Montreal, Province of Quebec
                     October 12, 1941

Dear Mom, Dad and All:-

     As I told you in the other short letter we arrived okay and are, just living the life of Riley while we await our leaving which may come anytime.  There is a strong possibility that we will leave Monday, but we have nothing definite as yet.  A British cruiser is in the harbor, having escorted the "Empress of India" a transport liner in and laying up for repairs.  The guess is that we will sail on this.  I'll wire you if we do.
     It's been raining and dreary cold, but yesterday afternoon the sun broke through the clouds so George Huff, Dee (he's the fellow from Mpls.) and I walked up to the top of Mount Royal and got a look at the city from the highest vantage point.  It was the first time we could see the city and harbor, even from our headquarters, it being usually obscured by tne fog.  I took a few pictures of the scenery and one of the horse drawn carriages.  When we came back down we went down town and got some AC wire and hooked up the code oscillator.  George is practicing now.
     I am down in the recreation room writing this now.  There's a ping pong game going, a four corner gab fest around a table to my left and a card game at the table in front or me.
     The automatic radio phono is grinding out "I don't want to set the world on fire"  and a few other fellows are reading or writing home.  It's "St. Louis Blues" now.
     The homes around our place are magnificent three, four, or, five story affairs with servants, chauffers and big cars.  There isn't a house within a half mile or more in any direction of less that twenty-five or thirty rooms.  They are of stone or brick with leaded stained glass windows and huge carved doors.  The windows are all shuttered.  If the priests house at St. Johns cost $37,000 these must be worth anywhere from 50 to 100,000 dollars.  They are like our apartment buildings back home, a good deal larger than the one at Earl and Wakefield.  I don't know of any on Summit Avenue in St. Paul to even compare with them.  The seven rooms and two baths on the fourth floor of the home we're located in were for the servants quarters only, which sort
of gives you an idea.
     Went to Mass at St. James Cathedral here this morning.  It covers a square block and there must have been around five thousand people at the ten o'clock Mass.  The pews extend in three directions from the altar, those in front of the altar being about as wide as those at the St. Paul Cathedral, but extending much further back.  You practically need field glasses to see the altar from the rear of the church.  On either side of the altar the pews run at right angles to those in front and each side is about the size of St. Johns.  There must have been a couple hundred people standing in the back and sides.  An excellent tenor sang the Panus Angelicus and the organ  accompaniment was superb.  About 12 out of the 60 fellows here now are Catholic.  The sermon was In French, so I didn't derive much benefit from it.
     Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day here and a legal holiday.  We are going to have turkey, but since we're Americans it isn't a holiday for us, which means we will have to answer the roll call at 9:OO AM and 1:30.
     My passport has not come through yet so all of us have temporary passports so we won't be held up if there is a chance to get passage on a boat.
     I will be attached to the Army in England and have the rank or 1st Sergeant.  I think I will soon be moving up in the pay line since I seem to be the most educated man in the place, both practically and theoretically.
     They want 30,000 men in this service, have had 10,000 applications so far, and I am the 314th man to be enrolled in the corps.  I won't receive any uniforms until I get to England as they just haven't any here.  They're all made in England.  I have the cap, though which is just the same as the blue uniform cap I wore at the "U" except it's of a blue grey shade.  I also have been issued a pair of canvas and rubber soled shoes, oxfords size 9 wide, with bull dog toes.  I'd never recognize my own feet in them.  The uppers are blue grey canvas with a leather tip on the toe.  The rest of the issue consists of 2 blue grey flannel shirts, with 4 separate collars to match, 1 pair braces, 1 pair leather dress gloves, black and lined, 1 kahki shirt, 2 suits BVD's (the regular old BVD style), a shoe brush, clothes brush, duffel bag, wool sweater-coat of OD shade (about like Bug's [George's] blue one), black neck tie, three pair of blue grey heavy all wool socks, (like we used to wear under our boots, but short length), and insignia.  We will be issued two dress uniforms, one work uniform, rain coat, gas mask, two pairs of leather shoes, eating tools, shoe polish, working tools, and Lord knows what all when we get to England.  You're certainly well outfitted and if the food is no worse than it is here we can't squawk much.
     Most of the fellows here have seen service in the last war.  There are Danes, Scots, Irish, English, French and Lord knows what.  One fellow has already been torpedoed twice in this war. One of the Scotsman was in the battle of Arras in the World War I in which tanks were used for the first time.  The tanks were supposed to go ahead through a valley and tear out the barbed wire for the infantry advance.  They all got mired in the mud and he said if the artillery hadn't blown hell out of the wire none of them would have ever lived to fight in this war.  We went down town in a taxi theother night and the driver had been honorably discharged from the Canadian Army for disability suffered in London in the battle of Britain.  He spent three months driving brass hats around England and in the worst bombardment of London by the Nazi planes his car was blown up.  He said you could set your watch by the regularity of the time of the bombers arrival and never be more than five minutes off.  They came between 7:20 and 7:30 in the evening.  Another fellow here who lived for twenty years in France has seen service in England, France and Spain since 1934.  Another fellow, a sergaeant in the Danish Army in the last war trained American Lieutenants (the ninety day wonders) at West Point.  An Irishman named McCarthy served with the English Infantry and Artillery in France from 1915 to the Armistice.  He's from New Jersey and has one son in the US Army and he got a form by air mail today to sign to give his second oldest son, who is 17, permission to join the U.S. Navy.  His wife is home in Jersey now with Just their youngest son who is twelve.  He wants combat duty in the navy, but said of course he couldn't sign up for that in the U. S., but will probably be able to make a transfer when he gets to England in such a way as to not lose his citizenship.   70% of the men here are over thirty-five and 50% of these saw service in the last war; are married; have children who are married, and some who are not.  They are all offering their technical training to England because they figure it's the best thing they can do to preserve the things they came to America for in the first place and because they figure they owe it both to England, for the brave stand she has made and the United States which gave them a home and an opportunity to work and raise their children.  There's definite purpose behind their being here and when you look around at them, and talk to them, and know what they are leaving and giving up it makes you pretty disgusted with some of the lackadasical attitude back home toward the war and what it means to us.  They talk about their own boys and girls in the states, how they're going to school, what they like, how they look, the things they did when they were small, what they think of their Pop, and so on.  One fellow showed me four small sheets of paper about three by four inches covered with an scrawly letters and what not, which had come enclosed in an air mail letter from his wife.  It was the attempts of his four year old son to write a letter to his dad, who, for all they might have known at home, was already on his way to England.  I have always been, for some reason, a good listener and able to draw people out and I've spent a good deal of time just talking to and, mostly, listening to these fellows, it's an experience you could meet with nowhere, but in a place like this.
     I have been doing fairly well at keeping up my diary, which now covers 22 pages of my ring binder note book, and think it certainly will be interesting reading, twenty years from now.
     There's been a complete change over in the fellows in this room since I've been writing.  The phono is still going under another operator, two of the newest fellows have just started a ping pong game and a single fellow is playing solitaire across from me.  If you have been here over four days you-re an old timer.  They come in four or five a day and out about 8 at a time every three days.  There are supposed to be 18 going Monday, but it may be increased to 30.  If it does I'11 be included.  They expect 130 fellows in the next couple weeks.  The character investigation back in the U.S. is really conducted by the F.B.I, I have discovered and is sure thorough since they have only taken about 500 of these so far.  The boys across the room are at it again arguing about whether they will go by boat or rail from here.  We won't know until we arrive at either the dock or the depot which way we really will go, but it makes good conversation.  When we leave we get 10 [pounds] in English money, which is of course worth $50.00 in England, even though it will only buy $41.20 worth in the U. S.   That's to give us a start in England.
     Our American dollars still buy $1.10 worth of stuff here.  You can go into the five and ten, buy something for a dime, give the girl an American dollar and get a Canadian dollar in return.  Not bad, but, cigarettes are 25 Cents for a package of 18.  Meals run about the same or a little less than in the U.S. and clothes are no cheaper.  There's sales tax on everything of 5 %.  Anything from a dime up is covered, and I do mean everything.  There are no exceptions.
     Well, that just about covers everything I can think of now except two little items.  First, my address in England which will be:

                     E.L. Martin, Jr. #314
                     Administrative Hqtrs,
                     Civilian Technical Corps.
                     Eglan Court, 7 Knyveton Rd.
                     Bournemouth, England

I got this from a letter which had been stamped for forwarding by mistake, as the fellow did not leave.  It's OK to use it the Captain said so there it is.
     The second thing.  Members of the services who are Americans can receive cigarttes and other things duty free if sent to the following address from which they will be forwarded to us.

     The American Eagle Club
     28 Charing Cross Road
     London. WC2
           England

     Among the things I will need from time to time are cigarettes and razor blades.  Everything else I can get there as far as I know.  Well, that's the dope and I'll wire or phone if I go unexpectedly.  If you write me here send it Air Mail so it'll get here quick.  An air mail letter from England to the U.S. costs 35 Cents an ounce.  You might have Dad send me a ream of onion skin paper.  If I don't get it before I go, they will forward it anyway so I'11 be sure to get it.
     I'm hale and hearty and really enjoying my experience.  My eye is healing very well by now and in a couple months you won't even be able to see where it was.  I hope I don't get sea sick on the way over.  I'11 tell you more about that, though, after I get there.
     Well, so long for now and somebody drop me a line.

  Bob

(no censorship in Canada)

Address:

 E. L. Martin, Jr
 Civilian Technical Corps
 1415 Pine Ave.
 Montreal, Canada