11 Sept. 1945

Dear Mom

Quite a surprise awaited us here: we take a three weeks course on sea search radar and then go to sea on army transports. Navy, yet. We've decided an appropriate name is "sailjer."

Camp Edison is a little subsidiary of Fort Monmouth it's between a couple of suburban residential villages about sixty miles from N.Y. the only trouble is that I'll be here only three weeks.

We had a horrible trip east I couldn't go by myself because the big shots at Hammer changed their minds at the last minute. So we rode all the way on a troop eluper. Because of a bridge failure and an accident we were a tad late.

We can via Oakland. Salt lake City , Denver, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, and Jersey City. So I saw both oceans on this trip. Also the magnificent Colorado scenery, the statue of Liberty, and the Manhattan sky line. I visited the Hognesses for several hours on Sunday as Dad will probably find out. They were very nice, as usual. Thorfin showed me the Chicago campus. They asked me to say hello to you for them. Mrs. Hogness wanted to know when you were coming east.

I don't know what life on a transport will be like, or what port we'll sail out of, or whether I'll get time off between trips. It may turn our to be a good deal. We work in crews of three-two operators and one mechanic, with one crew to a ship.

I'll write again with further news, I think I'll be able to get to N.Y. at least one weekend. Everything remains to be seen.

All my love, Mom.

Linus