Dear Mum, Dad, Bette and Jack the Commando:

…The other night when I wrote to you I had just sealed the airmail when the sirens started to howl. I guess I got my initiation that night. It was the biggest raid over here since a long time, about 90 planes so the papers say and they were around us. As soon as we heard the sirens we all went out to watch the fireworks and believe me it really is something to see all those searchlights, tracer bullets, anti-aircraft shells bursting, bombs bursting and all kinds of planes roaring.

I have a slight idea of what Jerry feels like every night. It lasted well over an hour and we stood outside and watched it all. They say they got eight down and I saw three…landing too darn close for comfort. The blast broke two of our windows and set us down right in the mud. Talk about a surprised bunch of fellows but we didn’t even have sense enough to get in the slit trenches. Anyway, it was too interesting to miss. They were all around us and it was sure hot up above. There were two darn good dogfights right above us and they were really going into it. You can’t see a thing just tracer bullets starting from nowhere then stopping all of a sudden. They dropped six big ones near our camp but not near enough to do any damage.  They just shook the huts. The plane that crashed was the closest to us and it was just a little bit too close. I wish I could have taken a picture of it then I could show Jack what a real Halloween looks like. However, we are none the worse of it and it was a darn good experience.…

All the best to the best folks a fellow ever had.

Lots of Love to All,

Bill