In November 1943, the Army Air Corps transported me to Miami Beach for basic training as an aviation cadet. Because gasoline was rationed during WWII, the tourists could not visit Florida, so the Army took the vacant hotels for barracks. Our barracks was a four-story tourist class hotel that had been stripped of its carpets, furniture, etc. Each room had a bath and two double-decker bunks to accommodate three or four men. The hotel elevator was off- limits on training days. All our meals were served in a mess hall built nearby on a vacant lot. All our training was conducted on a converted golf course and on the public beaches. We were treated as part of the local population. On our last day of training, we washed the hotel from top to bottom with buckets of soapy water and the hotel fire hoses. The dirty water flowed down the stairways, out through the lobby and into the street stormwater sewers. The sergeant in charge locked the doors, so the building could be returned to the owner. We were then shipped to an air base for flight training.
It was a fun experience during wartime!