We started to fly more formation flights of two or three planes andanother plane would try to "attack" us from out of the sun or fromthe clouds like an enemy would. This taught us to keep our headsturning all the time to keep track of the sky all the way around us.We would take evasive action to try to keep the enemy ship fromgetting close behind us. We also did a lot of formation flying close to theground which trained you to stay close together in formation. In thetomato and vegetable farms in the Sacramento valley the pickers wouldbe out in the fields with crates stacked about six feet tall and wewould fly down so low that we blew the empty crates over. I imaginewe were cussed a lot! A couple of times someone would come back andland with telephone wire or fencing caught on the underside of theplane. I loved to do acrobatics and when I sometimes was up alone, I would dorolls and snaprolls and all the fun stuff.

We occasionally were on duty two days and had the next one off so we had plenty offree time and spent a lot of it in San Francisco. We found arent-a-car place and started renting a car by the day. Instead oftaking it back we would just pass it on to someone else. Sometimes wewould keep it for two months and when it went back we would all chipin to pay the bill. 0ne time we had a big Packard Clipper whichdidn't have any reverse so you had to drive it, park it, and keep itin places that you could get out of without using reverse Sometimesthat was real ticklish in the city. I had this big purple car when Ihad the first date with Lettie. I would get her home anytime between1:00 and 3:00 am then wait outside in the car until she came out inthe morning to go to work so I could give her a ride. I got used tostaying up all night every third night. The other fellows were allfinding dates so I had started looking one day and found her workingin the candy section of a department store. I liked San Francisco andservicemen were welcome anywhere so I spent a lot of time in the besthotels and restaurants. We also found many "steak houses" inCalifornia and would eat in them frequently. They were teeny placeswith a couple of tables and a bar or counter with stools. All themenu consisted of was steak, salad, rolls and coffee but it wasalways good. I rode the cable cars a lot and helped them turn thecars around at the bottom of the hill. I found that all the headturning and watching while flying really sharpened your drivingability in a car. You saw all the traffic at once and could gothrough it quickly. We used to drive 60 mph across the Golden GateBridge when the fog was so bad all you could see was the black linein the center of the road. 0n my first date with Lettie we doubledwith another couple. The fellow, Wes Hottdorf, flew with me and hadbeen a member of the Chicago Mafia. He ended up flying P-38s in adifferent group in England.