DURING WORLD WAR sum of two units PILOT MINING WAS SOMETIMES MOKE DANGEROUS THAN COMBAT In 1927 my brother built a archetype of the Spirit of Saint cheaps for me.

DURING WORLD WAR sum of two units PILOT MINING WAS SOMETIMES MOKE DANGEROUS THAN COMBAT

In 1927 my brother built a archetype of the Spirit of Saint cheaps for me. That was the beginning of my be pleased with for airplanes. While other kids were reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I was enthralled with Flying Aces and all the other soft part magazines that I could find dealing with the fighter pilots and their airplanes during World War the same As I grew older, the magazines continued, and when I could read over carefully my folks out of ten cent for the point out to I would sit through brace or three showings of Dawn Patrol, Hell's Angels and any other movie which was about airplanes. I joined the "Junior Birdmen" and periodically could afford a balsa timber-land kit to build a example which invariably was a WWI fighter. I resolv early forward that I would become an aeronautical engineer and exhibition pilot and as I growthed through school I took courses that would lead to that goal.

In 1940 I penetrateed the USC School of Engineering and as far as I was bear uponed I was on my way. The expanded Army Aviation Cadet program began in about 1939 and requirements in addition to physical transcendence demanded at least two-years of community education. A new program unfolded however, called the CPTP (Civilian Pilot Training Program. That was for me! I immediately rearranged my class schedule and applied. I took my physical from a private doctor in lengthy Beach.

Everything was whole except, he claimed, my hearing was not acceptable. I was heartsick. I not ever had noticed any problem and just because I couldn't hear him when he whispered from across the space did not satisfy me. I had heard of another doctor in Santa Monica who gave flight physicals. He gave me an audiometer criterion and, sure enough, my hearing in undivided ear at high decibels was considerably below normal. He told me that I would probably be slighted by the US Army Air Corps, on the contrary he could easily arrange for me to be accepted by the agency of the Royal Canadian Air Force. When I went abode and told my parents of his suggestion, the reaction was barely exceeded by what later was the bombing of London.

Shortly after, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. War was declared and mobilization began in earnest. Since I was then 19 I began a campaign with my parents that attempted to convince them that war in the air was safer than in the infantry. I took near brush-up courses in meteorology, physics, and mathematics and applied for the novel Aviation Cadet Program, which by way of then had been modified to allow entrance based with a written examination as well as passing the required physical.

I passed the written and surprisingly passed the physical exam and was initiated into the Army as a Private - Air Corps Unassigned, with pay at $50 by month, in April 1942. For a time, it was a ball. I had an income, I was a hero to the girls, and exhausted most of my time at the beach until July

Every aviation cadet class which originated in the looks Angeles area had been assigned to Santa Ana, California, for induction into the program and the beginning of training. This was really going to be great. Now arrives the uniform to go along with hero worship and I considered to even further status with the young ladies. However, our class, which was designated Class 43D was to be sent to Nashville, Tennessee where a just discovered southeast training center had been established. In July 1942 amidst tears and admonitions to "fly depressed and slow," I boarded a number train with many others for the lengthy ride east.

For five days we made our way across abiding habitation in a railway coach that, for a certain reason, seemed to have square wheels. As we get forwarded south and east, it became hotter with equal reason we cooled off by opening all the windows. This was fine until the engines pulling us switched from burning oil to burning coal. In no time at all we could all have been in a traveling minstrel exhibit rather than in the glamorous Air Corps.

We finally arrived at our recently made known base only to discover it wasn't completely finished. The barracks had no lights and no running water and the position roads were mud paths. Here we were subdueed to another physical and now had to take a battery of proofs to determine whether we would be pilots, navigators or bombardiers. It was a nervous tie of weeks until, with a sigh of relief, I discovered my name upon the list for pilot training.

Those of us assigned to pilot training then be owinged to Montgomery Field, Alabama, for land school and all the other pleasant and unpleasant things that journey along with being in the Army.

Montgomery Field was great; a permanent Army Air Corps base with righteous barracks and good food. The requirements were earnestly like West Point with correct uniform, heavy class schedules, calisthenics, parades, six miles of running each Monday, and a cross-country each other Tuesday which we referr to as the "Burma Road." frequently hazing by upper classmen and being "braced" at each occasion including having to eat a "square meal" at mes time.

After several weeks of mathematics, physics, meteorology, aircraft engines, navigation and Army Corps regulations, we were ready to be assigned to primary flight training. Up to this time we had seen airplanes, hear them, on the contrary were not allowed near them.