Wed. Jan. 13 – Morning off, slept till 10:30, and got up hungry as a wolf. Went on duty about 1:00 when the other shift got back from a mission. Maj. [Eck] Sims took [Tom] Farley’s place in our flight, then took the lead. We were scheduled to take off at 3:30, but it was called off. Haven’t been on a completed mission for a week or more. When I set up in my assigned ship (53) the crew chief found a bad cut in the left tire. If I had tried to take off it would probably have blown out. Bellows was lucky it didn’t go out on him when he landed. Another letter from Betty tonight, no. 3, and she reports she has a bad cold. Poor kid, I’ll bet I know what would cure that. Of course, that letter was written the last of December, so she may be better by now, I hope. I’ll bet my name will really be mud when she finds I didn’t even mention
today being our anniversary (11 months) but when her letter arrived I was so excited the anniversary slipped my mind until I had used up all my allotted space in my letter! So I decided to put it in my next letter, with profuse apologies and explanations. Up to date there has been absolutely no sign or news of [Dick] Dennis. He was lost on Dec. 18. While returning from a normal patrol, [Earl] Kingsley was leading the flight, and climbing for altitude to get over some bad weather. As he approached a hole in the clouds at about 18-20,000, he looked back and saw the last plane, losing altitude and heading toward Kokoda. King came on home, but Dennis did not arrive, and since that day, no sign of him has ever been found.
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