With Our Airmen

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 153, 30 June 1944, Page 4

With Our Airmen

Excerpts Grave And Gay From Their Letters Home

Here are some more revealing excerpts from the letters of New Zealand airmen abroad. Won't you please send in some readable tit-bits from the letters of sons, relatives or friends? Address: With Our Airmen, Auckland Star, Auckland. ® OYSTERS Truly you wouldn't think ther< was a war on over here sometimes For an appetiser Ron had oystei cocktails. These were half a dozen bif oysters, each nestled in its openec shell, arranged around the edge o; silver platter, which was filled with chipped ice and little delicacies like parsley and things, with a specia little dish of sauce in the centre. II looked too beautiful to eat, but Ron if fond of oysters. As usual, my taste was simple, and after an immense dish of iced grapefruit juice I had roast pork. Meat is about the only thing that is hard to get—not hard exactly, but difficult and a little ex-pensive.—(P-O. J.8.N., training in Canada.) ® JEW'S HARP SONATA At the unearthy hour of 6 a.m. a loudspeaker, installed in each hut, incurs the wrath and suffers the blasphemy of thirty odd semi-con-scious airmen, when it emits a form of "Reveille" dressed up 011 a recording until it sounds like a sonata being played on a Jew's harp. This noisy piece of discord effectively wakes the sleepy occupants of the beds, who regard the signal as one given to advise them to turn over and sleep peacefully until seven. Then their stomachs and the almost ready breakfasts desire intimacy and cause stark consciousness. Follows a panic of pvjamed bodies. Some chaps just get up, some enjoy a morning scratch, some like to yawn, and some not wishing to rise are forcibly ejected from their beds.— (W.J.M.) • "LONG WAYS FROM HOME" They certainly believe in taking care of you here. I have a slight cold, so I was put to bed in the station hospital. In this ward of 15 beds there are representatives of five different nations, but there are twice as many on the station. It was good to receive some home papers. The Canucks think it funny to see a paper without glaring big headlines on the front page. On Saturday we went to a Y.M.C.A. dance and took two of the girls home. Home was a long way further than we were led to believe when we started walking. However, it was fortunate, because they were able to show us the Northern Lights, which lit up the sky for quite a while, sometimes with cloudy effects and sometimes lovely colours.—A. G. Neels, L.A.C., in Canada. • HAVE YOU BEEN TO LONDON? Have been to London and seen all the places I have read about, dreamed about—and did I enjoy it? In the dark—the London blackout is not so dark or lightless as one is led to believe—we managed somehow to walk through Green Park to Buckingham Palace, which we could just distinguish through the murky fog which prevailed all the time we were in London. Then we came up the Mall and passed under Admiralty Arch, along Whitehall, under Big Ben, over Westminster Bridge and so back to the club.—(W.O. Keith Guest, Auckland.)

• MUSICAL TREAT . I thought you might be interested in something I did the other night I went into Toronto and heard a concert by no less than the Phila delphia Symphony Orchestra. Thev _ were absolutely wonderful. Thev ve^ an eve ning of Russian music, all by Tchaikowsky, Rimsky Korsokoy and other great Russians. It k was marvellous, and I just sat and v soaked in it. My only regret was r* that I could not go the second night e but pressure of work was too great! d —(G.E.C.R., Heme Bay). e • BROWNED OFF n I bring you to-day the greatest d scoop of news ever to be heard from y the far-flung outposts of the Pacific I. —-where not a second passes but something happens in this vast tropical area. Where every man thrills to the excitement, the tenseness and supernatural atmos- , phere, with its variations of drama " and tragedy, keying the human = mind to the highest pitch, only to 1 plunge it into deepest gloom (when f no mail arrives!) "Yes! Yes! but the • news?" I hear you say. Ah, yes! , the news. Here it is, then. Last ; night a dog was seen here! Picture for yourself the stupendous reaction ~ T when hundreds of men, lethargic in » this climate, behold before them a four-legged beast that reminds them of where they'd last seen such an animal.—Corporal M. Williams, in the Pacific. V • INVISIBLE MAN > "I'm sitting on my bunk writing . this on my knee, right now. Jock r Elliot, who is the rear-gunner of our [ crew, is sitting on his bed opposite - me, reading H. M. Pulham. Esq. On ; the third bunk there is no one, but ■ there are a couple of blankets folded 1 where Sergeant Searle—a non- . existent South African — bunks. When anyone comes around with an eager light in his eye and asks, A spare bunk in here?' we brightly answer, 'No, a chap by the name of Searle—he's on leave right now.' Not exactly the right thing to do, but then, who does conform to all the rules?"— Auckland pilot officer. • THE BRAVE MAN The old contention that the brave man is the one who recks not of consequence or hazard applies only as far as sheer brute insensitivity applies in any undertaking. The brave man, the truly brave man, is the one who appreciates present conditions without being stirred to fear or faint-heartedness, and can assess future contingencies with the same clarity of insight and lack of physical squeamishness. What's more, he's the bloke that will come out alive.—R.M.S. (Auckland). • MR. HONK I had a fortnight's leave, went to Ottawa, joined the Ski Club; and bought an outfit for the snow. Through the kindly suggestion of a lady in the Air Force Club in Ottawa, I was to billet at St. Sauveur with Mr. Honk, a wealthy American who had a shack, which turned out to be a two-storeyed house, there. I left the train at a station about as busy as Mangere, and asked the first man I met to direct me to Mr. Honk's. "There it is right next to the station," was the reply, as he pointed to a stone building. Up the steps I bounded and knocked at the door. No reply, but I could hear movement inside, so knocked again. Still no answer, so I tried the back door, without any better result. Out into the road again I asked the first man who passed, "What's the matter with Mr. Honk?" "Oh!" came the reply, "That's not Mr. Honk's! That is the convent!" The whole village is still laughing at me.—L.A.C. G. S. Reid (Auckland).