The Biography of a Rabbit Part 3

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 b.u.t.ts 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 compet.i.tive 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 Sat.u.r.day 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. .h.i.t in the head and should have died, but after much surgery he survived. He was left r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 c.o.c.kroaches! 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 c.o.c.kroaches 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 pa.s.s. n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s and went down to Ft.

Jackson and stayed a few days with Ken in his barracks. n.o.body 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 cla.s.sification 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 cla.s.sman. We had to sit at attention in the dining room and eat with our eyes straight ahead and our shirt b.u.t.tons 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 cla.s.ses all day and homework until 11:00 pm. We had cla.s.ses 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 compa.s.s heading and flew at another heading to the target, what compa.s.s 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 ba.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 b.u.mpy 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 c.o.c.kpit and the blood all went to the top of your head. You would nearly pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.o.c.kpit. 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 c.o.c.kpit. The instructor would then give you compa.s.s 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 j.a.pan. 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 j.a.pan. We were a.s.signed 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 alt.i.tudes. 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.signed 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 pa.s.senger 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses in aerial map reading and continued to have them even when we were in England flying missions.