18 January 1945

Dear Sisters:

Well I’ll start this out today, but I won’t promise to finish it, but I’ll try. As a general rule I’ve been so busy that I really didn’t have a minute’s time.

Mary came home for lunch and has a sore throat and looks sick. I just made her go to the doctor. I hope she gets back before I must go to the field.

. It is very dark out, damp and raw. I guess we are going to get some bad weather. I see by the paper that you had 16 inches of snow again.

I had to go to school 2 days this week in the morning. Then yesterday I had to take all of my clothes out for an inspection, so it didn’t give me much time.

It was swell of you to send the chocolate cake. It got here last night and there isn’t too much of it left, as we gave it a going over then and again today. It surely held up good, not broken or anything. It looks a lot better than the things that got slammed around by the Army PO. Thanks a lot for it, we surely appreciate it. I have letters from Kathryn and Zima to answer so here goes.

I am glad you had a nice birthday K. and you had some real entertainment with the kids there. You got very nice gifts I must say.

The kids surely are bad breaking into the school and stealing horns.

The fortress does weigh about 20 tons. The B-29, just the plane, weighs about 35. I cannot tell you exactly, with auxiliary equipment add about 8 tons, maybe more to go over Japan and up so it cannot take its 18 tons of bombs so you can see for yourself. These figures are a secret more or less so use your judgment about giving them out. Just to say about 60 tons to correct for all that auxiliary equipment is very secretive.

Hey this envelope and paper really saves paper but how about numbering your pages. Too bad about George Southam.

So long,

Love John