From
RAF Station
Portlethen, Scotland
(Return address was censored)
 

March 15, 1942
 

Dear Mom, Dad and All:-

     Still enjoylng a very peaceful war uninterrupted by any noises other than the caws of the crows and the roar of an occasional training plane.  Have yet to do any sightseeing here, but the weather is getting warmer and soon we will discard the great coat which will sure help the cycling.  Tomorrow, Sunday, I am off all day so will get to Mass at St. Mary's in Aberdeen and then to the home of one of the respected Aberdonians with a friend of mine, a Canadian, for dinner to get a taste of the real Scotch home cooking.  Hope it's as good as the one I had in Manchester which I have already written about.
     Have been rather busy of late so have only been in to town a couple of evenings in the last week and a half for a show and a feed.  Have managed to buy a fried egg or two as well as some fried ham on these trips.
     The dentist will be here next week, so hope to have my teeth looked over and a couple of bad ones pulled.  It's all "on the company" as it were.
     Heard about the big naval battle tonight between the Japs and the Allies.  Don't sound too good for us.  However, there'll come a day and I hope it isn't far off.  I should think the U.S. could have a crack at bombing the Japanese industrial centers from Alaska, but I suppose the fighter planes couldn't fly that far to protect the bombers.  Sure looks like the Americans will have to lick the rest of the world at the rate the British are losing all their possessions by tactical and strategical blunders of [---------------Censored---------------]
Running here and there around the globe with handsful of men isn't going to defeat the Japs.  They must give up something altogether without a struggle if necessary in order to concentrate a large enough force in one place to really give the Japs a beating.  Maybe it can be done in Australia, but after the way they gave away 50,000 men at Singapore it hardly seems likely that they have enough left to make a stand.  They should take a few lessons from McArthur.  Are the yanks ever going to relieve him?  He was ousted from Washington in the pacifist days, because he shouted for a bigger army and navy and an adequate defense for the nation by the same short sighted people who abolished compulsory military training in the Universities.  They probably wish now that they'd taken his advice.  The way things have gone, too, shows the necessity for air support to be under the command of the army and navy respectively instead of a separate force as over here, although, under the type of fighting carried on here with defense the primary object, a separate force is okay.  They'd be better off with a straight army and navy commanded force though.  Less duplication of facilities and command which means slow action because of the necessity for cooperation between the commands, which isn't always there.
     There's been some rumors of an invasion of the continent, but I don't think the British have either the initiative or the courage to carry it out.  The only ones who have actually put up a fight since Dunkirk have been the fighter and bomber commands of the RAF.  They have more Service Police on this camp of less than a hundred people than they have in the whole city of Aberdeen with 170,000 population.  All but two are single and are 100% physical specimens.  All they do is sit on their tail and tell the WAAF's and Airmen to polish their buttons and check their pass cards in and out when they leave camp.  When they asked for one of them to volunteer for overseas duty not a d--- one volunteered.  If the war effort in the forces here was directed toward polishing off Japs and Jerry's instead of polishing brass they might get somewhere.  The medical officer inspected our billets the other day after it had poured rain the day before.  He was disgusted, so he said, with the way the floor looked with mud tracked all over, "It's no wonder there is disease in these camps".  In his typically British manner of overlooking the important things and squawking about the petty things, he completely overlooked the fact that the blankets hadn't been washed in over three months.   I wasn't there or I'd have enlightened him.  As for home defense and defense of this station they really take the prize.  You remember from ancient history what a pike is?  Well, they've issued pikes to the home guards to fight off the expected Jerry invaders who will come armed with machine guns.  Nice work, yes?  Next thing you know they'll be issuing suits of armor and crossbows.  With good luck I suppose they'll muddle through and [---------------Censored---------------]
  it.  Oh well, talk is cheap anyway, but you do get disgusted occasionally with the way they do things after having come six thousand miles to lend a hand.  The women do deserve credit, though, for the part they have played.  They have much more 'Esprlt de Corps' than the men and more fighting heart, I think.  The blame for most of it lies in the higher command, though.  If they would wake up to the fact that the world hasn't done a Rip Van Winkle for the past 20 years from a military standpoint and adapt the army, navy and air force to modern methods, the war would end sooner.
     Well, there's not much more to write about at the moment and it's about time I hit the hay so I'll sign off and be waiting for your letters.  Say hello to everybody from me and tell them to unlimber their pens and drop me a line.  Haven't received Rita's letter as yet.  How do all the boys stand on the draft business?
    Will write again next week.  Hope my last two long letters reached you okay.

Goodnight,

Bob

P.S. They think Roosevelt's OK over here-note clipping.                      Bob