From High School to War
My beautiful daughter, Diane, now 40 something, is the one person most responsible for my getting started on this web site. She has prodded and encouraged me every step of the way. She frequently asks me to write about what she thinks others would like to know about me and my experiences of 58 years ago. Recently she wrote me as follows:
 
"Dad,

Now, here's a topic for you to write about, and about which I'm curious. What was it like *before* you joined the Air Corps? Did you enlist, or were you drafted? Why did you pick the Air Corps? How did you sign up for (or were you somehow chosen for) pilot training? (Why did you end up a pilot and not a bombardier or a navigator or radioman?) What was your training like? How did you get to be an officer? Did you ever doubt your choices? Did you have any contact with the guys in your crew before you were thrown together to fly overseas? Did you get to choose them, or were you handed the names?
I'm going to attempt to answer all these questions by creating the following semi-autobiography. This autobiography will cover the years from high school through aviation cadet training and up till the time I first flew with my talented crew in a B-17 - about a three year period.

 I was raised in the small town of Kingston, Pennsylvania located in the Northeast area of Pennsylvania in coal mining country. I grew up in the period between the two world wars and enjoyed a childhood that spanned the decade of the great depression. At the time I did not realize that this was a difficult period and I did not learn how painful it was till many years later. My childhood seemed quite normal and I really did not miss the many things of which I was deprived because of the depression economy. We were fortunate that, throughout this period, my father held a job when so many were unemployed......learning later that during this period his highest salary was $22.00 per week. Still, with this minimal wage, my parents managed to house, clothe and feed me and my sister even through the worst of times. It is with fondness that I remember the great meals cooked by my grandmother who lived with us till he death in 1940. There are so many great memories of growing up with my family in this town.....I have come to realize that it was their love that contributed most to my happiness during this terrible economic period.

 As a student in high school I struggled through a college preparatory course knowing that my chances of going to college were poor indeed since my folks did not have the resources to finance an advanced education for me . It was in my junior year of high school that I met Edna Storch, the most beautiful girl had ever seen. I was madly in love with this young lady who would later become my wife and the mother of our kids, and with whom I recently celebrated our 58th wedding anniversary. Our first date was for the Junior Prom in the gymnasium at Kingston High School.

 Edna and I graduated from Kingston High School together in June of 1941, just seven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. During my high school years the international scene was one of chaos and war. Hitler had annexed Austria, invaded Poland, Norway, Denmark and overrun Netherlands, Belgium and France. Yugoslavia and Greece were under attack and Germany had joined with Italy into what became known as the Axis powers. The Axis military power seemed unstoppable and indications were that an invasion of England was imminent.

There was still a strong isolationist policy in this country up untill Pearl Harbor was attacked. In order to give support to England and other countries fighting the Axis powers, the United States would became the "Arsenal of Democracy" with defense industries springing up throughout the country. The US economy was gradually coming out of the depression.War industries and jobs were becoming plentiful.

Without family financial support I had to give up any idea of going to college ......a disappointment that I felt deeply. Instead, after graduation from high school, I took a ten week "Defense Training Course" at a local extension college. This course was mostly a crash course in mathematics, blueprint reading, drafting and other skills that would enable one to hold a job in a defense industry. We were guaranteed employment after graduation in some defense plant in the northeast region.
I accepted an offer from the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Co located a short distance outside of Baltimore, Maryland and began my career in the aircraft industry with a grand starting salary of $.60 per hour (that's 60 cents). I withdrew all my life savings from the bank and purchased my first car.....a 1939 Plymouth sedan, for the sum of $200.00.

Off I went to Essex, Md where I managed to find a bed in a boarding house with nine other young men who also worked at Glenn Martin. I paid $10.00 a week for room and board. This arrangement provided a cot in the unfinished attic of a saltbox style house with 10 cots laid out dormitory style. The rent included a bag lunch each working day and a full dinner in the evening. I mailed my clothes home for washing and ate a thirty five cent breakfast each morning. I still had enough change left to fill my gas tank with $.12 per gal gasoline.

During the fourteen months I worked at Glenn Martin Company, I traveled the 120 miles from there to Kingston about once each month... or whenever I could take a weekend off from work and obtain enough rationed gas to make the trip. The time I spent at home was mostly with Edna and it was while I was with her on a Sunday afternoon in December that we heard the report of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan.

I guess what eventually led me to the Air Force was a stroke of luck in being assigned by Glenn Martin as an aircraft hydraulics inspector in final assembly at their B26 bomber assembly plant. It was my job to check out all hydraulic components of this bomber as it came off the final assembly line and just before it went for it's first test flight. Since all controls on the B26 were hydraulic, I had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of this plane and push the buttons, lift the levers and operate the planes controls. I operated the planes brakes, landing gear, flaps, bombay doors, etc. I would sit in the cockpit each day and fantasize how I would someday pilot such a plane and surely become a hero in defense of our country.

I was then only 18 years of age but when I turned 19 in the middle of 1942, I started to work on my parents to sign the papers for me to join the service. This picture of me was taken in September of 1942, two months before I enlisted. There was never any decision as to which branch of the service I desired - it would have to be the Air Force. With my parents approval, I enlisted in the US Army Air Force in November of 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland but because of the rush of young men to enlist at that time, I was not called to active duty till February of 1943.

While awaiting the call, I returned to Kingston and took a job in a local toy store and again spent most of my free time with Edna. I well remember the difficult time I had parting with my parents and, of course, with my love. I promised to write regularly and assured everyone that I would come home whenever I could get enough leave time. As it turned out, I managed to get home only once, for one week, between the time I enlisted and the time I returned from overseas.

I entrained at Baltimore, Maryland with about a hundred other Air Force enlistees....to report for military duty at the induction center at Miami Beach, Florida. When enlisting we were not assured that we would ever get to fly or even be a member of the crew of an airplane. We had to take our chances. Whether we would commence training as a pilot, navigator, bombardier or gunner would be determined only after a lengthy series of mental and physical tests. That determination would occur at the southeastern "Classification Center" in Nashville, Tennessee some months after our induction.

Having lived for the past year away from my family, the separation now was tolerable and "homesickness" was not the problem for me that it was for so many others. I'll not forget our arrival in Miami Beach. I had never seen such a place. We arrived late at night enjoying the 70 degree weather in February and were billeted in one of the many beautiful hotels right on the beach. The atmosphere was to change radically the next day when we were called out at dawn to do PT on the beach in our civilian clothes. We were shortly thereafter outfitted in the standard GI garb and proceeded for the next month to learn to march, drill, serve KP (kitchen police), fill out tons of paper and get the usual shots that GI's everywhere got. Each day began with an hour of physical training (Ouch!). I liked being in this gorgeous wonderland of beautiful beaches and luxury hotels but after about a month I was ready to get out of there and on to classification.

Then the bad news struck. The Air Force announced that there were too many enlistees to process at the Classification Center at this time so we were to be sent to what they called CTD (College Training Detachment) where we would continue with our routine training and attend college classes at the same time. I was sent to Xavier University in Cincinnatti, Ohio with about 60 other cadets who would henceforth be known as the class of 44C. I believe we were at Xavier for about ten weeks and very much enjoyed my stay in this beautiful city. It was while I was here that my family and Edna came to visit me. I felt very important showing them around the college and the town in my GI uniform. And it was then that I knew Edna and I would be married some day if I survived the War. We were very much in love. Parting was difficult indeed.

 Our Class of 44C left Xavier about the middle of June and arrived in Nashville, Tennessee the next day. I remember Nashville as the worst of all stops in my military career. First of all, the lodgings were, one story wood structures covered with black roofing paper (we called them tarpaper shacks) and the latrines were about a quarter mile from our building. We were housed about 40 men to a building. I guess the worst part of the time we spent here was in anticipation of the testing that would determine whether we would become pilots, navigators, bombardiers, or gunners (If you flunked out of the first three categories you were sent off to gunnery school and if you did not qualify there you would be relegated to the infantry). The series of tests we took over the next few weeks was extremely difficult and nerve wracking. First, we experienced the most detailed and complete physical that I have ever been through, taking almost a week to complete. Then we spent about a week in which we were checked for physical dexterity, night vision, aircraft silhouette recognition, depth perception, sound and visual perception, etc., and on and on. I remember some of the fellows would spend the evening before the night vision test stuffing themselves with carrots.

Then came the psychological examination which consisted of interviews with psychiatrists and written questionnaires with lots of multiple choice questions.. We all sweat out each test and did not know the final results till a couple days before we shipped out. Those who did not qualify would be sent to gunnery school or to GI boot camp. Those who did qualify (probably around 75%) were assigned as either pilot, navigator or bombardier. Only those selected to be pilot's would go on to flight training. It would not be until we finished basic flight training that we would know if we were to go to single engine or multi-engine aircraft......and that was usually determined by the need for that category.
Anyway, I made pilot training and felt a wave of relief after the previous 5 months of anticipation and waiting.

 My next stop was at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama. This was preflight training on the order of West Point. During our first month at Maxwell we underwent one horrible month of hazing....we walked everywhere at 120 steps per minute, saluted the water cooler (General Electric), absorbed severe verbal abuse from the upper class men as the lowest of human life, earned demerits for the slightest infractions of rules, endured "white glove" room inspections, had to memorize large passages of text overnight, walked tours (marching alone at attention in the courtyard with a rifle continuous for one hour at a time for each demerit over 4 - I believe). I had to walk 5 tours.....I remember them well in that 100 degree heat.
In addition, we had a formal military parade EVERY day in that afternoon sun in July and August of '43. Our strenuous physical training each day concluded with a run on "The Burma Road" obstacle course. All cadets that were at Maxwell Field will well remember the "Burma Road". When we left Maxwell Field we were not only disciplined cadets, we were also in top physical condition.

 I went from Maxwell Field to Dorr Field in Arcadia, Florida for Primary flight training. Except for the bugs and heat, this was a place I came to like very much. The field had been a resort in the middle of the Everglades that taught flying to those who obviously had money. Our barracks were really private rooms with bath that we shared....six men to a room. There were tennis courts and a beautiful swimming pool.
Our flight instructors were civilians that had taught at Dorr Field before the war for Embry Riddle School of Aviation. It was here that we would have an experience reserved for only some of the cadets who reached Primary flight training....flying the Stearman PT-17. This plane was a fabric covered biplane with two open cockpits and a 220 hp motor. The student sat in the front and the instructor in the back. This plane was everything that we ever expected of a trainer. It could do all kinds of acrobatics even though the engine cut out when you were inverted (gravity feed fuel tank in the wing overhead). We soloed after only six hours of training and from the moment of solo till we left Dorr the hours of flying in the PT-17 were some of the most enjoyable of my flying career. It was such a safe plane that we were instructed that if we were to loose the engine we need not bail out but should ride it down and, if necessary, just pancake the plane into the tops of a grove of trees. You could stall out and mush in at about 40 mph. I did very well in the Stearman and got excellent marks from my instructor.

 My next stop was for Basic training at Courtland, Alabama, a rural airfield located in northern Alabama along the Tennessee River. Here I flew the BT-13A -- also know as the "Vultee Vibrator". The title is self-explanatory.

That winter in northern Alabama was extremely cold from the middle of November to the middle of January in 1945. I vividly remember those cold winter days we spent on the flight line and in our living quarters, feeding coal to the small stove in the middle of our room. The barrack buildings were reminiscent of those at Nashville except much smaller and with no insulation.

The major event associated with flying that I remember from my time at Courtland was a disaster in which some twenty student pilots, including me, were sent on a night cross country flight prior to our having had any instrument flight training. During the flight we encountered severe frontal weather with huge thunderstorms extending from a few hundred feet up to perhaps 30,000 feet. Because of the weather I decided not to attempt to reach our destination at Nashville and instead dropped down to about 200 ft altitude where I could just barely see the ground through the darkness and heavy rain. I flew south at about 200 feet altitude for about an hour till I sighted the Tennessee river and then followed the river back to our field at Coutland.
Six of the twenty cadets pilots crashed somewhere in Tennessee during that storm. All were killed.

There was a Congressional investigation of this tragedy and the commander of the field was removed from his command for sending cadets out on a night cross country flight without having had proper instrument training. The experience was a tragic one for me since I knew all of the cadets who were killed. They had all been with me throughout our training. We had been together since CTD at Xavier and we were all members of the "Class of 44C". There were many more losses to come in future months but the death of friends so close to home was very upsetting to each of us who served with them. It somehow seemed appropriate to die in combat but not in a training accident.

It was at Courtland that a determination was made as to which cadets would continue on to single engine and which would go on to multi-engine advanced training. I was selected for multi-engine. The selection for twin engine or four engine bombers or transports would not be made till the completion of advanced twin engine training.

 My twin engine advanced training would take place at Columbus, Mississippi. Here we flew the AT-10. The plane had twin 230 hp engines and was physically larger and had more power than anything we had flown till now. One of the less desirable features of the plane was that it was constructed of plywood. This feature was less than reassuring to this student pilot. We practiced formation and cross country flying and learned for the first time to work with a copilot and share flight duties.


Upon graduation, we were commissioned 2nd Lieutenants. Suddenly we were officers who commanded a salute and the many other perks that went with the title. It was a real sense of freedom after the past year of difficult training. In addition, we were given a ten day leave.... my first since enlisting. Before commencing my leave I was "asked" by the commanding officer to stay on at Columbus as an instructor for a few weeks since there were no opening at four engine flight school and the 'powers that be' felt that I was suited to B-17 piloting. I was then assigned as the instructor for five already commissioned officers who were seeking flying status. They were regular Army officers who had come up in rank from Officer's Training School with ranks from captain to full colonel. Here I was, a newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, giving orders and flight instruction to officers that ranked well above me. It was more fun than I expected. I was an instructor for only 3 weeks before an opening occurred at B-17 Transition school at Hendricks Field near Sebring, Florida.

 Before proceeding to Florida, I took my 10 days leave starting in March of '44 and returned to my home in Kingston, PA. It was one exciting week as a new officer in a new officer's uniform and with everyone I knew in the town wanting to treat me or have me for dinner. I spent most of my time with my family and with Edna. We knew then that I would be going overseas within the next six months. We got engaged, ring and all, and agreed we would be married as soon as I returned.

 After my leave I proceeded to my assignment for Transition flight training at Hendricks Field near Sebring, Florida. I arrived at Hendricks field in April '44 and, beginning the next day, spent the most exhaustive six weeks in my flying experience. The second day I was on the base I flew a B-17 with my instructor. What an experience! After flying what seemed like miniature planes, I had finally graduated to a real plane and "what a plane". I knew from the first flight that this was where I should be. I had often bemoaned the fact that I had been selected for bomber training when there seemed to be so much more appeal in flying single engine fighter planes. That feeling left me completely the first time I flew the "Flying Fortress". The solid feel of the plane and the sound of power that emanated from the four engines provided a sense of strength and power that I knew would carry me and my crew through the hard times to come.

The training was rigorous to say the least. My pilot's log book indicated that in one day's practice, I shot 16 landings. That's a lot in a B-17. We learned the basic flight procedures, instrument flying, formation flying, high altitude practice bombing runs, and cross country navigation. On each flight I was accompanied by another student pilot or an instructor who flew as copilot. During this training we did not fly with a full crew only a single engineer who accompanied us on each flight. I did not know at this time who would eventually make up my crew.....that would be determined at my next stop at Plant Park in Tampa. I began to look forward to this event, knowing that I would have the right of rejection for individual crew members but would otherwise have no choice in the selection of those with whom I would spend the coming year and in whose hands our collective destiny might rest. I was not to be disappointed in any of the crew that was assigned to me.