The first of hopefully lots of writing posts

Here is a writing exercise I’ve been working on. It’s a letter from a naval flier to his wife back home on a farm somewhere. It was fun to write, even if I didn’t do all the research I would have liked, but that wasn’t really the point of this exercise.

Anyway, here it is. Maybe one day I will write the rest of their story.

March 2nd 1942

My dearest Elizabeth,

By now I would imagine you have received my letters I wrote to you while on the train from Chicago. The train arrived at the depot in Oakland very early this morning, from there I boarded a bus to finish the long trip to Alameda Island and the Navy base. The base was nothing short of chaotic, people every where going every direction all at once. I am still scratching my head on how the military ever gets anything done after watching the goings on for only a few minutes.

It is evening now and the day’s work is done. We (me and all the other new air crews) had a long day of orientation. We where assigned all the gear we will need and tomorrow we go out to the air field to go over our aircraft. At lunch the Commander addressed us all, welcoming us to his Air Group. None of us were told what carrier we would be assigned to, but that is alright, they are all fine ships and I’ll be happy with any of them. I did meet the gunner that will be flying with me on this deployment. His name is Richard Speers, from Sacramento. He’s not very far from home at all. He seems the friendly sort, and showed me a photograph of his wife. Like us they don’t have a family yet. He was very interested to hear about farm life, he and his wife live in an apartment and don’t even own a car. I ate lunch in the mess hall with Rick (he says only his mother calls him Richard) and another air crew from my new squadron. All good men.

Since I’ll be shipping out within the week if rumors are to be believed my billet is in a barrack with the rest of the squadron flight crews, not officer’s quarters. There is so much building going on here, this wouldn’t be the situation a few months from now. I’m sure that I’ll only be in my bunk for whatever hours that I have available for sleeping so I can forgive the Navy for not getting me a suit at the Four Seasons. The view across the bay of San Francisco is something to see, I wish I had our camera so I could take a photograph to send to you. I’d love you to see it, maybe I can find a post card to send to you.

I suppose I should say good night and get some sleep while I have the chance, the next few days will just as busy as today. I can’t wait to be back there with you on the farm, with the fields and fresh air and animals.

Your loving husband,

Robert