We were Just north of London and were now experiencing air raids by the Germans at night. By this time we had been through enough that we didn't have any fear so we would go outside during the raid to watch the searchlights pick out the German bombers and listen to the anti-aircraft guns. We were out in the country so there were no close targets and we felt safe.
At Rivenhall it was a long way to the mess hall from our barracks so in the morning we would come outside to smell the air to determine if they were serving powdered eggs. If they were, we would just skip breakfast. Real eggs were very scarce in England at the time and once every week or two we were issued two real eggs. We kept them in our lockers and on the mornings when we would smell the powdered eggs at their worst we would carry our hoarded eggs down to the mess hall. We carried them in our jacket pockets and it was difficult to make it there without someone breaking them. If someone thought you were carrying eggs, they would chase you all the way to the mess hall. They got me once and it made a mess in your pocket! Anyway, our aim was to get the eggs to the cook who would fix them any way you wanted while you waited. We were still having classes in aircraft identification and a lot of map study so that we would recognize all the coastline of Europe and England. The boys were still playing poker and Al Johnson was still borrowing money and paying me back every payday. He owed me money most of the time. We went to London several times and stayed at the Palace Hotel. It was near the center of London and one of the best hotels. It made the English angry as we got the hotel room and would fill the little gas heater up with shillings then would go out to eat while it was running to heat the room up. The heater would run about twenty minutes for a shilling, but the English would never run the heater unless they were in the room as gas was in short supply. We had the money and felt that we needed heat more than they did. One night we were there during an air raid and didn't oven bother to get out of bed to look for a shelter. The hotel shook a lot and it was noisy, but we survived. We ate some of our meals at the Grovesner House which was a huge place. The serving was cafeteria style and 2,000 could be seated at a time. The food was good and there was a bar there too. One night in the blackout and the fog we found a little bar where they served warm beer in big pitchers which we tried to cool by adding ice. It was so dark and foggy outside that you kept bumping into people and all you could see were taxis with little slits of light for headlights. They still drove them in the total darkness. While in London we also visited several art museums and saw one stage show.