A Letter to my Folks - 1943

I ran across this letter when I was going through a box of my mother's mementos yesterday. It is a letter I wrote home when I was finishing up my training at NATTC in Millington, TN back in 1943. I was still Ruth Flagg Stevenson from Bethel, CT when I wrote it. I thought some of you might be interested in reading the thoughts and opinions of a 20-year old WAVE 66 years ago.

 John Leslie this is especially for you.

Naval Air Technical Training Center

Memphis, Tennessee

Aug. 15, 1943

Dear Mom and Pop,

Another Sunday and only two more to go - one more if I weren't planning to wait a few days for a voucher. A voucher, as I am given to understand, is a slip that will take you anywhere in the country on Navy money and that sum, minus the cost of the trip from this base to my next, will be deducted in sections from my future pay. It will mean I'll probably have to wait here with nothing to do, but I think I'll get paid for Sept. 5^th as well as getting a voucher by waiting. The inactivity will probably drive me crazy but maybe I can get rested up for the trip. I'm getting so excited about going home I can hardly sleep at night. (As if the heat had nothing to do with it.)

Yesterday on the apron right behind the propeller in full blast of the prop wash the thermometer on the air speed tube registered 104 degrees. It was a good 115 or 120 degrees out of the prop wash. It stayed between 90 and 100 degrees all night. I spent most of the night wafting my sheet up and down to create a little air disturbance. I'm sitting here right now very quietly with the sweat just pouring off.

I like operations so much. Everyone is so nice to us there, except the leading officer, who doesn't see much of us anyway. We spend the first couple hours in the morning inspecting the plane, and the last two out on the line warming it up and operating the engine controls. Yesterday I was left sort of unattached to any particular instructor so I went around and picked one out who seemed to be on the beam and attached myself to him. He took advantage of me, and instead of letting me in the cockpit or around it to observe he had me doing all the odd jobs. I manned the fire extinguisher when they started the plane, climbed up onto the nose of the plane, struggling against the prop wash to open the inspection door and get the used shell from the cartridge starter, ran his errands to the tool crib, chased his hat, until I got tired of him and left him for a decrepit F3F - which is an obsolete fighter. That old crate wouldn't start with cartridge starter so they were using a bungee cord on it. That's a rope tied on one blade of the prop and yanked through fast - just like a crank on a car. It's very dangerous and it just about made me sick to watch the chief starting the prop through with his hand. That old fighter is a hazard anyway. It was vibrating so I could hardly manage the throttle - it was too easy to run it up higher than it should be. My hand slipped once and it got up to 1700 rpms and I thought for a minute it was going to take off. However I had remembered to put the propeller in high pitch so it was all right. That afternoon a sailor did the same thing on that plane only he forgot and left the prop in low pitch. The plane broke its lines and went haywire across the apron. One boy sitting under the wing just missed being killed. It crashed into the wing of the Seagull (SO3C) next to it and simply chewed that wing off. In a couple of minutes it did a good $2500 damage and the prop on the fighter was only nicked a little. It shows what a prop would to anyone if they were careless enough to walk into it. A marine almost did run into one yesterday chasing his hat. I saw him and my heart was in my mouth. The chief said he certainly would be "embarrassed" if someone died.

By the way that chief is the spitting image of what I expect Bill to look like in another 15 years. He's a swell fellow and I'm hoping he is going to ask me out next Wednesday. I haven't met anyone in a long time I have wanted to go out with except the little Spanish instructor I met last Sunday in town and I'll probably be disappointed.

I heard from Cousin George (Lt. Stevenson) yesterday. He is in Roswell N. Mex. Learning what he doesn't know about B-17s. After that he goes to a still more advanced school to learn to handle the crew he'll have under him when he goes into active duty piloting B-17s. I sure am proud of him. He writes such nice letters - sounds just as if he were my own brother.

This is running into quite a letter, isn't it?

Yesterday something happened that rather gave me some fiendish satisfaction. Our section leader is reaping the fruits of all the sarcasm and rotten tricks she's pulled on us. She has exactly 3 friends out of the 25 in our section, and yesterday one of them had the gall to send a paper around through the section for those to sign who were in favor of buying her a present when we leave. Five people signed it and three of those  people are just boiling. They want to hold a meeting about it, but Angel, Emmie and I are trying to discourage that because it would be a free-for-all, and besides would get back to her and hurt her feelings terribly - not that I care much but she doesn't deserve quite that much. She's about the cattiest, most sarcastic, and rude person I've met up with, but as long as we've let the situation ride this long it would be silly to make an issue now.

There are some swell movies movies on the station today and Pat and I are going to see several and also go to a swimming meet. I was tempted to enter the swimming meet. But my breathing isn't very good for very long in swimming. I've improved a lot though.

If everything goes right I should be home about two weeks from next Friday. It takes 30-37 hours train time from Memphis to New York. Of course anything can happen in the Navy and I may not get there.

Hope you have lots of milk and salad when and if I get there. You have no idea how I crave a good glass of milk.

Goodbye for now and lots of love.

Ruthie

I sure did like the word 'swell'! I used it the way the word 'cool' is used today.

I don't have a scanner right now or I would include the three little sketches I drew for this letter. The first is of a knock-kneed Wave in uniform carrying two heavy suitcases. The second is of me fleeing away from an out of control training plane. The third is of me sitting at the kitchen table at home drinking milk, with two more quart bottles and a salad in front of me.