We had to crawl on our stomachs a lot of the way. That woods was supposed to be like a jungle. And believe me, it was pretty near to being a jungle. Well when we finally got through and back to the barracks it was 9:30 P.M. And I was so dirty and sweaty that I had to take a shower. So when I finally got done it was almost 10:00 and time for lights out. So you see I put in about 16 hrs. yesterday. And I was on the run all the time. We had it somewhat easier today.

I sent some pictures to you. I put them in that booklet because that was the only way I could think of to send them.

Boy it has certainly been hot down here. And we still have our winter uniforms on.

Today we had more machine gun instruction. We also had some rifle instruction. Tomorrow we go on the range and fire the machine guns.

I’m in the craziest bunch on the hill. I think they took the craziest guys from each barracks and put them in E Flight. They are doing all kinds of foolish things.

We have a little short fat Jewish boy downstairs. He makes me laugh just to look at him. They always have got him doing some funny thing. Every time anybody yells “Napoleon” he has to strike a pose like “Napoleon”. After lights out at night, they all lay there cracking jokes, etc. We have quite a lot of fun. We call one of the guys “Marconi” because he had trouble getting code. All in all E Flight is the most rattle-brained flight of all of them. Well write soon and often.

Good-bye,
Alva 

Note: Madame Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese political figure who was First Lady of the Republic of China. In 1943 she conducted an eight-month speaking tour of the United States.