Letter 25: March 23, 1942

Letter 25: March 23, 1942

Postmarked Bury Port, Camarthenshire, Wales

 

R85176 Sgt Piper F J

RCAF Overseas

Attached to No 1 AGS  RAF

Mar 23/42

 

Dear Ellen

            Hello Nell how’s every little thing at Outlook, I received 300 cigarettes form you the other day & thanks ever so much. I was getting a bit low, I also received the two editions of the “Noose” paper which I enjoyed very much & also the clippings & I got two letters from you yesterday. You are quite a few letters ahead of me Ellen but I guess you understand that I have so may to write.

            Well spring is just around the corner here in Wales, the days are nice & warm & in our spare moments we sit outside in the sun and sun bath. A couple of us got the spring fever this morning & we got an axe & went chopping down some trees that have to be cut down, it isn’t our job but it was good exercise. I got the biggest blister on my left hand that I ever saw.

            Last weekend Jack Holden a pilot I chum with, having the weekend off, we were invited to a house in the city for Sunday. The people that invited us own a Pub which we always visit when in town, they also have a nice daughter, we really had a swell dinner, the best I have had for a long time, chicken & pork, green peas, brussell sprouts & potatoes & gravy & a nice dessert (or sweet as they call it over here). We went for a nice stroll around the parks after dinner & it was really swell, the grass was nice & green & the sun was beating down,

            We have been getting a little more flying lately but not much more as there still are those fogs floating about. I have got in about 80 hours flying now which brings my total to about 230 or 40. Now that spring is here I’m hoping that I get posted to an O.T.U & get into a little action, but I guess time will tell.

            I had a letter from Dutch the other day & he was telling me that Jack & David had graduated & that Jack had got a commission and that David had left for Halifax and the same day I got a letter from David who is stationed at Bournemouth (that is where I was when I came over) I immediately wrote Dave back as we will have to get together.

            I hope you received my snaps I sent you Ellen let me know if you did.

            There is a small town about 2 miles from the camp a little bigger than Tuxford, there are several of the pilots who are married & have got living quarters down there. I’ve been down to one of the local Pubs with the boys & sat & drank & listened to the town gossip & talk about gossip it really is hot, there has been several murders pulled off in the town in the years gone by & do they ever like telling you about them and everyone that tells you has a little different story.

            You know Ellen that the nickname of a German & a piss-pot are both “Jerry”

            Well did you hear about the WAAF who got the VC she was a chambermaid in the Officers Mess & she brought down 8 Jerrys before breakfast.

            You know the difference between a tulip & a pea; you take a tulip out of a pot & put it in a bed & you take a pea out of a bed & put it in a pot.

            The fellow called his car a “Hoover” because as he went along the road he picked up bits of fluff.

            A Serg was handing out blankets to the new recruits in the army saying Jones, two blankets; Brown two blankets, Smith two blankets, Winters two blankets, Can’t help it two blankets.

            Well Ellen I guess that’s about all for this time so I’ll say goodbye for now.

            Your loving brother

            Fred