England,
6/11/41.

Dear Everybody,

Am somewhere in England please address my letters to the address I left behind, they will be forwarded to me. Will be in this town for some time as we are waiting for a school, where we will have further instruction in wireless (about 6 weeks), several weeks gunnery, & then to a squadron to learn crew operations, & finally to an operational squadron. Didn’t have too good a trip across from Canada, we were on a armed merchant cruiser, a slow ship, about 6 inches between beds on the floor, mattress & two blankets, the mess was rotten, smelt like a pig cart, sailors slept over the tables & had lockers at the sides. Food not too good Bathrooms rotten dirty, & not nearly enough to go round. Still we didn’t expect a picnic. Have only seen one place that has been bombed, we travelled about 400 miles in England to where we are now mostly at night, but did see quite a lot in daylight & only saw one large building that had been bombed it looked like a factory. The preparations here for an invasion are enormous, if England is invaded the invader will have a tough time to get in. Will be issued with Flying Kit here, have filled in the usual lot of forms. Lady Ryder has two or three offices where every airman is asked to register, & when he gets leave, arrangements are made for some English home to take him as a guest during his leave, can go anywhere in England. The weather here is pretty cold 55 degrees the warmest yet, the first morning the temp at 8 A.M. was 29 degrees & a cold wind blowing too. The country around here is very beautiful so is the town, I realise why the autumn is called fall here, the way the leaves comedown, the majority of trees shed their leaves. Hope everyone is well.

Love, Ray