 “In order to be able to return home after the war ended, I needed 65 ‘points’, however, I had 63, thus, I served another twelve months. I served in the European theatre as a fire marshal. One of my responsibilities was to keep the fire crews trained, so I came up with a pretty good scheme. In order to give them adequate training, I would go out to the field and pour gasoline on one of the junked German airplanes. I would then set the plane on fire and call in for the fire crew to come put it out. I did this several times and burned up quite a few German planes. It gave the crews great practice. When the Korean War started, the military wanted to recall me to active duty, not as a fighter pilot, but as a fire marshal!”
Flying the P-40, the Model 'A' “ I had 250 hours flying the P-40 Warhawk, which flew like a Model A compared to the P-51. After we finished one of our training missions, I would periodically divert from the direct flight path to our base in order to buzz my home, where my new bride, Jackie, was. I would fly low and wiggle my wings at her, and she said I was low enough to the ground that she could see me in the cockpit. On takeoff on a training mission, I had to belly land the P-40 on to a Georgia highway. It turns out a cotter pin was left off a nut on the engine after it had received some maintenance, and the nut came loose in flight, which lead to ‘serious’ engine damage. While skidding down the highway, the right wing hit a pole, which caused the plane to turn to the right. The plane came to rest in a ditch, and thankfully, no cars were hit. My wife was at the beauty parlor when word reached town that a plane had belly-landed on the highway. She just had a feeling I was the pilot. Thankfully, the cause of the engine failure was determined in short order, which kept me out of the CO office!" |
“My first flight in a P-51 Mustang was a check out ride with William Reese. What a beautiful airplane to fly. If the P-40 was the Model A, then the P-51 was the ‘Cadillac’ of fighters. We took off and headed south towards Paris, and once we arrived at the city, we flew circles around the Eiffel Tower. It was a spectacular sight to see from the air. We then left Paris and headed for a French farmhouse, of which Reese knew the location. We dropped down low and flew around the farmhouse until the family came out. Once they did, Reese wiggled the wings a few times while the family waved at us. It seems this family was part of the French Underground and had rescued Reese when he had to bail out. We then headed back towards the base. On a mission to Berlin, I was bounced by a ME-262. I thought the jet was trying to ram me, so I quickly turned to avoid him. I turned back and ended up on his tail and gave chase, but the jet was diving and was too fast.