One Fighter Pilot's War

by John W. Walcott

Overview

Author John W. Walcott was a citizen soldier who went through rigorous training in order to escort bombers in a P-51 Mustang fighter during World War II.

In One Fighter Pilot’s War, he recalls that journey in vivid detail, offering an insider’s view of the military system of the time, painting a fascinating portrait of his colorful fellow cadets and the skilled instructors who delivered highly trained pilots to the theater of war. He remembers climbing into the cockpits of the Army Air Corps trainers, confronting German jets, strafing Nazi convoys and rail lines, flying escort missions with observation aircrafts and bombers alike, and working to save the crews of disabled aircraft. He also recounts the dangerous rescue of downed pilots in the mountainous Balkans. His is the story not of an ace but of one of the dedicated men and women who served every day in the war to do their part.

This memoir tells the personal story of a World War II fighter pilot, bringing to life for all generations those years of sacrifice and achievement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491775523
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/16/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	122
Sales rank:	942,922
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

One Fighter Pilot's War

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By John W. Walcott

iUniverse

Copyright © 2015 John W. Walcott
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-7551-6

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CHAPTER 1

ONE FIGHTER PILOT'S WAR

During the summer of 1942, I was enrolled in the engineering college of the University of Michigan. I started my senior year that September but decided to enlist in the Air Corps Reserve. I had a student deferment at the time, but in those days, everybody was expected to sign up unless he had a physical handicap or had a wartime job that was considered essential. It was an all-out war effort. The Army Air Corps (the US Air Force didn't exist then) had a recruitment campaign going and sent a team to Ann Arbor about once a month. The slogan was "Enlist in the Air Corps Reserve and finish your education." I signed up. The only testing I remember taking was physical. They examined me from head to toe. At that point in my life, I was highly motivated to be a fighter pilot and would take any steps I thought necessary to achieve that goal.

At the examination, they listened to your heart and lungs and examined all your limbs and how you moved. You also peed in a bottle and did other tests, which I have forgotten. I did believe I had flat feet and was worried they wouldn't take me on that account. For purposes of the exam, we had to take off all our clothes and walk around naked for an hour or so while they did all that probing and testing. Because of my fear of having flat feet, I walked around on the sides of my feet so that dirt wouldn't show on their bottoms. If the bottom of your feet were dirty, that showed your feet were flat. Finally, they said, "Hold your feet up." Since the soles of my feet were clean, they decided I was okay. You didn't have to be a great physical specimen; you just had to have perfect eyesight and not have anything wrong with you physically. So I was accepted and resumed my educational career.

About the end of February 1943, I got a letter from the Air Corps by the direction of President Roosevelt. It said, "Orders for Active Duty," and told me where to report and when, with the final destination of Miami, Florida. So in late February, my parents drove me to the Ann Arbor railroad station, and I embarked for Detroit and the Fort Street Station. I imagine there were tears and unhappiness when the train left the station, but I was never aware of it. I was on my way. When I got to Detroit, I was surprised to see some of my cousins and an aunt. They kept me company until it was time to board. Since it was February, it was good we were headed south.

I left Detroit on February 24, 1943, but nobody told us the route we were taking. I was on a passenger train with about ten cars, including a food car. There were no Pullman cars on this train. We stayed in our seats most of the time and were supposed to sleep the best we could. For meals, we went to the food car, where we were given a tray and took whatever food we wanted. Then we went back to our seats to eat. It wasn't fancy food, but it was nutritious. After about a day and a half, we ended up in Atlanta, Georgia. We couldn't get off the train, but there I was in the South for the first time in my life. Most of the inductees on the train were from Michigan, and many were from the university. After about another day, we arrived in Miami Beach, Florida. We got off the train and were loaded onto buses, still in our civilian clothes. As the bus started out, we passed several busloads of soldiers who had finished their basic training, all decked out in their uniforms and looking very tanned. "You'll be sorry!" they all shouted in unison, repeating this phrase several times. We just grinned, not knowing what was coming, but it was the start of a great adventure, we thought.

We were taken to our quarters, and I was assigned to the Somerset Hotel. It was a three-story building right on the beach. You could go out the back door and wade in the ocean if you had the time. Then, as now, Miami Beach was a resort town, and though the army had taken over several of the hotels, there were still many civilians who either lived there or had come down for the winter. When we were off duty, we mingled with the civilians on the streets and at the dog track on Biscayne Bay. Our hotel was only about a half mile from the south end of Miami Beach.

The day after our arrival, we were issued our uniforms, including two pairs of GI shoes (high tops), along with a mess kit and other essentials. When I went in for the shoes, two GIs measured my feet and said "nine-and-a-half B." I was aghast. I wore a nine D shoe and thought these would never fit. But I was wrong. As I wore the shoes in, I discovered they were a perfect fit.

My roommates were all southerners. There were four of us in that small room. None of them were in the same program I was in. A large number of inductees, assigned to all sorts of programs, were there for basic training. The redhead from Georgia over by the window was sick with a cold. He complained all the time and was constantly taking medicine or using an inhaler. I thought about what a dud of a roommate he was, but I was wrong again. After his cold cleared up, he quit complaining and was really an amusing guy. He told funny stories and kept us entertained.

Those of us in my particular unit were scattered all over the hotel. But we were told to fall out at a particular time in the morning with our beds made and our rooms tidy. I think it was five thirty. After breakfast, we went over to the drill field and learned how to march. There was a lot of drill. The two noncoms in charge of us were a corporal and a sergeant. The corporal was a decent sort but firm with us, and we respected him. The sergeant was a jovial sort but wouldn't put up with any nonsense. His name was Whitey Roush, and he seemed to enjoy his position. He claimed he was the toughest gangster in Toledo.

CHAPTER 2

WHAT WAS BASIC TRAINING?

At Miami Beach, I experienced my first introduction to the armed forces. World War II was the war of the civilian soldier. United States' citizens, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, were in for the battle of their lives. The entire country was mobilized and made an all-out commitment to defeat its enemies. Industry was mobilized; the government was mobilized, and their leaders made an attempt to rally America's talented and capable people, wherever they were, in order to establish a war effort that was complete and successful. The armed forces were filled with soldiers who had never before wanted any part of the military but who now felt it was their duty to participate in any way they could. Each citizen was asked to make sacrifices. Whatever plans you had for your life were put on hold until this thing was brought to a successful conclusion. What does the country do with all these civilians who have been recruited into the armed forces and want to become effective soldiers? They start by giving them what is called basic training.

In basic training, the military tries first to change your thinking habits. You have been free to operate within society and pursue your own ends. That is now in your past. You become part of the armed forces, and it operates through the chain of command. You are subservient to a system and have to learn to operate within it. You learn to follow orders. You learn that people who are in charge have complete say over what you do. You treat them with respect. You call them "Sir," and you salute them. You are in a system with ranks and various social levels, and as a beginner, you are at the very bottom.

You learn to march. There is drill almost every day. And the count starts: "Hup-two-three-four, hup-two-three-four, hup-two-three-four." It goes on for hours. There is "attenhut," "dress right dress." This gets you spaced out properly in your row. (The h in attenhut is not a misprint. That is the way it was pronounced.) There are marching commands, tons of them. "Right face," "left face," "about face," "on the left flank, harch," and "on the right flank, harch," are just a few of the commands. You learn to carry a rifle. Then it's "right shoulder arms," "present arms," and "parade rest." You are lined up, and they inspect you. Everything had better be okay. Your belt buckle has to be shined. Your shoes must be shined. Your hat must be on straight. Your face must be washed and clean- shaven. It is chest out, shoulders back, tummy in. There can be no moving or talking while you are being inspected. All this is drilled into you until you get it right.

You go to the rifle range and learn to shoot a rifle at a target. You learn to shoot the army-issue .45-caliber pistol. You learn to shoot the Thompson submachine gun. You are lectured on health and particularly about venereal disease. All the women in the country are suspect. Any one of them can give you a bad disease, so "watch out," you are told. But you have also become part of a unit. That is the most rewarding part of basic training. You have friends and comrades, and you come to take pride in your unit. You are participating in the same experiences, and you develop rapport. You all become part of a larger outfit. Even though you pass from one group to another during your training, you always have this feeling of being one cog in an effective group. You support and help each other, and you share your feelings with each other. Every military unit has to have this spirit in order to be effective.

CHAPTER 3

THE ARMY AND TIES WITH HOME

When I went on active duty in the Army Air Corps, I was twenty-one years old. When I began college at the University of Michigan, my family couldn't afford to send me away, so I lived at home in Ann Arbor. I had never really worked at a job or lived away when I was activated. I had never had the maturing experience of being on my own or living independently. Now, suddenly, that had all changed.

I was lucky in some ways, because I never had trouble making friends. And I had had almost four years of a highly technical education, which gave me a strong background in math and science. These assets stood me in good stead in the military. I never had any trouble with the technical aspects of my training, and I never lacked for friends. I still had strong ties with my family and also with my extended family. They were all important to me, and I was determined to keep in touch with them. So I wrote lots of letters, not knowing until after the war that my mother had saved all my military correspondence. She not only saved the letters I wrote home, but she got the letters that I sent to other family members and added them to her collection. Now I can look at three notebooks filled with all my letters. Many of them seem pretty inane to me now, but there is much information I had forgotten. Also, I am surprised at the way they showed a more mature person was writing them as time went on. I wrote to my parents, to my sister, to my aunts, to my cousins, and to family friends. If there was someone I thought I could get a letter from, I wrote to him or her. I wrote about my experiences, my feelings, my hopes, and the difficulties and challenges I was facing.

I didn't have a camera, but some of my friends had cameras, and I did send back an occasional photo. When I was in Italy, I got my cousin Jack Boland's address. Jack had been in a special training program, and the program was suddenly terminated. He was sent to the infantry and was in France or Belgium. I sent him some pictures of me by my plane, and he put them in his wallet. Then he got caught in the Battle of the Bulge, the last desperate drive of the German army, and was badly wounded with shrapnel in his back. After the war, he showed me the pictures I had sent him. They had holes through them where the shrapnel had gone through his billfold. Luckily, he made a complete recovery. The only other relative I had in the military was Jack's brother Donald. Donald was three years older than I was and had been drafted soon after Pearl Harbor. He was a skilled mechanic and spent four years in England in a motor pool that hauled bombs to be put in bombers. He and I also corresponded occasionally. My other cousins of draft age had occupational deferments and never served in the military. They all helped in the war effort, however.

Every base I was in had a mailroom. When you had a few minutes off, you went to see if you had any mail. It was always a good day if you had letters from home. Sometimes, the mail clerks got to be self-important. You had to walk into the mailroom and ask very politely in order to get your mail. There were always people like this in the military. If they had the upper hand, they put you in your place. After we became officers, we got treated better.

Another part of being in the army was the language. There was a certain vocabulary that went with being in the military. Yes, there was frequent profanity and vulgar talk. You never thought about it; it was just a method of communication. Familiar terms had different meanings, depending on the context in which they were used. The expression chicken s**t had many different meanings. It was derogatory if applied to an officer who had authority over you and you thought abused it. If you applied it to your roommate, it was more a term of endearment than anything else. He accepted it as that. It had other meanings as well. That was the beauty of it. With just a minimum number of words, you could communicate perfectly with your peers. It was a very efficient language in that sense.

Talking on the radio, of course, was different. In the States, you were responsible for using polite language when you were on the plane radio. Even if you were mad as all get out about something that happened or at somebody who did something you thought was dangerous to your safety, you had to be polite. If you used a vulgarity, you were liable to be disciplined.

In Italy, the radios in the P-51 were UHF and had four channels. One channel was Fifteenth Air Force and strictly business. You talked to the bombers or other fighter groups on that channel. One channel was everybody, including other airfields than your own. One channel was emergency only. The last was for our Thirty-First Fighter Group. That was channel B, and that was the way we communicated with each other, while on a mission or otherwise. There was no restriction on channel B. Channel B was filled with profanity. You heard the same language over channel B as you heard on the ground. I must admit it was colorful and effective, but it would have shocked our families and people back home to hear how we talked. We just did it and never thought about it. It was a bit difficult to get home after the war and have to change your method of speech. I must admit it is still there in the back of my mind, even though I would not think of using it again.

There were some funny episodes after I got home, having this language in my mind. My cousin, who had spent four years in England, came over to visit my mother and me and brought his mother with him. He would start to say something; I knew perfectly well what he intended to say, but he couldn't say it that way there. He would have to back up and start over again with more genteel language. It broke me up. After years of more polite speech, it never occurs to me to use those vulgarities again.

CHAPTER 4

IN COLLEGE AT KUTZTOWN

From Miami and basic training, we were sent to Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Kutztown is in Pennsylvania Dutch country and about halfway between Reading and Allentown. There is a state college there where we were kept in a sort of holding pattern until the aircrew training system could take care of us. We took a train from Miami Beach and arrived there early in April 1943.

To place this program in context, World War II was a total effort by the United States. There was the draft, and all eligible males had to sign up for selective service. I signed up early in 1942 but was given a deferment because I was enrolled in engineering at the University of Michigan. Later that year, the government and the military had decided that a strong air force was necessary and laid their plans accordingly. They created a vast expansion of aircraft-manufacturing facilities all over the country and also planned for a system of training that would provide them with the manpower needed for this very large air force. When the strategic bombing campaign was launched against German industrial targets in 1943, the heavy bombers — the B-17s and B-24s — experienced heavy losses. As a result, the planners realized they needed a large pool of manpower to achieve their goals. That was why in early 1943, they called up all the Air Corps reservists and started them through the system: basic training, then more education at selected colleges around the country, and then activation into the air-crew program. By classifying the majority as pilots, they could take those who couldn't pass the rigors of flying and put them in the bombardier and navigator schools. The Kutztown detachment consisted of those reservists called up in early 1943 and then sent there after basic training in Miami Beach.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from One Fighter Pilot's War by John W. Walcott. Copyright © 2015 John W. Walcott. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Preface, vii,
Introduction, ix,
1 One Fighter Pilot's War, 1,
2 What Was Basic Training?, 6,
3 The Army and Ties with Home, 8,
4 In College at Kutztown, 11,
5 Classification and Preflight: San Antonio, 16,
6 The Altitude Chamber, 19,
7 Physical Conditioning, 22,
8 Primary Flying School: Bonham, Texas, 24,
9 Basic Flying School: Perrin Field, Sherman, Texas, 32,
10 Advanced Flying School: Eagle Pass, Texas, 36,
11 Graduation from Flying School, 41,
12 RTU at Thomasville, 47,
13 How I Got Over There, 52,
14 And Now It All Begins, 55,
15 Life on the Ground, 58,
16 Missions over Europe, 62,
17 Living Quarters and Roommates, 65,
18 On Leave in Rome, 71,
19 The Last Week of 1944, 74,
20 Mission Operations, 77,
21 Mosquitos, Big Fence, and High Brass, 80,
22 Mission to Blechhammer, 83,
23 Partisans, Politics, and Rescues, 85,
24 A Dangerous Landing, 88,
25 Mission to Berlin, 91,
26 Mission to Brenner Pass, 95,
27 Winding Down and Going Home, 97,
28 Last Weeks in the Military, 102,
Afterword, 107,
About the Author, 109,