I entered the service on April 15, 1942. We left early in the morning
from the railroad depot in Canandaigua for Rochester where we went
through the induction center on State Street. From there we left for
Ft. Niagara near Buffalo. It was still cold weather and they drilled
us on the parade grounds in heavy army overcoats. One day I had a
terrible headache and every step I took marching made it hurt more.
They asked for volunteers to take a test for the Air Corps so I
volunteered just to got out of marching. I had such a headache that I
didn't think I did very well on the test. If I hadn't had that
headache my war years would have been entirely different.
The first three or four days I wondered what I had gotten myself into
and would have given anything to have been able to have gotten out.
That soon passed and the rest of the time I wouldn't have missed the
experience for anything. We were only at Ft. Niagara for about a week
before being sent by train to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This is
where we were to take a 13 week training in field artillery. We
trained for the 105 gun which was medium size, the shell being about
five inches in diameter and about eighteen inches long. We would haul
it around on a truck and set it up at a gun emplacement. The first
time we shot it there were several officers there and the target was
on a hillside about a quarter mile away. We fired the gun and watched
for the hit. Nothing happened and we just stood waiting. We never did
find out where it went. After the officers left we had a good laugh!
The land there was red sand and the trees mostly pine. It was very hot
and muggy as we were there in June, July and August. We wore one piece
coveralls and every time we got back to the barracks we would step in
the shower with our clothes on and would dry off in about 10 minutes.
We had to got up at 5:30 am and pick up all the cigarette butts and
papers on the grounds before breakfast. This was loads of fun when it
was raining... We spent most of our time in marching drills, rifle
range, obstacle course and 1earning., about the big gun. The drill
sergeants were mean, miserable and yelled at us all the time. They
yelled at me continually for being out of step while marching. I
couldn't figure out why because I was always in step. After 13 weeks,
I could have easily killed both of them.
The obstacle course was about a mile long through woods, gullies and
across water. I had such a competitive spirit that I would run the
whole route and try to finish first. Some guys would walk, take short
cuts and really goof off. It didn't seem to make any difference how
you did it, but I still ran all the way.
The food was not too good and I especially
remember when they served spare ribs. We sat seven to a table and if
the bowl started at the other end of the table by the time it got to
the last person there would only be bones 1eft. The PX did a big
business selling candy bars in the evenings. I remember one time my
stepmother sent me a package of goodies. She put in some pickled
seckle pears and just wrapped them in wax paper. The entire package
was a squashed mess smelling of vinegar.
We were not allowed off the base during this period. When we had
Saturday afternoon and Sunday off we wrote 1etters home did laundry
and rested. I finally had time to make friends, especially with the
men in my barracks. There was one man from Canandaigua and several
from Buffalo, Syracuse and western New York. You can make good friends
in a short time when you are that far from home. Ray Smith was in the
Army too and I kept in touch with him even though we moved around a
lot. We used to write gooey love letters to each other saying how much
we missed each other. I took pictures and the ones that were so black
they were nearly blank I sent to him "with love" It is a good thing no
one saw those letters or they surely would have thought we were gay.
(It is interesting that I never did run into any of that type in the
service) There were all types of men in this outfit and they were from
all over the east coast. Some couldn't read or write and one was
straight out of the Kentucky backwoods. It made you wonder how they
were taken into the service. There was one, Cliff Boll, who could
neither read nor write so he got several of us to write his letters to
his girlfriend. He was a real character so we wrote torrid love
letters and included all the fantastic things he was doing. When he
got a letter from her, we would all gather around and read it to him.
I often wonder what happened when he went home on leave. I was
accustomed to writing a lot of letters an I wrote to my dad, four
sisters and three brothers. I also wrote to Duke and Mabel Montanye
and Mabel's letters back were the longest of any I received. She would
write about everyone in Cheshire, especially the Bunnell boys, who
were always getting into trouble. Their barn burnt down, the house
burnt down, the tractor tipped over and they would wreck cars. When I
read her letters, all the guys in the barracks would gather round and
I would read them aloud. Just like a serial on TV. Mabel wrote long
letters in such a delicate hand that it must have taken her forever,
but she wrote every month.
Marion Bunnell was in the service and he was home on leave when he ran
into a wooden guard rail on the curve south of Cheshire and the rail
went through the windshield. He was hit in the head and should have
died, but after much surgery he survived. He was left retarded and was
given a 100% disability from the government. I can't remember the
year, but soon after the war Al Bunnell and another guy held up a bank
in Rochester and were chased all the way-back to Canandaigua before
the police caught them down on Coach Street. He spent several years in
prison.
During training while loading the logs that braced the big guns, I
broke a finger on my right hand and consequently had difficulty doing
my laundry and writing letters. The medics put a splint of two tongue
depressors on it and I still have one knuckle that doesn't bond.
Sometimes at night we would have an alert drill and drive all the
vehicles from the motor pool into the pine woods. Sometimes I would
have to drive one of the big personnel carriers and I would grab
blankets or anything big to put behind me so could reach the floor
pedals. We drove without lights up steep banks and around curves in
that deep sand. It was pitch dark and quite an experience. Then we
would stop grab our gas masks and run into the woods as far as we
could and lay on the ground. We were supposed to put our gas masks
on, but we never did.
One day I was laying in my bunk looking at my gas mask hanging on the
wall and decided to get it down and see if it fit. it was filled
solid with cockroaches! Guess what would have happened I had put it
on out there in the dark in the woods some night! The washroom had a
cement floor and when we went in there at night We would turn on the
lights and wait for the cockroaches to disappear. The boy from the
Kentucky hills spent all his extra time doing laundry for others for
a small fee and we all thought he was just too stupid to know any
better. At the end of the 13 weeks, however, we were given a three
day pass. Nobody had any money except the hillbilly and he went home
for the three days and really lived it up. Sometimes the brains are
not where they think they are. I used my three days to visit Ken
Montanye who was at Ft. Jackson in South Carolina. We met in a small
dusty Southern town halfway in between and stayed in a tourist home.
There was nothing to do in the little town so we just visited and
walked the streets. I traveled by Greyhound bus and it was so crowded
I had to stand up in front next to the driver. When I arrived back at
base they were getting ready to ship the men out to their next
outfits. I received a letter telling me that I had passed the test
for the Air Corp and the company commander told me to stay there and
not leave with the rest.
The camp was empty for a week except for the sergeants who were
instructors and myself. I did KP duty and cleaned barracks until the
next group arrived. The next thirteen weeks I spent working around
the base and when they went an maneuvers I drove the supply truck. We
would go ahead about ten miles and I would set up the officer's tent,
Wood floor and cots. The new group would hike the ten miles and pitch
their pup tents. I Just crawled under a truck and slept in the sand.
Sometimes during this period I got a pass and went down to Ft.
Jackson and stayed a few days with Ken in his barracks. Nobody knew
what to do with me so they just gave me jobs and I had my share of
washing pots and pans and peeling potatoes.
When this group shipped out, I got an order to see the camp
commander, a colonel. I didn't know what to expect but found out that
I had been listed as AWOL for the prior three months as they couldn't
find me. I was supposed to be at home waiting for them to call me!
This is the way everything went for me in the service. I could have
been home living on that big $21 a month and not doing all the dirty
work. My orders finally came and I went to Nashville, Tenn. by
myself, probably by train to the classification center. At the center
we had three days of intensive tests of all kinds to find out what we
were best qualified for: navigator, bombardier or pilot. Naturally,
everyone was hoping for pilot.
The tests were from morning till night and covered everything from
physicals, eye, hearing and coordination to reaction time. The test
for depth perception was particularly interesting. At the end of a
long tunnel about a foot in diameter and dimly lit were two wooden
pegs. You had to pull them with strings until they were opposite each
other. Another one involved a board in front of you while you sat at
a desk and the board had little red lights with switches below them.
When a light came on, you had to turn the switch off and you had to
move quickly to keep up. Another was a small hole in a board with a
wooden peg that would just go in without touching the sides. While
you held the peg there, the instructor, Wolfgang Loganowiche ( I
remember him well and later read somewhere that he was a famous
German scientist and inventor) would yell and holler at us. He had a
tremendous loud voice and would sometimes sneak up behind you, yell,
wave his arms and stomp his feet. Ht would scare the daylights out of
you and every time you moved the peg would hit the sides and the loud
buzzer would go off.
We also had written tests with a time limit so we had to work fast. I
used to skip all the math problems as I was so bad in math. I didn't
realize until later that it was a good thing I skipped the math as
the men who were good at it probably got sent to bombardier or
navigator training. Of course we really wanted to be pilots instead.
The notices were posted after three days and we were about worn out
from the long days of testing. I was lucky to be chosen for pilot
training. This was where I got used to standing in line and waiting.
We had to wait in line to get our issue of Air Corps uniforms and I
stood in line from 8:00 am until almost 4:OO pm for my clothes. We
couldn't get out of line to get any dinner as we would lose our
place. I now had all my army clothes as well as my Air Corps cloths
and everywhere I went I had to make two trips carrying my barracks
bags. When I got to my next base, I either sent my Army clothing home
or turned them in. I can't recall which.
We were next sent by troop train to Maxwell Field in Alabama.
Somewhere on the trip we had to get off the train and spend the night
in the train station in one of those little southern towns. It was
cold so we made a mountain of barracks bags in the waiting room and
then we climbed up on them and tried to sleep. We arrived at Maxwell
in September and trained there through November. The first few weeks
were just like college with hazing and all that by the upper
classman. We had to sit at attention in the dining room and eat with
our eyes straight ahead and our shirt buttons touching the table. You
couldn't look at your plate so really didn't get much to eat. It was
probably just as well because later we had a Sunday dinner with half
a chicken each. The chicken was a green color and when I lifted a
wing the feathers were stil1 there. Needless to say, most everyone
got up and left.
These three months were about the hardest I experienced. I used to be
the first one up in our barracks at 4:30 am and got everyone else up.
It was nice to get to wash and shave before the others made it
crowded. It was just like going to college and they told us it was
the equivalent of two years of college. Besides getting up at 4:30 am
we had classes all day and homework until 11:00 pm. We had classes
in airplane engines, theory of flight, math, physics, and similar
subjects. During the evenings I helped others with physics and they
helped me with the math. I was 27 years old at this time and older
than most of the others. I was always happy and cheerful in the
morning and got everyone off to a good start.
Some of the math problems were very difficult. If you took off from
an aircraft carrier at a certain compass heading and flew at another
heading to the target, what compass heading would you take to return
to the carrier if it had also changed to a different heading? You had
to also take into consideration your air speed and the wind
direction. Bomber pilots had a navigator to tell them where to go and
a bombardier to drop the bombs. A fighter pilot had to learn all of
these things as he was up there all alone. We worked like this for
three months and it was tough.
I found out that Red Hayes from Bristol Valley was a sergeant
mechanic there at Maxwell Field. He used to go to all the Saturday
night square dances and was a good friend of mine. He was married to
a southern girl and lived off base in a nice brick house. Sometimes
on Sunday I would go out to their house for a southern fried chicken
dinner with pecan pie. One time another service man and I went to
church there. I don't know what denomination it was but the minister
would rant and rave and wave his arms for about three minutes then
they would take up a collection. After about ten collections we were
out of money so got up and left.
Even though we were being trained to be pilots, we still didn't know
whether we would be fighter, bomber, transports glider or even a
"wash out" (the term for not qualifying). At any time during training
you could be sent to something else if they decided you wouldn't make
it as a pilot. In most cases you would be sent to navigator or
bombardier school. After graduating from Maxwell, I was sent to
Primary training at Orangeburg, South Carolina. Every time we made a
few friends we would be sent to different places and have to start an
once again. At Orangeburg we were a small group and this is where we
saw our first airplanes. They were P17's, a biplane. Things began to
get a little easier for us here and the food got much better. The
only discipline we got here was the GIGS we got for anything wrong
that we did, like getting in late at night or not being in the right
place on time. For each GIG we had to carry a rifle and march around
the square in the center of the base for one hour, usually at night
as you were too busy during the day. I had to do this several times
myself.
We were allowed off bass on our free time and it was about five miles
to the small city of Orangeburg. There was a man who drove his car
and would take six or seven guys at a time at $2 a piece, and he
would just drive back and forth all day and most of the night. I
don't know when he ever slept but he must have made a fortune during
the war. When we didn't have the money we would jump on the freight
train that went right by the main gate. It was an uphill grade and
the train was so slow that we could hang on the ladders and steps if
a flat car was not available. Five miles was not too long to hang on
the side of a car which went to downtown Orangeburg. Sometimes we
would see a movie or go to the service club which was in a large old
house. I used to dance there with a little blond girl and when I went
to the next base she was there also. I found out later they were
called camp followers and would marry as many guys as they could and
have the men's army life insurance put in their name. I never did go
off the base very much after we started flying as that was the main
interest.
When our large group left Maxwell Field, we were divided up and sent
to several of the smaller fields to start flying. Some of the friends
I made there went all through the rest of the war with me. I can't
remember just when, but it was about this time that Lloyd Bruce from
Missouri and I became close friends and we were together the whole
way. He was my wingman, we were both shot down on the same mission
and were together in prison camp.
I was at Orangeburg from November 1942 until January 1943. We were
divided into groups of five students to each instructor. My
instructor was Art Brewster and we got along fine. We had classes
studying airplanes and motors and would fly for one hour a day. The
student rode in the front seat and the instructor behind him. After
the first ride he would let us do the takeoff and landing. In the air
sometimes he would shut the motor off and it was up to you to figure
out which way the wind was blowing and to find an open field in which
to land. You needed to learn how to land on that field into the wind.
When you were about ten feet off the ground he would start the engine
and back up you'd go. You needed to be careful because if the field
was level and your approach was right, he would let you land. You
never knew which you'd have to do. When he stopped the motor you
could usually find the wind direction by checking smoke from the
smokestacks or something like that. Our days were easier as we would
wait around for our turn to fly.
The plane we were flying had an open cockpit and, as it was cold at
the time, it was very cold up there some days. We had the leather
sheepskin lined flying suit and it was very warm. On warmer days we
would just wear underwear under the suit. After six hours of
instruction we were ready to solo. It was quite an experience and
after you got up there all you did was worry about getting down! I
had a bumpy landing but soon got better at it. Some days for a whole
hour we would just take off and land over and over again for
practice. After this we flew part of the time alone and part of the
time with the instructor. This was the period when the instructors
really washed out the ones they figured would never be fighter pilots
and they were sent to other air corps Jobs.
I loved doing acrobatics with the loops, spins, rolls and upside down
flying. My instructor took me up once and did an outside loop. I had
to hang onto the iron bars in the cockpit and the blood all went to
the top of your head. You would nearly pass out doing that one. He
also showed me how to fly backwards. On a windy day you would slow
the airplane down so it would just stay up and the wind would blow
you backwards. You could look down and see the fields and buildings
all going in the opposite direction.
One night we had to fly a triangle cross country course of about one
hours time. We had not done much flying at night and we took off at
intervals and started out all alone towards the first check point. I
missed the first checkpoint and finally realized I was lost. I didn't
know what to do so the first town I saw with enough lights, I flew
down the middle of Main Street real low and got the name of the town
either off the movie house or the bank and then looked it up on my
map. I was way off course and had to figure my heading to the next
checkpoint. I made it okay but was about a half hour overdue and they
thought I had gone down. I didn't get reprimanded so I figure they
thought I had used my head to solve my problem and did the right
thing.
Almost all of our flying here was takeoffs and landings and in the
air we practiced spins, slow rolls, snap rolls, and figure eights to
get the feel of the airplane and develop our control. It was hard to
get the plane out of a tight spin but it was an important thing to
learn. The planes that we later flew in California were notorious for
not being able to get out of a spin. I had 60 hours of flying time
here and in January of 1943 was graduated from primary training
school. We had to fly with the commanding officer for our final test.
All five students with our instructor passed but a lot of the others
didn't make it. Three or four from each group were the average to
make it. We really liked our instructor and it was hard to part from
him and go on to the next school.
In February and March of 1943 we were at Gunter Field in Alabama for
our basic training. The airplane was the BT-13 with one wing and an
enclosed cockpit. It was bigger, more powerful and flew like a truck.
The controls were much harder to move but it was a safe plane to fly.
I don't remember anyone crashing a plane in primary or basic
training. At Gunter we started formation flying, night flying and
instrument flying. My instructor here was R.E. Umbaugh and I had
thirty two hours flying with him and forty two solo. When we were
flying solo in formation we were now developing confidence and were
starting to do things like flying close to the ground and chasing
each other around in the clouds.
We began doing more cross country flights to airports in the area.
Sometimes we flew with other students and the one in the rear seat
always flew the plane as that is where the instructor always sat. One
time I was flying with Bill Bell ( the son of the founder of Bell
Aircraft Inc. of Buffalo N.Y.) and he was flying the plane, with me
in the front seat. When coming in for a landing he was going so slow
I thought we were going to stall and crash. I yelled at him and
pushed the stick forward and we landed okay. I was really scared and
told my instructor I never wanted to fly with Bill again. He must
have agreed with me because I never had to again.
During Basic training was our first experience with the Link Trainer.
It was a replica of the cockpit of an airplane and was used to learn
how to fly by instruments only. It operated about the same as the
"mechanical bull" they have in Western nightclubs now. It was
completely closed and dark with only the instruments lit up. It was
run by a sergeant who would put it into a spin, upside down or any
dangerous situation and you had to get back to level flight again. It
was frightening and exactly like being in a plane in fog or a cloud.
Fifteen hours of Link Training were required in Basic, Advanced, all
my flying in California, even in England while flying missions.
At the end of March 1943 I graduated from Basic and went to Advanced
Training at Napier Field in Alabama. We were beginning to know a lot
of the other students and would stay together with them right on
through, except for the ones who washed out. In Advanced we flew the
AT-6 which was a faster plane and easier to fly. We had about the
same schedule at this field flying one or two hours a day. There were
several small level fields in the area that were used for practice
landing and takeoffs. I had an Englishman for an instructor. After
the Americans were flying out of England, some of the English pilots
who had flown a lot of missions were sent to this country to be
instructors as we had a shortage of them. Like school teachers, it
took a special kind of man to be able to teach flying in a short
period of time. They had to have a lot of nerve also to be able to
get out of the situations an inexperienced student could get them
into! The one I had wasn't worth much as he would fly to one of those
other fields and let me land and then he would get out and stand
around smoking cigarettes for half an hour. I was supposed to be
getting an hours instruction and I was afraid I would be washed out.
I went to the commanding officer and requested a change of
instructors and got it. Perhaps others had done the same. I can't
remember the name of my new instructor but he was tough and strict,
which was okay with me as then I knew I would learn something.
We now started to practice landing on instrument only. The instructor
rode in the seat behind you in the AT-6 and when you were in the air
there was a black hood that you pulled over the front cockpit. The
instructor would then give you compass headings, height and speed and
you would follow his directions to approach the field. Following his
direction you would line up with the runway and begin coming down.
All you could see were the instruments. If you were coming in
perfectly, he would let you go ahead and land by yourself. On the
other hand, he might take over the controls about 20 feet off the
ground and take you up again. It was quite scary as you never know
whether you were going to land or not. After we had the okay on these
daylight landings, we were allowed to fly the planes alone at night.
The AT-6 was designed with places for machine guns in the wings and
we were sent in groups to Elgin Field in Florida for gunnery
practice. This was the field where General Jimmy Doolittle trained
his crew for the bombing of Japan. They practiced for months at
bomber takeoff from a field the same length as the deck of a carrier
which had never been done. That was the only way they would be able
to reach Japan. We were assigned there for about two weeks practicing
by shooting at ground targets on a large restricted area. We didn't
do any shooting at targets in the air, Just dove down shooting at the
ground. I recall it being very hot and muggy there off the Gulf of
Mexico.
After returning to Napier Field we were nearing graduation time. We
had now developed a lot of confidence in our flying and fooled around
when flying without our instructors. We would fly very close together
and tap our wingtips and the wing of the plane flying next to us.
Flying close to the ground was fun also and gave you a better idea of
how fast you were actually going than you had at high altitudes. In
Primary I flew 60 hours, in Basic 72 hours, and in Advanced 97 hours
for a total of 220 hours. There were about 250 of us in the class and
by that time we had become acquainted with most everyone and close
friends with many. We went all the way through combat with some of
those same follows.
After our final flight with the commanding officer we were ready for
graduation. We then filled out forms giving our preference for the
type of flying we wanted. Just before graduation they put on an
airshow for our benefit. Little stunt planes would fly straight up and
all types of fighter planes did acrobatics and speed. Naturally we
almost all wanted to get into single engine fighters so that is what
we had listed on the forms. I don't remember much about graduation
except many of the fellows had their parents there. We were now second
lieutenants in the Army Air Force which was a wartime addition to the
regular U.S. Air Force.
We received $250 in $50 bills to purchase our new officers uniforms,
lieutenants gold bars and our silver wings. We bought these clothes
on the base and they were of wonderful material. After the war I wore
the pants and shirts for years, and after they were too old, I wore
the pants for hunting as they were very warm and wore like iron. I
still have one of the wool shirts. We graduated at Napier Field on
May 28, 1943 and waited nervously to see the notice on the bulletin
board telling us where we would go next. When they were finally
posted I got fighter plane and was as happy as the others that did.
Some pilots went to Twin Engine, Transport, Troop Carrier, Light
Bomber, Medium Bomber, Dive Bomber, or Heavy Bomber. The poorest
fliers went to Piper Cubs and flew observation over the battle lines
to direct the field artillery. I am glad that I didn't go to Bomber
planes as they were sent to a field in Alpena, Michigan and flew out
over Lake Michigan. We had to report to the commander to receive our
active duty orders and my friends and I were hoping we would go to
the same place.
I got my orders to report to Hamilton Field in California with a ten
day delay enroute. Naturally all the fighter pilots were split up now
as we were cut down to squadron size and sent to different bases
around the U.S. A lot of my friends, however were assigned to the
same place. Al Johnson, a big Swede from St. Paul Minnesota, was
going to Hamilton and the last thing I said to him was " I'll meet
you in Cheyenne, Wyoming and we'll go the rest of the way together.
We were to report to the 380th squadron of the 363rd fighter group. A
group consisted of three squadrons and I still know all the fellows
in the other squadrons although we didn't fly together.
Now for my first visit home in fifteen months! The parents of B. Bell
of Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, had come to his graduation and I rode
home with them. He was the one who almost crashed with me as a
passenger back in training. He and I took turns driving and they took
me all the way to Canandaigua. I was driving on a divided highway
somewhere in So. Carolina when I was stopped for doing 35 in a 30 mph
zone. I was taken before a judge and fined $10. Those rich Bell's
didn't offer to pay it. It really made me mad to get fined for only 5
mph over the speed limit as I hadn't been home in a year and a half.
I can't remember much about my leave at home, but I must have spent
it visiting with all the ones who did not go in the service. I had a
good visit with the Montanyes and Lennie Pierce's family. When it was
time to report, I went by train from Rochester to San Francisco. Bill
Barnum and Al Bunnell from Cheshire gave me a ride to Rochester and
we spent several hours having a big time in a bar before train time.
We all staggered down to the depot and they poured me aboard. I
survived and enjoyed the train ride across the country. The trains
were always crowded then, but I enjoyed them. The train made an hours
stop in Cheyenne, Wyoiming and I got off to have something to eat.
The first person I saw when I entered the station was Al Johnson, the
big Swede, standing there! That wouldn't happen again in a million
years. We made the rest of the trip together and stayed overnight in
a San Francisco hotel.
The next morning we took a taxi across the Golden Gate Bridge to
Hamilton Field. It was good to be back among all the fellows from
flying school. We Just hung around there for a couple of weeks, not
yet knowing what we were going to be flying. We had classes everyday
on engines, aerodynamics, and air craft identification. They would
flash silhouettes of friendly and enemy aircraft on a screen from
all different angles and we had to identify them immediately. We also
had classes in aerial map reading and continued to have them even
when we were in England flying missions.
After all this time it is difficult to remember the correct sequence
of events as we were stationed at four different locations in the
following weeks. I will attempt to note all the events even though
they may not be at the exact field. After a week at Hamilton we went
by train to Tonapah, Nevada to start flying. We stopped for a couple
of hours in Reno, Nevada and four of us headed for the nearest bar.
I ordered four whiskey sours and told the bartender to just keep
them coming. After the first hour the crowd had grown bigger and the
drinks were still coming. I didn't know who was drinking them, but
when I got the bill, I paid for 75 drinks! I had to help the others
back to the train as they had a lot of trouble crossing several train
tracks on their way back to our train. Tonapah was at the foot of a
mountain range and the airfield was out in the valley toward the next
range. It was flat country with nothing but sand and brush. The
buildings were just wooden shacks and the wind blew the sand
everywhere. It was in the food, in our beds, and over us most of the
time. We arrived here on June 23, 1943 and were going to be checked
out in the P-39 airplane. This plane was the one used in the early
part of the war in the Pacific and had become obsolete. They were
shipped back to the U.S. to be used for training pilots as all the
new planes were going to the war zones.
The P-39 was a lot more airplane than any of us had ever flown before
and with only one seat, we would have to fly it alone. The instructor
took a group of us out to the plane and let each of us look in the
cockpit while he explained how to start it and the different
instruments. After about one hour's instruction, he asked for a
volunteer to go first. Somebody volunteered and taxied out to the
runway. He went down the runway and started up in the air. About 200
feet up the plane went straight down to crash in a ball of flame. We
went over to another plane and the instructor asked Who's next?" We
used another runway and I was the third one to go. This was our first
experience of losing a pilot and really made us all stop and think.
When I took off I flew straight for a long time before I dared to try
a turn. You just moved the stick a fraction of an inch and you were
upside down. It was extra sensitive after the trainers which had
almost needed two hands to move the stick. I didn't do any fancy
stuff and was relieved to be on the ground again after making a
fairly good landing.
After we were all checked out, we practiced takeoffs and landings and
flew cross country in formation. I flew about 20 hours the two weeks
we were in Tonapah. After our confidence grew we started doing things
like flying real low down the straight section of the highway trying
to chase the Greyhound buses off the road. The airplane numbers were
on one side of the plane only so we had to keep that side away from
the road so we wouldn't be identified. On July 5 we went by train
back to Hamilton Field in California.
The rest of July and all of August we flew P-39's from Hamilton
Field. From here we made cross country flights to Reno, Nevada,
Oroville, California and Sacramento, California. We also started
gunnery practice here. The P-39 had a 30mm cannon that fired through
the nose of the propeller and the targets were along the shore of San
Francisco Bay. We would dive down at the target and shoot the cannon.
We also had practice at aerial gunnery. One of the planes was used as
a tow ship and towed a cloth target about four feet wide and twenty
feet long on a cable behind the plane. The tow ship would fly up and
down the coast while the other planes would fly toward the target at
45 degree angles and shoot the 50 caliber machine guns which were
mounted in the wings. Each pilot had different colored chalk on the
bullets and they would thus leave a colored hole in the target when
you hit it. I flew tow several times and you never felt safe as those
characters were using real bullets. Just once someone hit a tow ship.
Shooting from different angles at the target taught us how far ahead
of the target you had to be to aim in order to hit it. We shot 100
rounds each and one time I had 51 hits! The tow ship had to fly low
over the field and release the target before landing. We never liked
to fly the tow ship as it was so monotonous flying back and forth for
hours.
We started to fly more formation flights of two or three planes and
another plane would try to "attack" us from out of the sun or from
the clouds like an enemy would. This taught us to keep our heads
turning all the time to keep track of the sky all the way around us.
We would take evasive action to try to keep the enemy ship from
getting behind us. We also did a lot of formation flying close to the
ground which trained you to stay close together in formation. In the
tomato and vegetable farms in the Sacramento valley the pickers would
be out in the fields with crates stacked about six feet tall and we
would fly down so low that we blew the empty crates over. I imagine
we were cussed a lot! A couple of times someone would come back and
land with telephone wire or fencing caught on the underside of the
plane. I loved to do acrobatics and when I was up alone, I would do
rolls and snaprolls and all the fun stuff.
We were on duty two days and had the next one off so we had plenty of
free time and spent a lot of it in San Francisco. We found a
rent-a-car place and started renting a car by the day. Instead of
taking it back we would just pass it on to someone else. Sometimes we
would keep it for two weeks and when it went back we would all chip
in to pay the bill. One time we had a big Packard Clipper which
didn't have any reverse so you had to drive it, park it, and keep it
in places that you could get out of without using reverse Sometimes
that was real ticklish in the city. I had this big black car when I
had the first date with Lettie. I would get her home anytime between
1:00 and 3:00 am then wait outside in the car until she came out in
the morning to go to work so I could give her a ride. I got used to
staying up all night every third night. The other fellows were all
finding dates so I had started looking one day and found her working
in the candy section of a department store. I liked San Francisco and
servicemen were welcome anywhere so I spent a lot of time in the best
hotels and restaurants. We also found many "steak houses" in
California and would eat in them frequently. They were small places
with a couple of tables and a bar or counter with stools. All the
menu consisted of was steak, salad, rolls and coffee but it was
always good. I rode the cable cars a lot and helped them turn the
cars around at the bottom of the hill. I found that all the head
turning and watching while flying really sharpened your driving
ability in a car. You saw all the traffic at once and could go
through it quickly. We used to drive 60 mph across the Golden Gate
Bridge when the fog was so bad all you could see was the white line
in the center of the road. 0n my first date with Lettie we doubled
with another couple. The fellow, Wes Hottdorf, flew with me and had
been a member of the Chicago Mafia. He ended up flying P-38s in a
different group in England.
On August 28 we went to another field in Santa Rosa, California and
flew about the same type of training as we had been doing. We were
still close enough to San Francisco to get up there often. At the
time we were also still getting experience with the link Trainer. At
this field we had a BT-13 and an AT-6 which we had flown in flying
school. We could fly them anytime we wanted to and they were also
used if the flight leader wanted to check on our flying skill as they
were two seaters. Remember Pete Lenzi who had hitchhiked to
California and Joined the Marines? He had been wounded over the
Pacific and was recuperating in the Oak Knoll Hospital in California.
When he was able to get out of the hospital for a day I had him come
up from San Diego and I met him in San Francisco where we spent the
day together. In the evening I took him out to the field and took him
up in a BT-13. I gave him a wild ride with lots of acrobatics: loops,
rolls and spins. I dove down almost to the ground then pulled up so
that he disappeared down in the back seat out of sight. He really
enjoyed the ride and still remembered it the last time I saw him.
We now started to fly a lot of formation with the planes in a V. It
was not until later in the War that a formation of four planes was
used. We flew formation at high altitude, low to the ground and cross
country. Neil Ullo and Lloyd Bruce were now my closest friends and
were in my flight. Neil was sent to a special gunnery school in
Arizona for two weeks and when he came back he had to teach what he
had 1earned to all the rest of us. Later I will tell how much this
extra gunnery training helped him.
By this time we had developed our skill to the point where we got the
fighter pilot attitude which was years later described as the 'Right
Stuff'. We wore the silk scarf, sunglasses and rakish hat with a
leather Jacket. In San Francisco I bought a pair of lumberjack boots
that I was still wearing when I was in prison camp. We began to fly
more aggressively as we knew the airplane better. The gunnery range
was along an uninhabited portion of the California coast and we would
fly down close to the rocks along the shore to scare the seals off
the rocks. Some of the guys flew under the Golden Gate Bridge, but I
never tried that. Out guy flew down into a football stadium during a
game and he was reported and grounded for three days. He forgot to
keep the side of the plane with the identification numbers away from
the spectators. We were now flying two and three hours a day and a
little at night. Landing a plane at night is a lot different than in
the daytime. Altogether I flew about 155 hours in the P-39 and
another 10 hours in the basic trainer while I was in California.
On September 22, 1943 I was granted a leave and prepared to go home.
This was the second and last leave that I had during my three and a
half years in the service. Four of my friends who lived in the East
bought an old car for $75 and they drove it non-stop all the way to
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They sold it for junk and took the train
back to California. There wasn't room enough for me to go-with them
so another fellow and I took a bus to Sacramento, where there was a
bomber base, and tried to hitch a ride east on an Army plane. There
was a B-24 Bomber flying to Omaha, Nebraska and we could ride it if
we had parachutes. We tried everywhere to borrow a parachute and at
the last minute I talked a captain into letting me take his (after a
couple of hours of pleading with him). I agreed to return it
immediately upon returning to California. We got on the plane and had
to stay in the bomb bay section. The door on the side of the plane
was about six feet by six feet and was open as the doors were
missing. After we took off the cold air was terrible as it was night
and the opening was right by us. We found a l2xl2 canvas and tried to
fasten it over the opening and it blew right out over the city of
Sacramento so somebody got a good canvas. We took all of the clothes
we had with us and put them on, laid down in the bomb bay and nearly
froze to death on the way to Omaha. If the bomb bay doors had opened
it would have been the end of us as we were using the parachutes as
pillows! When we got to Omaha, I left the other guys and took a train
to Rochester. Somewhere in the past I had met an old sergeant who had
given me some good advice about train travel. He said to buy a coach
ticket and get on a first class car. By the time they came around to
collect tickets the coach cars were so crowded they couldn't make you
move. This always worked for me and I saved a lot of money.
Besides my luggage I had to carry that heavy bulky parachute all the
way across the country and all the way back.( When I got back to base
I put it on a P-39 and flew it back to the captain in Sacramento.) I
arrived in Rochester in the middle of the night and took a taxi to
Pittsford where I stood on the corner to thumb a ride. About 1:30 in
the morning an old black man and woman in an old Model A Ford gave me
a ride. They were so old I think they were scared of me but they
were surely nice to give me a ride at that time of night and we had a
good visit along the way. They let me out in Canandaigua and I walked
home. I made it faster than a train ride even though I used a lot of
different means of travel to get home that leave.
After my stay at home I took the train from Rochester to San
Francisco and it was a trip that I'll never forgot. There was a girl
with three kids under the age of 5 and she was traveling from Boston
to San Diego to be with her husband, a sergeant stationed in
California. We had a Pullman car and their berth was opposite mine.
The kids spent most of the time crying or running in the aisle. There
was a sailor sitting with me and we tried to help entertain them as
best we could. After three days and nights with all that noise you
can bet I was glad to arrive in California!
I took a taxi out to the base at Santa Rosa and the whole camp had.
disappeared. The barracks were empty and all my gear was gone. It was
real spooky and I didn't know if they'd gone overseas or what. I
hunted around and found a caretaker who told me they had moved to
Oakland, across the Bay from San Francisco. I called a taxi again and
made it to Oakland just before my leave was up. While I had been
gone, two of the guys had had to bail out of their P-39s due to
engine trouble. Al Johnson was one of them and he landed in a lake.
The next time I flew I spent the whole time listening to the engine
for fear that it would quit. I kept hearing things that weren't
there, but those planes were all old and anything could happen to
them.
The lst weeks of our training here at Oakland were formation,
gunnery, dive bombing, and simulated aerial attacks. We began to lose
some of the pilots now. One took off over the Bay and the plane
exploded. We figured there was gasoline in the cockpit and he must
have lit a cigarette as he was always doing that (against
regulations). When we flew low formation and came to any body of
water, I always went up a lot higher than the rest and then dropped
down again into formation. I wanted to make sure that I could glide
to land if the engine quit. I hated water as I didn't know how to
swim. Some of us had cameras and would fly close to each other and
take pictures. I took a lot of pictures when I first entered the Army
and don't know why I didn't take any all through my flying. I did
take a lot while in England. Oakland was just across the bay from San
Francisco and I used to take the "A" train across the bridge to see
Lettie. This was the "A" train that the song was written about and it
was the best way to get to San Francisco in a hurry.
While flying formation with these planes we would practice
crossovers. The middle plane was a leader with a plane on either side
and slightly behind. When crossing over the plane on the left would
go under and the one on the right would go over when the leader gave
the signal. It was Just changing positions. At this time it was early
in the war and it was after learning more from combat experience that
a flight was changed to four planes. One day I was flying the lead
plane and I called for a crossover. The next thing I know the two
planes came up right in front of me with pieces flying off in all
directions. They had both gone under me and one had come up under the
other and stuck right together. They fell together in a spiral and
crashed to the ground in an open field. The pilot of the lower plant
was probably killed instantly. His name was Cassadont and he was a
real handsome dark skinned, dark haired man of Mexican descent I
believe.
The pilot in the top plane was Hershberqer and after they crashed I
flew down close and saw him crawl out of the wreckage and give
himself a shot of morphine from the emergency kit. He had a broken
back, but survived to join us by the time we were in England. I
gained altitude and wiggled my wings to get the attention of anyone
in the area. I saw a car heading for the scene so I gained more
altitude and circled the area while calling "Mayday" on the radio. I
finally got through to the emergency channel in San Francisco and
gave them the location. Then I returned to base. I was lucky because
it could have just as well been me in one of those planes.
In November of 1943 four of us went to Nebraska to pick up four P-39s
from an abandoned air base in northern Nebraska up near the South
Dakota border. Our flight was chosen and our leader was Thomas J.
Tilson (called TJ), Lloyd Bruce, Neil Ullo and myself. the four of us
were to stay together all through combat. 'TJ' was a nice looking
blond from Teaneck, New Jersey and was what we called a " big time
operator" in those days. He had girls where ever he went. His
ambition was to dance in all the big ballrooms in the U.S and
England. I think he eventually made all of them. Bruce was from
Kirkville, Missouri and Neil Ullo was from California. Neil had been
an electrician in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed and as soon as he
was able to get back to the States he joined the service. Bruce and
Neil were my closest friends in the days to come and after the war
Lettie and I visited the Bruces in Missouri and after Lynn was born,
we visited the Ullos in California during one trip to Utah. Lynn
stayed with her grandparents in Utah that time.
Now for the trip to Nebraska. We were real characters by now with our
leather jackets, rakish hats and our 45's in our shoulder holsters.
We had to protect these planes from the enemy even in the middle of
the U.S.!! We were to fly by commercial airline to Omaha so we loaded
all our gear into a small army truck and said goodbye to all our
friends. We made the two and a half hour trip to the San Francisco
airport to catch our plane. (It was the only time I ever flew in a
commercial plane.) About four, and a half hours after leaving
Oakland, we finally took off. About two minutes into the flight we
landed at Oakland, across the Bay, on our first stop. There were all
our friends standing there waving at us! We could have gotten on
there and saved half a day of travel but that was the Army's way of
doing everything. We landed in Omaha, checked into a hotel and set out
to look for the nearest nightclub. We had a steak dinner and the meat
in the stockyard district was totally different from anything in the
East. The steak was about two inches thick and you could cut it with
a fork. As soon as we found some girls, we stacked all our guns on
the table and danced the evening away.
The next morning we left Omaha by train for Ainsworth, Nebraska. It
turned out to be a little place about the size of Cheshire out in the
middle of nowhere. The only one there to take care of the place was
an old man wearing a beard. The four old planes were parked there and
we didn't even know if we could get them started. To make a
correction, the fourth pilot was not Bruce, but another fellow who
was from Hastings, Neb. which was in the southern part of the state.
We planned to fly down there and land at the nearest airport. We got
the planes going and the old man wanted us to buzz the field before
leaving, as a farewell. We took off, gained altitude, then dove down
right at the building and the old man. We pulled up just as we passed
over him and Neil Just missed the roof by inches. I found that the
plane that I was flying had bad controls and you had to hold the
stick way over to the left of the cockpit in order to keep the plane
level.
We flew down to Hastings, Nebraska and stayed the night with the
other pilot at his parents' house. Nebraska has always been known for
its pheasant hunting so the next day we all got shotguns and sat on
the fenders of his car and drove around all the back roads looking
for birds. I can't remember if we got any or not, but we sure had a
lot of fun.
We discovered that the planes did not have any oxygen so we had to
find some way to get over the Rocky Mountains. We next flew to Ogden,
Utah for fuel and when we landed the brakes failed on one of the
planes. While we waited for it to be fixed, we wanted to get into
town and had to sneak by the guards at the gate as we were not in
uniform. We got through the gate and ran down the road far enough so
they couldn't catch us. We caught a ride into Ogden. We were in a big
department store when we saw the MP's coming after us so we got down
behind the counters and ran all over the store until we lost them. We
were never caught and made it back to the base safely.
I intended to ask Lettie to marry me when we got back to California
and wanted to get down to see Mr. and Mrs. Clark while I was so close
but couldn't get the transportation and didn't have enough time. We
decided that as we had no oxygen in the planes, we could not fly over
the Rockies and would have to fly down one of the valleys south to
Las Vegas then to southern California and up the coast. It would be
several days before the brakes could be fixed on the one plane so we
decided that the three of us would fly on to Las Vegas and wait there
for the other fellow. We started south with mountains on both sides
of us when the clouds came down over the tops of the mountains. We
were squeezed into a narrow valley and couldn't see ahead of us. We
took a chance, continued on, and finally made it. Remember all this
time I had to fly with the stick Jammed to the left and the right
rudder pushed half way in to keep the plane level. My arms were very
tired by the time we reached Las Vegas.
We stayed in a motel in Las Vegas just outside of town. At that time
the city was undeveloped and the buildings were very far apart. The
streets were mostly dirt. We headed for the nearest casino and
started gambling. It was only a matter of hours and our money was
gone so we wired back to Oakland and each got $100 advance on our
next paycheck. We went back to the casino and after a couple more
hours were broke again. The next day the other pilot caught up with
us and we took off for California.
We flew in formation very close to the ground the whole way and
whenever we came to a lake or other water, I would go up a couple of
hundred feet above the others coming down to Join them when we were
over land. We made it back to the base all right and the next day the
planes had to be flown across the Bay to Hamilton Field which some of
the other pilots did. The one who flew the plane I had flown from
Nebraska could only get it a couple of feet in the air. He flew all
the way across just above the water. It was just plain luck that got
me there all the way from Nebraska.
I called Lettie and she agreed to marry me so I went to San Francisco
and we were married the next day, the 23rd of November, 1943. I had
to get special permission to 1eave the base to get married because we
were now on alert to be shipped overseas. We were married by a judge
in the Court House and stayed the night in the St. Frances Hotel.
Early the next morning I had to get back to the base. Our orders had
come through and I could not leave the base again. We were going to
England and I was glad of that because it meant we would not be
flying over water all the time. This was the way the Army did things:
the ones trained on the West coast went to England and the ones on
the East coast probably went to the Pacific.
We were shipped by train across the country to Camp Kilmer in New
Jersey. We were crowded in the train and it was a long hard trip due
to all the stops we had to make to wait for trains going the other
way. Most of the guys played poker in California and on the train.
Al Johnson was always borrowing money from me to play poker. He
would always pay me back at payday and a week later he would start
borrowing again. I didn't play poker so always had money and didn't
mind lending it to him as he never failed to pay me back. We arrived
in Camp Kilmer the first part of December and it was very cold there
with a damp ocean wind blowing. We really noticed the cold having
been in California. We all bought coonskin hats to keep our heads
warm. We were fortunate in the Air Corps be able to wear almost
anything without being out of uniform. I had a chance to get into New
York City with Neil Ullo for a few hours. It was not enough time to
get to see much ... just enough time to eat and buy Lettie a watch.