3 
and trouble. I could not have gotten a finer xaan to skipper this outfit had 
I had anything to do with it in the first place—a classmate of Callaghan's 
and Foster’s. A nice group of officers, mostly younger men. And is the 
Mailard crowded? Ralph H. Ernest, who is to do some land surveying, is my 
roommate in the pilot house, where we sleep on cots which we fold up during 
the day. Our clothes are draoed over the sneaking tubes and instruments. 
We each have two shallow cupboard shelves and a wooden box for our surplus 
gear, "fish I had had time to bring along the usual collecting outfit I 
carry. I could have done some nice collecting. We are a submarine salvage 
craft (a converted mine sweeper) and we have no end of hoists, diving equip¬ 
ment, and cable with which I might have dredged. There are two captains 
aboard, Capt. (Freddy) Laing, who went to the Acad, with 3rady's (snake boy of 
Wash, and Museum now in Hew York) brother; Laing is Captain of Mallard , 
Pickens is Capt. of whole expedition, which includes six subs. One of the 
officers has a citation for helping with the Squalus rescue. I hope to get a 
full list of names soon. Eats are good (and a reasonable mess share). 
Had our Heptune party today 1-3 p.m. for about 39 men, a very lively, 
well dressed party. Davy Jones had an admiral's coat made of a blue shirt 
cut to swallowtail behind and an edging of yellow tape clipped on to shirt and 
collar edges with paper clipsJ A very effective get-up, all were barefoot. 
You should nave seen the royal dentist's drill—several lengths of broomsticks 
or mop handles fastened together with screw-eyes so that the xiqch rig had 
sort of universal joint connections; had a string to counter weight so attached 
that when he wasn't using it, it •would life up out of the way. Hinder a 
cloth Hpp at the end opposite the business end he had an electric drill con¬ 
cealed which he turned on when he started to shove the other end around in the 
victim's mouth. The whirring noise it made gave a realistic sound to the rig 
