We had moved to an apartment at Congress and Harney Streets in Old Town a couple of weeks before Basil left. It was in the home of a woman I worked with at Ryan, Mrs. Mae Rushing. They were from Sherman, Texas--a hop, skip and a jump from Delta County. Her daughter, Bonnie Ray (whose husband Jimmy was also in the Fourth Marine Division), and I became good friends. I gave up the apartment and moved into Bonnie's room.

Life pretty much consisted of work, going to the post office looking for letters, eating, and sleeping. Bonnie and I did play hooky from work once and went to see the movie "For Whom the Bell Tolls." But we didn't really see many movies. Mostly, we did things with Bonnie's parents.

After a very long wait (the Marshall Islands Campaign), I finally heard from Basil. I thought he hadn't been writing to me, but suddenly got a whole bunch of letters all at once! After that, I got from one to three letters a day from him, and wrote to him just as often. Basil's letters were all censored, even after he came back to Hawaii. A slogan of the time was "A slip of the lip can sink a ship."

Me WAITING for letters; and RECEIVING them!!!
Both pictures taken on the same day!

While Basil was filling my post office box with letters, Bonnie's husband, Jimmy, never wrote a line to her. I don't believe it was because he didn't care--some guys just didn't know how to write a letter, especially not a love letter to his wife. Bonnie was devastated. She tried to put on a good front, but she was broken-hearted. She finally decided he didn't care for her any more.

Basil and Jimmy Ray

A few months later, Jimmy's friend (best man at their wedding), came back from overseas and came by to see Bonnie. It was a time when she was most vulnerable. She and Jerry spent time together under the watchful eyes of her parents. Eventually she divorced Jimmy and married Jerry. (The last time I saw Bonnie, she was living in Texas. She and Jerry had a little girl--and she was happy.)

Basil's cousin, Nolan Crockett, came back from overseas and took Bonnie and me to a few movies while he was stationed here. I felt safe going out at night with Nolan--he was six foot four. The Rushings adopted him, too, so he was around quite a bit. It was nice having a big-brother figure around. My cousin and classmate, Weldon Moore, visited a few times. He always brought a watermelon--that boy did love watermelon!--and would eat so much he would get sick. Another kid from Klondike High (a couple of years behind Weldon and me), R. C. Dodd, visited a couple of times when his ship was in port. Mostly, though, there was no one from home around.

In March, 1944, I got a severe case of tonsilitis and lost a lot of time from work. I decided to go back to Texas for a visit-- perhaps to stay until Basil returned. Visiting relatives alone didn't help much. One day I mentioned that I thought I would go back to California to wait for Basil. My mother, who never thought anyone was good enough to marry one of her kids, said "Why do you want to go off out there? He may get killed overseas and then what will you do?" Such understanding I did not need. That cemented my original idea--I packed and took a Greyhound bus back to San Diego the next morning.

Navy doctors suggested that I get my worrisome tonsils out--they had plagued me as long as I could remember. I mulled that over a while and decided it might be best. My appointment was for June 15, 1944. After they removed my tonsils I was put to bed in one of the wards for dependents. A couple of hours later a Navy WAVE ran through the ward yelling "The Fourth Marine Division has landed on Saipan!" Almost immediately, I began hemorrhaging. Not knowing the attachments of the patients in the ward, she should have known better than to do that. I was supposed to go home that afternoon, but after my bout of hemorrhaging, they kept me two or three days longer.

I knew Basil was on Saipan (wherever that was)--I just didn't know what to expect. I didn't know whether it would be a relatively easy battle or a really tough one. Perhaps that was best. I spent a very uncomfortable few weeks not knowing anything, though. It never really occurred to me that Basil would not come back--even when so many boys from back home were getting killed. I just knew in my heart that he WOULD come home.

After I recuperated, I applied for a job with Navy inspection. Again, getting hired was a snap. I was assigned to inspect wings for the PB4Y2, the Navy version of the B-24. Before going on the job, though, I had to learn all about wings--electrical systems, hydraulic systems, etc. The 4Y2's were coming off the line at Convair Plant 2, so that is where I worked. A new wing came off the line every day. I worked with a company inspector named Carl. I always felt safe putting my stamp (buying for the Navy) on a wing Carl had inspected--he was very thorough.

I learned the difference between Navy and Marine officers (in general, of course) one morning when we were having a coffee break outside the plant. A sailor at Taylor Street and Highway 101 couldn't get his car started. He was trying to push it by himself. A group of Navy officers walked by and apparently didn't even see the sailor and his plight. Then four Marine officers came by. One asked, "Could we give you a hand, Sailor?" They told the sailor to get in the car and they would push until he got it started -- and they did. I really admired those officers.

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