Part 4 (1/2)

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 s.h.i.+pped 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 sh.o.r.e of San Francis...o...b..y. 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 s.h.i.+p and towed a cloth target about four feet wide and twenty feet long on a cable behind the plane. The tow s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p.

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 s.h.i.+p had to fly low over the field and release the target before landing. We never liked to fly the tow s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.s 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 alt.i.tude, 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 att.i.tude which was years later described as the 'Right Stuff'. We wore the silk scarf, sungla.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e 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 cla.s.s 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 Ca.s.sadont 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 alt.i.tude 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 alt.i.tude 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.