take well to some of their prejudices. Later, we eventually became good friends and they confided in us that they were leery of us as we talked just like the gangsters they had seen in the movies.
From Sheppard, we were sent to Oklahoma City University for college preflight training where we were given more tests and assigned to five groups for one-to-five months. I was assigned to the one month group and we took some ground school courses and“ supposedly” 10 hours of flying Cubs
Command for transition into P-47s at Bradley Air Force Base in Connecticut.
In September of 1944, 75 of us were sent to the Southwest Pacific Theater to join the 5th Air Force at Nadzab, New Guinea. We flew on transports from San Francisco to Hawaii, then Canton Island, on to Henderson Field, and finally New Guinea. Upon arrival, about half of us were deployed to the three P-47 groups. Some elected to go to P-38 units, and the rest of us were retained at Nadzab and subsequently required
Upon return to Nadzab about a week later, I and another pilot were told to report to the transport group. We learned that we were going to be the air crew on a C-47 transport which we had never flown before, The other pilot wanted me to take the pilot’ s seat on the left because I had flown the B-25. I told him I would pilot the plane but from the right co-pilot seat as I wanted the throttles in my left hand.
Around December 1st, 13 of us were verbally ordered to join the 58th Fighter or Aeronca planes. I say supposedly because the weather was so bad we only flew four hours before leaving for San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center.
I was selected for pilot training and went through two months of preflight and then to Cuero, Texas for primary with P-19s, then on to Waco, Texas for basic training with BT-13 aircraft. From there, I moved on to Moore Field at McAllen, Texas for advanced training with AT-6s before graduation.
After leave, we returned to Moore for transition into P-40s and after gunnery training at Matagorda Island, we were sent to Richmond, VA, 1st Fighter to fly convoy covers, which consisted of search missions and ferrying aircraft.
About a week later, I was selected randomly by Col. Brandt to be his copilot on his B-25. We flew to Hollandia, then to Morotai which was the most advanced air base and was under constant Japanese air attack, especially at night. It was my first experience of spending a whole night in a fox hole. It’ s amazing what climbs out of the hole with you in the morning. After two days, we flew to Owi in the Dutch New Guinea, and then to Biak.
THE WRECKAGE OF A P-38L LIGHTNING KNOCKED OUT DURING A JAPANESE ATTACK ON MINDORO, DECEMBER, 1944.
Group which was leaving Noemfoor to go to Mindoro Island in the Philippines via the island of Leyte. We had no planes to fly so we had to hitch rides on C-47s or B-24s as we had baggage and could not be carried on any other planes. The weather was very bad and there was a lot of air action so the flights were very limited. Whenever a ride was available we would cut cards for the opportunity. Needless to say I was poor at drawing cards.
26 AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY