Wednesday, March 23, 2016

22) Raising Ducks for Christmas Dinner- March 13, 1944

APO 713 = Base E, Nadzab, New Guinea
Stationed at Gusap Airfield

Jack is in the center
New Guinea
March 13th, 44
10:00 AM


Betty dear,

Recieved another of your letters yesterday. Feb. 5th was the date on the envelope. Really you shouldn’t scare me by writing letters like that. If I didn’t know you so well I would have read more than the first 2 lines before I got wise. You know that I know that you wouldn’t write that sort of stuff. It was very cute though. I gave it to Ed and said want to read a hot love letter. He really fell for it. Did he cuss when he turned the page.

I don’t think you will regret giving up Latin. You can’t very well get anything from the darned old subject. Unless you are a little bit nuts anyway.

Glad to hear that they have opened the field again. Bob & Bill should be pretty good at the old stick by the time I get back. Won’t take me long to catch up with them though. Wait to see. How many hours do they have now?

Guess you are already wishing vacation time would roll around. I should get a vacation to Australia soon. 10 days is not much of a furlough.

We are raising ducks now. We caught 6 wild ducks, little baby ones. They are brown & yellow and the cutest things you ever saw. We are going to have them for Xmas dinner.

We built a cage and put a big pan of water for them to swim around in. By how those little devils can eat.

Say! Why don’t you get busy and send me that picture I’ve been waiting for.

Your sure are sweet to write me so often. Please don’t get mad if I don’t write as often as you do but it is hard sometimes. You have no idea how much your letters mean to me.

Well that is about all from this end of the line. Please write soon.

Remember I’m thinking of you most of the time.

Yours with love,

Jack

Enclosed find some pictures. The one of me is not very good or am I really that ugly.



Notes: 

  1. 9th FS Unit History-March 1944 --On 4 March, 5 or 6 Jap fighters made a surprise raid, strafing and bombing the squadron dispersal areas on strip #5, catching everyone unaware, as there was no warning of their approach. Small anti-personnel bombs were dropped, the closest falling about 35 yards from our alert shack but causing no damage.  Early in the morning of March 15th a lone enemy bomber sneaked in, dropping two bombs in the camp area of a nearby unit, causing no damage. The unit involved made practical use of the craters as grease pits for their motor pool.  Ken Clark’s Unit History posted on www.flyingknights.com
  2. Ducks--- So much for all that work raising the ducks!  The 9th squadron would be long gone from Gusap by Christmas.


Again--many thanks to Ken Clark and others for their extensive information on posted on www.flyingknights.net





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