Dear Folks,

Well I finally arrived here at the classification center after 55 hours on the train. But the trip was very enjoyable. We traveled by Pullmans the entire distance and we had a porter and everything! Classy! Fort Thomas is a heck of a place. The food is terrible and all of the inductees stink. I was plenty glad when we pulled out of there. We left Fort Thomas by special buses with a police, both military and civilian, escort, and raced to a back alley in Newport, Ky. Here we were loaded on our train under the utmost secrecy. We started out by wandering through a maze of sidings, etc., until we reached the C & O. Here we started to back and backed all the way to the Union Terminal.

We again started out, but this time forward. I fell asleep as we crossed the Great Miami River. When I woke up the next day we were nearing Paducah, Kentucky. We were on the Illinois Central Railway here, but we were still on "back alleys."

We left Kentucky and proceeded down the I.C. until we reached Memphis, Tennessee. Here we could notice quite a change in the weather, much warmer, and no more snow on the ground. At Memphis, I had my first look at the Mississippi. It sure is a gigantic, keen river. We crossed the river at Memphis and proceeded through Arkansas. For the next 50 miles after crossing the Mississippi, I saw the poorest living conditions possible. You can't imagine how lucky we are until you see something like families of 10 and 15 living in small 2-room shacks. It appears as though the shacks were just thrown together from driftwood that comes through this section with the spring floods.

After crossing the Mississippi, we were on the Rock Island route. All of the way through Arkansas we seldom saw an electric light. Practically all of the "houses" were illuminated by very ancient means - that is, candles, gas mantles, lanterns, etc.

The next morning when we woke up, we were in Texas. The climate was growing quite warm. At this time we were on the Cotton Belt route. About noon Wednesday we arrived in Fort Worth, the first fairly large town since Memphis. A queer thing happened here. One of the cadets in my car was Bobby Byrnes, a famous band leader. His wife is Donna Day, who sings for Fred Waring. Anyway, Bobby is the father of an eleven month old baby girl, whom he hasn't seen for 6 months because his band has been on the road. And his baby was in Fort Worth with Bobby's parents, and he couldn't get off the train for a few minutes to see his child, even though we were side-tracked there for two hours. This typifies our entire trip to San Antonio. We were not even allowed to raise a window all the way down. No one, not even the porters, were allowed off the train for fear of revealing our destination. And we stopped at every trestle, bridge or danger spot all the way here before crossing!

Also, we took all of the minor back alley, single track freight routes all the way here, and a trip which could have been made in 40 hours took 55 hours. There were military police galore all over the train and we never went over 50 mph.

After we left Fort Worth, we were on the Missouri Pacific Railroad to Austin. This capital of Texas is sure a stinky little place. Nothing to it at all. From Austin we took the Santa Fe route into San Antonio. All along here we saw practically nothing but Air Fields. We got in bed at 3:00 Thursday morning and were up at 5:15 same morning. Didn't get much sleep, did we? But this is one swell place. Hundreds of brand new barracks and accommodations. I am certainly going to like it here.

Not much happening yet today. We had breakfast this morning and I certainly wasn't disappointed. I rode all the way down with Dickerson and Dorger. Also, our entire group shipped here were college men. A lieutenant gave us an orientation lecture this morning and definitely stated that we would not go to a college. But, he may be full of soup.

Time for food.

Love,
Jack

p.s. Dad - This place is really part of Kelly Field but functions as a separate unit. I wanted to tell you this, but don't address my mail to Kelly Field or it will get mixed up with advanced cadets mail.

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