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# Letter — 2 May 1943, to Anna

**Sender**: Pvt. Arthur M. Yena — Provisional Sqdn. L, Army Air Base, Salt Lake City, Utah *(letter written on Army Air Forces Flexible Gunnery School, Kingman, Arizona letterhead)*
**Recipient**: Miss Anna L. Yena, Quaker Lane, West Warwick, Rhode Island
**Date written**: 2 May 1943
**Postmark**: Salt Lake City, Utah — May 3, 11 AM 1943
**Stationery**: "Army Air Forces Flexible Gunnery School, Kingman, Arizona" letterhead (leftover Kingman stock, written from Salt Lake City)
**Type**: Handwritten
**Scan location**: `scans/processed/1943-05-02_to-anna/` *(scan-mapping pending)*
**Transcription source**: Gemini/ChatGPT vision pass 2026-06-06, 2-pass QC 2026-06-07
**Confidence**: clean (~95%)
**Note**: ⭐ The **Kingman → Salt Lake City move**, narrated. This letter sits squarely inside the old 2.5-month corpus gap (5 Mar Miami → 17 May Salt Lake) and is the bridge document: it follows the Kingman gunnery wash-out and shows Pops re-classified and steered toward an **Intelligence School** — the first fork toward his cryptographer destiny. Written on leftover Kingman letterhead but mailed from Salt Lake (postmark SLC May 3).

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## Transcript

> Pvt. Arthur M. Yena
> Provisional Sqdn. L
> Army Air Base
> Salt Lake City, Utah
> May 2, 1943
>
> *[printed letterhead:]* ARMY AIR FORCES FLEXIBLE GUNNERY SCHOOL — KINGMAN, ARIZONA
>
> Dear Anna,
>
> Well here's hoping everything is all right back home, because I'm all right myself. I guess by now you must have gotten the card and book I sent from Barstow, California. I would have written a bit more on the trip but I didn't have too much time. This trip was a relatively small one so by the time I sent a few cards down, I was already in Salt Lake.
>
> Well here goes again about my travels. We left Thursday about 12 noon from Kingman, and went West into California. We stopped at Barstow, Cal. from about 7 P.M. to 11 P.M. Then we rode through the desert and mountains of Nevada and Utah. We got here Friday night about 8 P.M.
>
> We are supposed to stay here from 3 to 10 days. Then we go someplace in the 2nd Air Corps Area which means I can't go any farther East than Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky, or Texas. So getting anywhere closer to home is out.
>
> I got classified again and am wondering what I'll end up. In Miami I had Aircraft Armorer, and Aircraft Mechanic as 2 choices but after being eliminated from Gunnery they tell me here there's no schools open for mechanics other than fellows graduating from Aerial Gunnery. So now they wanted to send me to a Clerical school because I got a high mark in one of the tests. Since I didn't know how to type they suggested me to go to an Intelligence School. Whatever that is. When they suggest they practically mean you do or else. So whether I got to Intelligence school or somewhere else I don't know. In any case I won't go East. Well that's that Ah what? I'll really be a Westerner won't I? I took those 2 films and have signed for a pass for tomorrow night so I'll try and have them developed.
>
> Darn it all, I feel lost without my watch handy. The night before I left Kingman I dropped it and the winding pin fell off again. That's another thing I'll have to fix. I finally got paid for the two months $62.17 and I have April's pay coming so I'll be a rich man heh?
>
> If by a rare stroke of luck I get a furlough that dough will come in handy. The food here is really perfect.
>
> I wouldn't write me here, because I might be moving on any time. As soon as I get someplace to stay awhile again I'll let you know.
>
> I think that's about all for now Anna. As things happen I'll let you know. I'm all mixed up here just now and probably have forgotten to tell you something or another but as I say when I get settled, if I ever do, I'll make up for it. In the meanwhile take it easy and give everybody my love and hello. Write to you later.
>
> Love to all
> Arthur

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## Major content / narrative significance

- ⭐⭐ **THE INTELLIGENCE-SCHOOL FORK — the seed of the cryptographer arc.** This is the moment, in Pops's own words, that the Army nudged him off the gunnery/mechanic track and toward the work that defines the rest of his war: *"after being eliminated from Gunnery they tell me here there's no schools open for mechanics other than fellows graduating from Aerial Gunnery. So now they wanted to send me to a Clerical school because I got a high mark in one of the tests. Since I didn't know how to type they suggested me to go to an Intelligence School. Whatever that is. When they suggest they practically mean you do or else."* The high test score → clerical → Intelligence School chain is the literal hinge of the whole memoir. He doesn't yet know what "Intelligence" means ("Whatever that is"), and the dry fatalism — *"When they suggest they practically mean you do or else"* — is the Army deciding his fate. The cryptographer he becomes by 1 Jun 1943 (per the corpus) starts right here, on a piece of leftover Kingman letterhead.
- ⭐⭐ **GAP-FILL HEADLINE: the Kingman → Salt Lake move, fully narrated.** This letter sits inside the old corpus blind spot (5 Mar Miami → 17 May Salt Lake). It documents the move itself: *"We left Thursday about 12 noon from Kingman, and went West into California. We stopped at Barstow, Cal. from about 7 P.M. to 11 P.M. Then we rode through the desert and mountains of Nevada and Utah. We got here Friday night about 8 P.M."* A westward leg to Barstow CA (a 4-hour evening layover), then north-and-east overnight through the Nevada/Utah deserts into Salt Lake — roughly a 32-hour troop move. Pairs with the 17 May Salt Lake letter that already references the Kingman wash-out; this is the connective tissue between them.
- ⭐⭐ **KINGMAN GUNNERY WASH-OUT CONFIRMED FROM THE INSIDE.** *"after being eliminated from Gunnery"* — Pops names the elimination plainly. The corpus knows he washed out for 20/30 eyesight; this letter is his contemporaneous acknowledgment of it as a done deal, and shows the immediate administrative consequence (no mechanic schools available to non-gunnery grads → re-classification).
- ⭐ **THE "BARSTOW CARD AND BOOK" — a lost enclosure to chase.** *"I guess by now you must have gotten the card and book I sent from Barstow, California."* Pops mailed Anna a postcard and a book from the Barstow layover. **Attic / Mom-interview soft-watch item**: does the Barstow postcard or the book survive? (Consistent with his habit of sending cards en route — cf. the troop-train postcards elsewhere in the batch.)
- ⭐ **THE 2ND AIR CORPS AREA CONSTRAINT — geography of the next move.** *"Then we go someplace in the 2nd Air Corps Area which means I can't go any farther East than Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky, or Texas. So getting anywhere closer to home is out."* Pops is reading the Army's map as a homesickness ledger — every assignment keeps him a continent away from Rhode Island. The "no farther east than WI/TN/KY/TX" line is a useful constraint for tracing where Salt Lake might have sent him next (and Texas/Sheppard Field stays in play, echoing the Mar 5 letter's "fellow from West Warwick in Texas").
- ⭐ **PAY EVENT: $62.17 for two months, with April still owed.** *"I finally got paid for the two months $62.17 and I have April's pay coming so I'll be a rich man heh?"* Two months ≈ $62.17 tracks a private's ~$50/mo base (the corpus elsewhere notes Pvt→Pfc late May '43, so this is still Pvt pay). He frames the back-pay as furlough money: *"If by a rare stroke of luck I get a furlough that dough will come in handy."* Furlough hope = homesickness, again.
- ⭐ **THE WATCH WINDING-PIN BREAKS AGAIN — a recurring small-object motif.** *"The night before I left Kingman I dropped it and the winding pin fell off again. That's another thing I'll have to fix."* The "again" makes this a running thread (the watch has failed before). A human, granular detail that humanizes the upheaval — amid being reclassified and shipped across deserts, he's mourning a broken watch.
- ⭐ **"THE FOOD HERE IS REALLY PERFECT."** Salt Lake mess gets unqualified praise — notable because food anxiety/reassurance is a Mom-letter staple across the corpus. The Salt Lake Army Air Base evidently fed him well.
- **"DON'T WRITE ME HERE" — a transient, in-between posting.** *"I wouldn't write me here, because I might be moving on any time. As soon as I get someplace to stay awhile again I'll let you know."* Provisional Sqdn. L is explicitly a holding/processing squadron (3–10 days). This explains why mail addressed to SLC in early-mid May would be unreliable, and why the next stable correspondence address comes later.
- **THE FILMS / PASS DETAIL.** *"I took those 2 films and have signed for a pass for tomorrow night so I'll try and have them developed."* Pops shot two rolls of film (Kingman? the move?) and is angling to get them developed in Salt Lake. **Soft-watch attic item**: any surviving 1943 Kingman/SLC photographs may trace to these rolls.
- **TONE / VOICE.** *"I'll really be a Westerner won't I?"* and *"I'm all mixed up here just now"* capture a 19-year-old being tumbled through the AAF machine — disoriented, self-deprecating, still cheerful for his sister's sake. The promise *"when I get settled, if I ever do, I'll make up for it"* is the emotional core: apology-by-anticipation for thin letters during a chaotic stretch.

## Family-tree refresh from this letter

- **Anna L. Yena** — recipient (sister), Quaker Lane, West Warwick RI. Middle initial "L." confirmed on the envelope (per locked decision).
- **Pvt. Arthur M. Yena** — sender; now Provisional Sqdn. L, Army Air Base, Salt Lake City UT (a transient/processing squadron). Still Pvt. (Pvt→Pfc comes late May '43 per corpus).
- *No new named persons in this letter* — it is a logistics/classification letter. The "everybody" he sends love to (closing line) is the West Warwick household generally (Pop, Ma, Johnny, etc.).

## Open questions

- ⭐ **Did the Intelligence-School suggestion actually route him to crypto, or was there an intermediate step?** Corpus has him a cryptographer by 1 Jun 1943 and at Tucson/Davis-Monthan for code training by Sept 1943. This letter (May 2) shows "Intelligence School" floated but not confirmed — *"whether I got to Intelligence school or somewhere else I don't know."* Trace: did Salt Lake send him directly to an Intelligence/crypto course, or to Texas first (per the 2nd Air Corps Area constraint)?
- ⭐ **Does the Barstow card and book survive?** Soft-watch attic / Mom-interview item.
- **Where in the 2nd Air Corps Area did Salt Lake send him next?** Constraint given: no farther east than WI/TN/KY/TX. Cross-check against the 17 May SLC letter and the Sept 4 Tucson letter to close the May–Sept 1943 thread.
- **The two rolls of film** — did any 1943 Kingman/SLC photos survive that could match these? Soft-watch.
- **The watch** — minor, but the "fell off again" implies an earlier break; a candidate detail to confirm if the watch itself (or a repair receipt) ever surfaces.

## Themes

salt-lake-city · provisional-sqdn-l · kingman-to-salt-lake-move · barstow-layover · GUNNERY-WASH-OUT-CONFIRMED · RE-CLASSIFIED · clerical-school · INTELLIGENCE-SCHOOL-FORK · CRYPTOGRAPHER-ARC-SEED · 2nd-air-corps-area-constraint · no-farther-east-than-texas · gap-fill-march-may-1943 · troop-move · pay-62-17 · aprils-pay-owed · furlough-hope · broken-watch-winding-pin · two-films-to-develop · barstow-card-and-book-enclosure · food-is-perfect · dont-write-me-here-transient · homesickness · kingman-letterhead-from-salt-lake