III.   AIR CADET TRAINING

In a few days, I got orders to report to the Biloxi Air Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. We went through another battery of tests, especially physical and psychological tests. In the psychological interview, the guy asked a trainee why he wanted to be in the Air Corps, and he said he wanted to get out of the damn infantry. The psychologist washed him out on the spot. He didn't get too bad of a deal though, they sent him to gunnery school and he ended up as a gunner on a bomber.

As we marched to breakfast one morning, a GI behind me said, "Get in step soldier." I fired back, "Who made you Sergeant?" He just cracked up. This started a long friendship that is yet today. His name is Don Beaney. We stayed together all through the war in Europe, and I was best man at his wedding in l947 in Rochester, New York.

After all the tests were finished, we were sent to Colby College, Waterville, Maine, for college math courses and some flight training in piper cubs in November l943.

We were housed in the old Colby College, because a new college had just been built. What a deal. I was getting a college education as well as flight training. We ate in a cafeteria run by civilians. The only unpleasant thing was the weather. It got as cold as 32 degrees below zero, and there was snow when we got there in November and it didn't melt until March. We couldn't fly until the temperature got up to zero and many days we couldn't fly for this reason.

One day when we went out for a flight lesson, it was cold and windy. As we went out to the area where I was to fly my patterns, the plane was jumping all over the sky. I got deathly sick. The instructor was in the front seat and I was in the back. The instructor motioned by hand what he wanted me to do instead of using the headphone. He motioned for me to do a left bank and I flipped it up on its side. My instructor was supposed to be a tough nut, but I didn't care because I was so sick.

He looked around at me real quick when I was so rough with the plane. Here I sat with sweat running down my face and I know I was white as a sheet. He asked, "Are you sick." I nodded my head weakly that I was. I thought I had had it, but he motioned for me to do climbing turns. I climbed to about 6,000 feet where it was smooth flying, and I flew some patterns. As we started in and it became rough, he motioned he would take over flying the plane. When we got in sight of the airport, we saw a plane had crashed against a 20-foot snow bank that was scraped from the runway. As the instructor tried to land, the plane wouldn't stay on the runway. So he had to take the plane back up and try again. After we got into the terminal, we found that everyone had been grounded after we had taken off. The plane we saw against the snow bank had just crashed ahead of us while landing.

The people in Waterville were really nice to us cadets. When Christmas came around, the citizens of Waterville listed their names on the bulletin board, their name, address, and how many cadets they would invite for Christmas dinner.

There were more invitations than there were cadets. I didn't go out for dinner. We had such a good cafeteria you couldn't beat. I was personally invited by a French girl to eat at her house but I didn't think I would feel comfortable.

Come March, the snow began to melt. The snow had packed 3 feet high on the sidewalks during the winter. It was removed in chunks. We hadn't seen the ground from November to March. Ice would form on my eyelashes from my breath as we marched to chow.

IV.   SAN ANTONIO AIR CADET CENTER (SAAC)

After graduating from Colby College, we were put on a train and sent to the San Antonio Air Cadet Center (SAAC).

While at SAAC, we took another battery of tests with requirements 20% higher than normal. We had to qualify for two positions, pilot and bombardier, or pilot and navigator. If we were extremely smart and had poor coordination, you didn't make it or if you had good coordination but couldn't pass the tests, you didn't make it to the next level either. Needless to say, I was pleased to be able to make it to pre-flight, which was the next step. I drew my new pre-flight clothing and was all set for pre-flight when one day the Commanding Officer called us all together and announced that a proclamation had come down from the General in Washington D.C. that anybody that had at least basic training in the ground forces and was not at least 2 weeks into pre-flight would be transferred back to the ground force. The Officer was booed off the podium. It was a raw deal and I had no ambition from then on.

You never saw a more disgruntled bunch in your life. We wouldn't salute; we wouldn't stand at attention and wouldn't go to sleep. While at SAAC, we were out in the field one-day when we noticed at an extremely high altitude something that looked like a large cigar. We decided it was the first B-29's. We had heard that it was in the making and was called the Flying Cigar. They were the planes that delivered the atomic bomb (A-bomb) over Japan.