Darlings,
Gosh! That certainly is a shock to hear that poor Mr. Erickson passed away. I talked to a fellow cadet’s Dad is a doctor. He said that spinal meningitis is a disease something like infantile paralysis. Maybe that’s the cause for some of his off days.
Don’t worry about it affecting me-death is expected in this outfit-in fact we’re learning how to sight the Machine guns on our planes so we can kill with the first shot. Our gunnery instructor is a very brilliant man. We are learning the lead method. He claims common mistake made by all pilots is that they don’t close in close enough before they cut loose. We had some pictures shown of the Royal Air Force pilots. They were very interesting. Gunnery is the best subject we have taken thus far. I hope I can make out alright.
I just got in an argument with a dumb Swede. He’s always kidding me about England. Someday I’ll knock that guy for a loop. He is so repugnant, he burns me no end. Oh, well, what can you expect.
We went on a 600 mile cross-country today. This country is very mountainous. That’s what I like about the airplane. We just fly over them. Gosh! It scares you when the motor sputters a little bit when you’re looking down on those jagged rocks.
Well, darlings, thank you so much for being kind to the Ericksons. They were so kind to me.
Your loving son,
Jim