Monday afternoon

5/10/43

Dear Folks,

Here I am back in Camp Granite after the best weekend I ever had in my life. Boy, what a town that Los Angeles is! Everybody seems to be in high spirits and having a good time. Service men are treated swell and all have a good time.

Here is the schedule I followed over the weekend – I got up at 2:30 a.m. Friday and left in a truck convoy at 5. At 2 p.m. we arrived at the rest camp in South Monica, a place where we were given our meals and a bed to sleep in. It is situated in a very nice residential district of the town, occupying an entire block, only two blocks from the beach. We spent the end of the afternoon getting out sheets and pillow cases and blankets. We ate early and then were taken to a show “Life with Father” which appeared on the New York stage. It was a very nice theatre and we had swell seats. After the show we had two hours on our own which we spent walking around and seeing the sights. At twelve we went to the trucks again and were brought back to the camp. You see we had police escorts all the time, siren blaring and everything. Right through the center of the town we went, stopping all traffic.

In the morning we went down to the beach and played around there until noon, lying on the beach, going on the rides at the amusement park and walking around the boardwalk. It looks just like the good old Atlantic at Atlantic City. – After noon meal we went to the Pan-American Auditorium to see “Ice-Capades”, which was swell. It was an enjoyable three hours. The auditorium is a very classy place and looks like some of the buildings you same at the World’s Fair. The buildings are all like that our here, very flashy and spectacular. The Auditorium is bright red and yellow which will give you an idea. Incidentally it is right next to the Hollywood baseball field where all the movie stars see the games.

After supper at the rest camp we went to the Command Performance, a program produced only for the service men overseas on which stars requested by the boys have to appear. We saw Rudy Vallee and his orchestra, Martha Raye, Bugs Bunny (the crazy rabbit in the movies), Meredith Wilson and his orchestra and Ken Carpenter (he announces for Bing Crosby). It was a swell show and we enjoyed it a lot. After the radio show we were taken to the Hollywood Canteen, which was the best part of the whole week-end. We saw Kay Kyser and his band, Bette Davis, Virginia O’Brien, Patricia Morison and about a dozen other actors I recognized but didn’t know their names. They were all working behind the counter and waiting on tables. Everything was free and there was all the food and drinks we wanted. The place was jammed of course but I managed to get in a couple of dances. Lots of fun was had by everyone. I will sure try and get back there sometime, if we ever go in town again. After we left the Canteen we were on our own and I visited the Brown Derby. I just wanted to see what the place looked like and we just walked in and went our again. It looks like a very expensive place. By this time it was near midnight and we had to go back to the trucks. Out week-end was over and we headed back for camp at 7 in the morning. It was a nice trip going and coming both – we passed through many swell little towns and saw hundreds of beautiful palm trees, orange groves, date farms and the like.

Now we are back at work again in Camp Granite and getting used to the desert again. We have a lot to talk about now and there will be a lot of bull sessions for a long time. I hope we can get in again, some say it will be about six weeks. The boys who didn’t go into town were given a show by Mickey Rooney, Eddie Cantor and a few others so they didn’t have it so bad either.

Another box of candy arrived last night and the black-light will probably come in a few days. The mail problem isn’t so good out here but things finally do get here. How long does it take my letters to get home? I get yours in about four days.

Goodbye for now and I hope all of you are feeling fine. Regards to all of you,

Joe