Saturday, August 31, 2013

World War II Letters Home August, 31, 1938-Estelles Wickenkamp

                                                                                                     Officer Mess
                                                                                                     Royal Air Force
                                                                                                    Uxbridge
                                                                                                    August 31, 1938

Dear Folks:

I suppose you have been wondering why I haven't written lately. This moving about keeps a person quite busy.  In fact, I forget when I did write last, only I have a hunch it is more than week ago.  Sometimes I forget what I have written about so if I repeat 2 or 3 times, you'll know why.

Our time has surely been well put into use here.  We get up at 6:30, then have breakfast at 7:00, then about an hour of P.T. and the rest of the time is used up in drill until 12:00.  After luncheon tea time at 4:00 we generally do more drill.  After that we can leave the barracks until about 6:30 or 6:45 when we have to dress for dinner at 7:00. Most of us have our mess kits now so we were them instead of dinner suits.  After dinner we can lounge around, study or do what we like, to to the flicks here, as long as we don't leave the barracks.

The grounds here are very nicely kept as you will see as soon as I get my pictures developed and send you some.  I find it much easier to take a picture of something than try to describe it -- takes too much energy.

This afternoon instead of drill we had a run of about 2 miles around the barracks and since that I have walked around town and out to the swimming pool, so my legs are sore.  Last night I went to bed at 9:30 so you can see we really must get plenty of exercise.

Tomorrow we get our uniforms back, if there were any alterations made after the first inspection, and we have our 2nd inspection.  Everything has to fit just so - no wrinkles. Friday we have to have our heavy luggage packed and ready to be shipped.  Saturday morning we take our service uniforms and mess uniforms with us and at 8:30 leave for Brize Norton.  We get 2 weeks leave.  I haven't fully decided where I will spend Christmas yet.  maybe Paris or Berlin - I dunno.

I will soon have to get into my mess uniform.  After dinner I am going to pasted some more amendments to these huge law books we have.  I wrote a real long letter to Esther and told her to send it on to you.  It isn't very often I can write much of a letter.

When I send those pictures of myself in different types of dress, I will send enough; some you can send to both grandmas and some to our other relatives.

I am sending you set of R.A.F. wings.  You will have to bend the clasp again.  After a while I will send some stuff that I have here.  I hope you get this airtight.  You can wear it on your dress, Mama.

My chum Doug bought a radio and we are going to try to room together so we will have a little evening entertainment.  When we get to Brize Norton we will be a little ways from town.

We had real nice weather for the last 2 weeks.  I hope it stays this way for a while.

I don't know what else to write about - all I see is service life (at least mostly) and I suppose that gets quite boring to read all the time.  I will write again soon.  How is the work going at the garage, Richard?  Study all the service news you can, it will help you.  Tell me the local news when you write.

                                                                                                          Love,

                                                                                                         Estelles





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