There was a girl
with three kids under the age of 5 and she was traveling from Boston
to San Diego to be with her husband, a sergeant stationed in
California. We had a Pullman car and their berth was opposite mine.
The kids spent most of the time crying or running in the aisle. There
was a sailor sitting with me and we tried to help entertain them as
best we could. After three days and nights with all that noise you
can bet I was glad to arrive in California!
I took a taxi out to the base at Santa Rosa and the whole camp had.
disappeared. The barracks were empty and all my gear was gone. It was
real spooky and I didn't know if they'd gone overseas or what. I
hunted around and found a caretaker who told me they had moved to
Oakland, across the Bay from San Francisco. I called a taxi again and
made it to Oakland just before my leave was up. While I had been
gone, two of the guys had had to bail out of their P-39s due to
engine trouble. Al Johnson was one of them and he landed in a lake.
The next time I flew I spent the whole time listening to the engine
for fear that it would quit. I kept hearing things that weren't
there, but those planes were all old and anything could happen to
them.
The lst weeks of our training here at Oakland were formation,
gunnery, dive bombing, and simulated aerial attacks. We began to lose
some of the pilots now. One took off over the Bay and the plane
exploded.
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