Letter to Jean Welland from Jack Darby

Letter to Jean Welland from Jack Darby

He writes saying it is very dry and dusty. His course has become more interesting with practicals and flying.

1943-08-21

One double sided handwritten air letter

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EDarbyCAHWellandJ430821-0001, EDarbyCAHWellandJ430821-0002

No. 29. 21/8/43

Dear Jean,

Thanks very much for airgraph 25, also letter 21, I’m so glad to hear you are keeping the home front going, how are the tomatoes? did they get the sun you were wishing for? one thing they could export some of that from here, except for a few showers the last real rain they had was last [underlined] April [/underlined], you can imagine what the ground is like when ever we get a strong breeze we get a dust storm, its deadly, covers everything. Last night however, we had a terrific thunderstorm, its the worst I've ever seen, makes those back home seem pretty feeble, of course it rained and as usually is the case, everyone decided to catch the early bus from town. I will say it was rather cramped, we had 73 in a 32 seater bus, the last couple riding on the bottom step, lucky the bus made it as its five miles to camp and not a scrap of shelter the whole way.

We are starting a more interesting part of our course, we have half days lectures then the rest practical, usually on the range, or on the bombing teacher a very ingenious device what gives you actual conditions of flying, we even have a pilot! we should start real flying tomorrow, just finding drifts and winds etc, in a week we should start bombing although I shall have to get some practise in on the teacher.

We should be having a 48 hour pass next weekend, as my pal and I have been put in separate classes I shan’t go to Grand Falls, Montana as I had planned, I think Waterton will do fine, shall try a bit more horse riding, should be great fun although rather hard on certain portions of my body, still even you have the same

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3/

would take a very dim view of the whole proceedings, however they’re enjoying themselves so why worry.

Well, time marches on, take care of yourself, keep that mighty firm of Eastwoods running smoothly and don’t inflict your choral efforts on too many people, remember theres still a war on!

Cheerio

Yours

Jack

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AIR LETTER TO ARMED FORCES
BY AIR MAIL

IF ANYTHING IS ENCLOSED, THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT BY ORDINARY MAIL.

[postmark] AFFIX 10c POSTAGE

[deleted] Number, Rank or Rating and Name [/deleted] MISS J. WELLAND.
[deleted] Unit (Company, Battery, Ship, Squadron, etc.) [/deleted] 7. QUEENS DRIVE.
[deleted] Regiment, Branch, Establishment or Station [/deleted] [word deleted] SURBITON
[deleted] Service [/deleted] SURREY. ENGLAND.
[inserted] 21-8-43 [/inserted] OVERSEAS.

FROM (Sender’s full name and address)
[deleted] M [/deleted] 927893 L.A.C. Darby.
[symbol] 8. B & G. S.
Lethbridge, Alberta

[inserted] 29 [/inserted]

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2/

trouble on the rink, don’t you? am glad to say we have only one parade a week here, at least a pukka effort, the Group Captain wanders round and inspects the boys, there's bags of bull and everone [sic] rushes round in tight circles getting in each others way. Its funny the unrealeased [sic] incidents, the Canadian idea of holding a parade certainly would'nt suit [letter deleted] some of the Regular R.A.F. officers, they