July 4, 1964 
Pago Pago, Samoa 
Dear 
/ 
/ 
4 oney, money, money.!,. Guess who needs money? X had understood th a t some was 
bein t f i > ^ettt-4:,o hnt . h H aber and me just before we left Pearl Harbor. Huber received 
his check but I haven't seen any sign of mine yet. If one was sent I ain't got 
it yet. When this cruise is over I'll have just barely enough to pay for the 
food bill on this ship. Then I'll be completely out of funds. The fourteen days 
spent in Honolulu went through my money like a tornado. If I'm to go on the 
^ Marshalls trip I'll need some new cloths and a few items of gear such as new 
sneakers. When we get back into Pearl Harbor I'll send along a complete accounting 
of all expenditures along with the receipts. So now, to more pleasant topics. 
This hasn't been a very exciting trip, 
islands that have required hours of walkin 
of the crew averaged about twenty miles per 
came back to camp each nighti You've neve 2 
so far. 
We have hit 
for very few birds, 
day....boy were they 
several enormous 
On Malden most 
beat when they 
heard 
such moaning and 
groaning 
as 
they made. Mach one of them would prop himself up in a corner and then would 
slowly and gently peel his sneakers and socks off. Then they f d sit, holding 
their* feet tenderly in their grimy hands, and moan and groah some more. But 
I played it smart and didn't have to do all of that horrible Walking. 
The first night on Malden I was gracefully galloping along hot on the trail 
of a stupid Blue-faced Booby that was attempting a get-away (showing' Doug Gill 
how us experts do it without getting beaten up) when suddenly a nasty rock (one 
that had deliberately camoflaged itself to look like a harmless shadow in the 
moonlight) rose uo out of nowhere and viciously smote my toes one Hell of a nasty 
x smote. My graceful galloping charge disintegrated into chaos as my ass abruptly 
0 s J caught up with my ears and I landed in a huge cloud of dust. Doug Gill appeared 
S at first to be overjoyyed as he jumped up and down saying n marvelous, incredibly 
\ marvelous”. I was just about ready to let him have one when I realized he was 
merely commenting- upon my wonderfully rich vocabulary (which I was using to heap 
'abuse upon the scurvy-stone that had so abruptly turned mastery to mess.) Ho hum, 
nothing unusual — all in a day's work us ATF's always say. While the rest of 
my toes remained their usual pale shriweled up selves two others became technicolor 
spectaculars - simply a riot of colors — it looked just like spring in the 
Shanendoahs. 
After Malden we spent three days on Starbuck wfeich was another of these 
large islands that require hour after hour of walking. In order to band birds 
we had to make a four hour round trip- walking at top speed. This walk was 
improved immeasurably the last night when we got caught out in a very cold, 
penetrating rain storm. We left Starbuck the next morning and then spent five 
terribly boring days on the ship on the way to Pago Pago. For the last two days, 
since we were so far ahead of schedule,the ship wallowed along at a miserable 
2 knots per hour. One day, according to the stars, we made exactly no headway 
at all for a 9 hour period - just sat and sloshed around in the same spot all 
Ion::. We finally pulled into good old, unexciting Pago Pago yesterday 
morning and have done very little of interest since. This place doesn't change 
much in the course of two months so we were greeted at the dock by the same bunch 
of bums that grsated the Lipan. The ice cream still tastes bland and the Mack 
Trucks are still the queens of the highways. Let's go to Tahiti next trip.'**] 
I suppose I'll be back at the SI when I get there whenever that will be. 
See all you lovely girls then. -yf ^ ^ 
