10/29/44 V-mail, Italy
Hi Toots:
I wonder how many mistakes I’ll make this time. I hate to use a mill with a bastard keyboard for it breaks good typing habits I’ve spent a long time developing.
We must be living right in this section now. The new chief of staff, a general, dropped in unexpectedly a few minutes ago. The was boss was reading my Mark’s ME Handbook, I was analyzing some UR’s*, Biddulph was writing a report, and the WAC was filing a while pile of stuff. Any other time, we would have been sitting around with our feet on the desk shooting the well-known bull.
Do you remember how Baldy and I used to send UR’s back to the squadron engineering officers because of misspelled words and failure to use exactly the form called for in appropriate regulation? Well, I’d give five bucks to see one like that now. I have read about 2,000 of them, and the people who write them now don’t even speak English. The caliber of our engineering officers is way below what it used to be when yours truly was in the racket. Of course, that sounds like a repetition of the age-old “the younger generation is going to hell,” but it is true. I come across ones made out by Willy, Cannon, Devine, and some of the others I trained, and the difference in clarity, logic and wording is striking. One report, though, really was outstanding in its simplicity and engineering accuracy. Instead of the usual line of drizzle, it simply said, “Busted cylinder caused engine to burn. No recommendations.” I am preparing a big poop sheet on how to write unsatisfactory reports so that they will mean something; apparently the kids writing them think an imbecile is getting them, or they wouldn’t try to put over some of the hooey that is in them.
My room is gradually getting fixed up. I bought a potted plant a vase to put same in yesterday, and today I was able to obtain a 150 watt lamp bulb, so that now I should be able to study at night instead of sitting around the club room shooting the bull.
Jackson, my former ops officer, is back in the theater after a trip home. I think it is a god damn shame to take a kid who has been over for better than two years, went through the hell that was Africa (and that ain’t no foolin’), flown 85 missions, and then send him back into combat with all of the bastards back home who haven’t been in it at all. Incidentally, recently published statistics show our XII AF has dropped more tons of bombs than any other, even if we don’t ever get any publicity.
I love you, Marfy, Cy.
*Unsatisfactory Reports. “As with supplies, successful maintenance depended greatly on a two-way flow of information between the field establishments and ASC headquarters. The primary source of information about specific technical difficulties was the Unsatisfactory Report (UR). Flying units submitted UR’s on defective equipment, procedures, and forms to the ASC, which either advised appropriate remedial action or arranged for necessary research on the problem. The huge growth of the AAF and the introduction of myriad items of new equipment produced a tremendous increase in the number of UR’s submitted. From a total of 10,480 in 1941 UR’s increased to 169,521 in 1944 and 164,155 for the first eight months of 1945. Because it became impossible to answer each UR individually, and in order to attain the widest dissemination of information as to possible remedies, the ASC began in February 1944 to issue a semimonthly Unsatisfactory Report Digest which listed specific failures, cited the number of reports received on each failure, and suggested remedial actions.65 Important information came also from technical inspectors who were to be found at all echelons of the AAF down to the base level. Their inspection reports proved to be of great value in correcting deficiencies of a broader nature than those which appeared in the UR’s. Special conferences on maintenance problems at ASC headquarters and in the field contributed additional information of value in the formulation of over-all policy. General reports distributed by ASC served to bring to interested agencies helpful suggestions based upon a common experience with maintenance problems. Source: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/VI/AAF-VI-11.html