December 14, 1941

No. 1. Radio School
Dec. 14, 1941

Dear Mom. Dad. & All:-

     It's a rainy Sunday afternoon and all the boys are sitting around talking about the duration time of the war.  Japan's attack and entry certainly was a surprise as was the German declaration against the states.  Sure must seem funny to have the suspense removed in the states.  I don't know yet just where I stand with my commission in the states and my contract with the CTC.  I will probably be called when I complete my course here and get some practical experience.  Things seem to have worked out O.K.  in that regard and I should be able to really do something worthwhile in this way.  They have sent American officers over here to go to the same school I'm at and there are a few here now, but most of them have been called back.

     I received your letter of Nov. 24th in the record time of 16 days and will be looking forward to the Xmas box.  Practical gifts are the kind that count over here, since everything is scarce.  We are allowed to buy 60 cigarettes a week and about 4 oz. of chocolate.  Our grub is plentiful enough, but we sure miss good American coffee and cooking.

     I went to Mass on the post last Sunday and today.  It's a pretty good size and the remarkable thing about it here is that at High Mass the entire Congregation sings the responses and the Mass.  They have low Mass at 8:30 and High Mass at 10:30.

     The Corporal, who is in charge of our barracks and also our N.C.O. instructor, is a swell fellow and has a remarkably fine education.  One of his hobbies is collecting phono records.  He gets a monthly bulletin from a record distributor in London with a comprehensive criticism of  the monthly issue of records by each of the recording companies.  There's nothing like it in the states.  Last Sunday evening we went over to his classroom and had a recital, he having borrowed the station theater phono turntable and hooked it up to his radio.  It was really 0K.  The first number on the program was "Italian in Algiers" by Torranini and the New York Philharmonic.  The recording and the rendition were both excellent and Art ought to put it on his must list.  It's as fine a record as I've ever heard.  The rest of the program was as follows:
     2. Waltz of the Flowers from Nutcrackers Suite.
     3. In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt Suite
     4. Bolero - Ravel -
                     Intermission
     5. Prelude to the 3rd Act of Lohengrin.
     6. Selections from Madame Butterfly.
     7. Hungarian Rhapsody #2 - Listz.
     8. Waltzes Album by Johann Strauss
        Voices of Spring, Tales from the Vienna Woods, The Blue Danube.
     9. Pitzacatto Polka - Strauss

The corporal went home over the weekend so he's going to bring back some more records and we'll have another concert Monday or Tuesday night, it really helps to get a little good music occasionally.

     Last Sunday afternoon Beekman and I went hiking around the vicinity and I took some pictures of interesting country scenes, one of a few white ducks on a little pond in a farmers yard.  In spite of the cold weather the grass is green and flowers are in bloom all around the camp.  The ordinary trees have lost their leaves, but the pines and spruces are still beautifully green, as are the hedges which separate the various fields from one another instead of the usual barbed wire fences common in the U.S.A.  There are little streams here and there, ancient ivy covered stone walls, quaint farm houses and barns, and about two miles down the road an old country church.  The oldest grave stone we could read was 1605, but there are many much older.  There are the usual inns and ale houses at corners or cross roads which form the nucleus of little towns about like Hugo, Minn. or smaller.  When I get my bike, which I hope to for Christmas, I will be able to enlarge the scope of my travels if we get any decent weather.

     I believe I told you I traded my camera for a smaller one using 120 film of the Panatomic X or verichrome type, the first preferably.  It has a built in range-finder which sets the lens at the proper distance automatically, enabling you to get better focus on pictures then you can ordinarily.  It takes 16 pictures on the usual 8 picture film. For George's benefit it's a Zeiss Super-Ikonta 531.  I also have a leather case for carrying it over my shoulder.  I'm doing my own printing and developing since it's pretty hard to get it done up here, so I hope to get a photographic history of my life here when I can do so without violating any regulations as to picture taking.

     You might mail me some of those radio magazines that are still coming, particularly Radio News, and copies of the news sections of the Sunday papers.  I don't know the scores of any of the football games, we don't get them here at all so send a list of Minnesota's.  You might include the Sports section with the papers.  The editorials would be particularly interesting as we have no idea of American public opinion except through the eyes of  English reporters.

     Some of my books would be useful, too.
Riders - Cathode Ray Tube at Work.
Riders - Servicing by Signal Tracing
Differential and Integral Calculus.
Lew Bonn's new Catalog  (Have George get one from Hank Gerner at Bonns)
U.S. Army Regulations #140-5.

     Send them care of the Eagle Club and insure them if it's not too expensive to do so.  They should be in the back closet with my other belongings.  And by the way, look at my electric razor and see if it is AC-DC.  Although all of the voltage over here are 220 volts I can get a voltage dropping resistor and use it anyway, but the current in our barracks is DC and unless the razor is AC-DC I can't use it.

     I went over to the Naafi Friday night and playad Housey-Housey, a game similar to bingo.  You pay two pence, three pence, or six pence a game, and the cash prize varies with the price per card.  There are three rows of numbers on the card with ten to a row.  Some of them are blank so there are just 15 numbers, from 1 to 00.  They play three different games; one two three, in which you have to get one number in the first row, two numbers in the second, and three in the third; sandwich or two, one, two, or two numbers in the top row, one in the second, and two in the third; and full house, in which you have to cover all the numbers on the card.  I played half-a-dozen games and won nothing.  Drank some pale ale while we played.  This is the closest drink they have to Amerlcan beer.

     We start actual practical study of the transmitter tomorrow after having had two weeks of theoretical preparation.  We will work two hours a day on this from now on, two hours in receiver operation, and four hours of lecture on theory.  It's sure getting more interesting every day and the further we get on the more we have to study if we want to get everything out of it we can, which I certainly do, as I will probably need it if I get recalled to do some teaching in the States.

     Just took time out to go to tea at 4:00 PM.  Had sliced cold roast beef, bread & butter, pickled beets and tea.  It's still raining, and one thing about it is that as long as it rains it stays warm around 50.  But the dampness keeps it chilling.

     Have only had a card from Geo. Huff since I left Bournemouth, he having gone in for instrument repairing rather than radio, and he was still there then, not having been posted.  Beekman is here with me though.

     Tell all the boys in the poker club to write me a letter, even if nothing exciting does happen everyday, it sure goes well to hear from home and the oftener the better.  Everyone gathers around when the names are called out for mail with an expectant look and a big smile when they get a letter.

     I hope by now you have received some of my letters and cards.  I'll keep sending cards from every place I visit so you can have some idea of  what I'm doing in the way of sightseeing.  I hope to get to Ireland on my seven day leave after finishing school, but time will tell whether I'11 have the opportunity.  You might send me the address of the Dullea's there.  If  they're within cycling distance I'll pay them a call.

     Jim Grindall will be wishing he was here now, instead of where he thought was so safe when I left home.  Hope he is okay and that Butch has heard from him.

     Can't think of anything more now so will sign off.  The boys have a card game going on the other end of  the table and it's pretty hard to write.

     I think those vitamin tablets containing all the vitamins ABC&D would be a good thing over here as we have no fresh fruit or vegetables on our diet, and my skin is breaking out a bit.  I'll try to get some next time I get into town, but think it's hopeless.

     Well, Cheers, and thumbs up.

 Bob