[Rain Man]

Lucy Coopersmith
3128 Thames Street
Cambridge, England

My dearest Lucy,

I think of you often, and can't wait until our wedding day after the war is over.

I got a three day pass this weekend, so I'm coming to see you! I'm sure there are lots of interesting things to do in Cambridge, but I plan to spend a lot of time just enjoying the nice soft bed in the hotel room, if you know what I mean.

I've completed three missions now, without a scratch. I can't say the same for my crew, though. We came through our first mission (to Abbeville) with just a couple of holes in the plane, though one bullet did come through the pilot compartment right next to me.

The second mission was tougher. We lost our engineer to flak while we were over the target zone in St. Omer, and the plane took a lot of damage. The tailwheel was messed up and collapsed when we landed, so the ground crew had to work hard to get us ready for our next mission.

That mission was the worst, and I sincerely wonder if it could get any worse. Our plane, Gunther's Thunder, was hit about two dozen times on our mission to Meaulte. Out of a ten-man crew, our navigator was killed, our left waist gunner (new to the crew) was injured badly enough that he was sent home, and our bombardier, engineer (just promoted from radio op), and even my copilot were injured. The landing gear didn't work right, so we made a full belly landing, which more or less destroyed the plane.

We're not complaining, though. Two of the 20 planes we came over with have been shot down, and we don't know if anyone survived either one.

Anyway, that's enough about the war. Give my regards to your folks and everyone else back home.

1/LT Kevin