大象传媒

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Robert H Allison.

To compensate for the uneven weight distribution the elevators on the horizontal stabilizer are fitted with small trim tabs. These are small elevators that can be adjusted by the pilot to maintain level flight without maintaining pressure on the stick at all speeds.

The other thing about our stay at Whiting all cadets were required to purchase a full set of officers uniforms or have their cadet uniforms altered and fitted with stripes. The only guy I knew that had his uniforms altered was Jim Wells (I'll get to him later). By the time we had been sold our dress blues, dress whites, khakis, greens, hats and shirts, we were in debt some two or three hundred dollars, for which the clothing companies in Pensacola were willing to trust you-the Navy would see that they got their money. Three hundred dollars sounds like a real bargain price today but at that time it was a fortune.

Before ordering uniforms all cadets were given the opportunity to go into Marine aviation or stay with the Navy so that the ones desiring the Marine Air Corps could order Marine uniforms. A small percentage did choose and became Marines. These guys like to spread the word that the Marine corps took only the top ten percent of the cadets for the Marines. That's "B**l S**T". It would be correct to say that the Marines took only the top ten percent of those who applied. They could have been in the top ten but that 10 percent of those who applied could have been the bottom 10 percent of the whole class. Most likely they were spread through out the whole regiment.

At this time we were also given the opportunity for choosing the type of flying we would like to do after graduation: fighters, bombers, torpedo planes, observation planes, flying boats, multi-engine or lighter-than-air. I chose fighters and got my choice. Maybe because my name began with "A". Those choosing to be Navy fighter or bomber pilots were sent to NAS Baron Field. The P-boat pilots and the Marines went to NAS Bronson Field and all others went to the main station, NAS Pensacola.

Baron field had the nick name "Bloody Baron" because of the number of casualties it had accumulated due to the red dust that penetrated everything including the engines. There were many crashes because of engine failures. There was a story going around that at one time there were twelve bodies stretched out on the hangar floor, awaiting boxes for shipment. I'm sure it was "bull" because the Navy wouldn't permit anything as crude and demoralizing as that. I think it is fair to say that the field didn't get it's name from the "Red Baron" Von Richtoffen either.

North American SNJ This was our final squadron. The planes we were to fly would be the North American SNJ, or as the Army called it, the AT-6, or as the English called it, the "Harvard". It was a great training plane and there are many flying yet today, 50 years later. It was the first plane I flew that had retractable landing gear and mounted a .30 caliber machine gun in the cowling that fired through the propeller arc. Firing the machine gun at a towed target was probably the only new type flying we would do; everything else was just rehash, practice and polish.

I don't remember my roommates at Ellison field but I do at Baron. I again wound up on the top bunk. Underneath me was John Burns, a red headed Scotsman from Pennsylvania. Nice guy, a couple of years older than the rest of us in the room. He was completely fascinated with the poem "High Flight" composed by an RAF fighter pilot who was killed in the battle for Britain. John could recite the poem from end to end and often did. On the other side of the room in the lower bunk was Don Bopp, whom as I have already mentioned as one of my three flight mates at NAS Ottumwa. He was a guy with an over abundance of self-confidence. The kind of a guy we liked to refer to as a "Hot Pilot". They may or may not be, but he, in my opinion, was just an average guy, neither great nor bad.

On the top bunk over Bopp was Tom Bloski. Turned out that Tom and I would be roommates at our next station. Writing home was a worth while past time and Tom, was good at it. He had written to his mother that he had good roommates that he liked. One was a Catholic like himself, one was a Lutheran, which isn't much different than a Catholic and the third one was a Protestant who didn't go to church. His mother wrote back to say that it was nice he had good roommates even if one was a Heathen. We didn't have any doubts as to whom she meant. However bad I am, my father wasn't a "Bootlegger" from East Chicago, Indiana!

One thing the Navy had was lots of inspections and parades. Every Saturday we would muster on the street in front of the barracks then march to the parade ground in our dress blues or dress whites, which ever the weather dictated, there the base commander would hold inspection. I never received any demerits even though I only shaved every three or four weeks whether I needed it or not. One Saturday Bloski and I decided that we wouldn't stand inspection. We got Burns and Bopp to answer the roll call when the platoon mustered in front of the barracks. We went into a janitorial closet under the stairwell to avoid the officer who checked the rooms for guys like us. Fortunately, the checker didn't check the broom closet and after he left we went back to room and waited for the others to return. The commanding officer was pretty liberal with the demerits and wouldn't you know both Burns and Bopp each got a demerit. We thought that was pretty funny--- might have been but if we had been caught we would have spent a year in flight training for nothing. Looking back, it was pretty dumb.

Flying the SNJ was a great deal of fun. As each stage of our training came up the size of the plane would get bigger. By the time we had reached the SNJ we felt pretty "hot" and were ready to take on the world.

We completed our final squadron course at Baron field on January 24, 1944 and returned to the main station. On January 25, 1944 in full dress uniform with about 200 other cadets on parade, we were commissioned Ensigns in the United States Navy or 2nd Lieutenants in the United States Marines by an act of the Congress of the United States. At the same time we were presented with "Wings of Gold" and issued certificates that designated us as "Naval Aviators". We had arrived. Nothing could take that away from us but a general court marshal or death.

Continued.....
'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.