CHAPTER 4 NOVEMBER 15, 1942--MARCH 15, 1843 MARYSVILLE, MO.--- NORFOLK, NE. --- CPT--WTS

There were twenty Navy cadets in the V-5 program that arrived with me. The program at that time was known as CPT, or Civilian Pilots Training. A month later the name was changed to WTS (War Training Service). We were quartered in the college dormitories. At the school at the time was a group of Army men who were training to be pilots in the Army Signal Corps. They would be flying Piper Cub L-5 airplanes for the signal corps. Their future was flying low and slow spotting for the artillery.

The CPT program consisted of two months of a half-day ground school and a half-day flight instruction. It was here, a couple of days after I arrived, that I had the first ride of my life in an airplane. I don't remember my reaction to that ride, whether I was scared or not, but I survived. After eight hours of instruction the instructor crawled out of the front seat and said, "you're on your own". He took his parachute and walked back to the flight line.

Fat, dumb and, I'm sure, not so happy I headed the plane across the field, advanced the throttle, rolled down the field and lifted into the air, a nice smooth take-off. At about 500 feet I made a left-hand circle of the field, looked down and realized that I was at the point where I was going to have to land. I was up and had to get down. I couldn't change my mind. I made a left hand turn into the final approach, eased the throttle back and gently settled to the ground. I'm not so sure that plane didn't land itself. I took off again and when I was on the down wind leg I looked down and could see the tracks my plane had made on it's first landing in a carpet of snow about six inches thick that had accumulated the night before. The plane left a curving trail that made a ninety-degree turn to the right. I did not realize this was happening on that first landing. At least the snow taught me a lesson about concentration while being at the controls and was probably responsible for the nice soft landing.

Marysville was a fun place, but we had a lot of snow while we were there. My roommate, whose name was Bill Woods from Saint Jo, Mo., was about six foot two and a fresh air fiend. Every night he would open the window as wide as he could. After arguing with him and not winning I gave up and piled on all the blankets I could get a hold of and then slept in my clothes. Several times the floor was covered with snow the next morning.

Another one of that crew was a guy named Pardee, who in the middle of the night, while sound asleep, would sit up in his top bunk, flying his plane just as if it were real. He would wake everybody in the dorm. He was scared to death. Had twelve hours instruction and never soloed. He was washed out of the program.

One of the other guys was from Des Moines. On about the second weekend he and I caught a ride about nine p.m. on Saturday night to a small town about 40 miles north of Marysville, Mo. and still about 46 miles from Des Moines. From that town we caught another ride to Oseola, IA, about 30 miles from Des Moines and from there another ride to Indianola, IA, sixteen miles south of Des Moines. It was two o'clock Sunday morning and cold as hell. We walked all the way to Des Moines and got home about six o'clock that morning only to have to go back that evening. Only good thing was he drove his car, an old 1925 Star, back to Marysville. From then on we had transportation.

On one cold and snowy Saturday morning this friend from Des Moines, whose name I can't recall, and I took off in his Star heading for Des Moines. To keep the engine from freezing we partially covered the radiator. Somewhere about half way home the radiator boiled over and we had to walk about a mile to a farmhouse to get water for the thing. Needless to say there was no antifreeze in the radiator.

We were once again on this sixteen-mile stretch from Indianola to D.M. when we crossed the crest of a hill and half way down the hill was a semi truck jackknifed on the icy road, stopping traffic in both directions. There was a long line of cars on both sides of the road and nothing was moving. We were sitting, pondering our situation when all of a sudden my friend, the driver, cramped the front wheels to the right and took off through the ditch, out over the frozen snow covered fields, through the creek, past the semi and up the other side of the hill, through the ditch and back on the highway. After getting on the highway I looked back and here was a long parade of cars following the same tracks that we had left behind. That old Star was a pretty good car! This was just one of the many comical and amusing bits of trivia that seemed to be forever present during the years of my pilot training.

At the end of the two months I had thirty-five hours flying time in the Piper Cub airplane. Of the twenty men who started the V-5 program at Marysville Mo., nineteen of them completed it with 35 hours of flying time. The one guy who didn't finish was the guy who would not fly the plane solo. Of the twenty men who were in my brother's class at Sioux City, nineteen completed the course with their 35 hours. The one guy who didn't make the grade was

One hot shot pilot

a wise guy, who in the process of demonstrating his talents as an aviator to a farmer's daughter he had met in town, by hedgehopping in a field behind her house. The wing of the plane struck a haystack and the plane struck the ground ending in a pile of scrap. He walked away from the wreckage and kept right on walking out of the V-5 program.

There were no other accidents or injuries in either of these classes. About the most trouble we could get into other than crashing was to get lost while flying solo. Was an uncomfortable situation to get lost and run out of fuel then landing in some farmer's alfalfa or cornfield. To mow down a long strip of alfalfa or several rows of corn then looking out the side of the plane and see the farmer running toward your plane with a pitchfork can be very disconcerting. Never heard of anyone being tickled with a pitchfork but the part about getting lost and making an emergency landing was certainly not unheard of.

At the end of the two months I had thirty-five hours flying time in the Piper Cub airplane. The program was completed and I received orders to go home and wait.

Carl arrived home from Sioux City at the same time I did with the same orders. Within two weeks we both received orders. They were not for preflight school as we had hoped. In his case the orders were for pre-preflight. Mine were for another WTS program that would last one month and gain me another twenty hours flying time. This time I made a train trip from Des Moines to Omaha, Nebraska, changed to an antique train that had a potbellied stove for heating the passenger car, and because the weather was subfreezing the stove was burning coal and the car was filled with smoke and soot, for the trip to Norfolk, Nebraska and Norfolk Junior College.

The accommodations for me and nineteen other guys were in the local YMCA. Arriving late in the evening and being the first one there, the manager asked me if I would mind sharing a room with one of the guys in the preceding class, who would be leaving in a couple days. Assuming that I would then have a room by myself and that I didn't know any of the new guys who would be in my class, I agreed. My new roommate was, at the time, in the big town of Norfolk. I didn't meet him until about midnight when this loud noise came in with three or four of his buddies and turned on the lights. They were a drunk, loud and obnoxious bunch of hoods, at least this guy was. I immediately knew why he didn't have a roommate before. I had been suckered! He only lasted two days and I did have the room to myself. Strange thing is that I never saw him again until about fifteen years after the war had ended, when I was driving home from work in Wilmington, Ca. I saw him standing on the corner of Figueroa and Pacific Coast Highway. He was still in the service and wouldn't you know-a Marine! We both recognized each other, or at least we appeared familiar to each other. I gave him a ride to his in temporary home in Harbor City and had a nice conversation with he and his wife.

USS Petrof Bay

Norfolk, Nebraska is on a flat plain with few trees and was a nice place to learn to fly. This little tour was not a lot of fun but was not unpleasant either. The town was very small with nothing to do. The only two things I remember about it was that it was here that I got the first hair cut that I'd ever had in a barbershop. My father had always cut my hair and that of my brothers for all our lives. It cost fifty cents, which was a good share of all the money I had. The other thing I remember was another one of my class mates and myself being invited to the home of one of the local residents for Sunday dinner. Among their three kids was a daughter about our age who had a voice that must have been at least three octaves below that of Nelson Eddy. Was amazing. I would have loved to have heard her sing "Old Man River". Pretty girl though.

One other thing I remember was that my instructor and one of the other instructors would take a Piper Cub up and go hunting for coyotes. One would fly while the other sit in the second seat with a shot gun when they would spot a coyote, the pilot would fly up from behind it just above the ground, then cut the engine and glide. The running coyote suddenly not hearing the engine would stop to look. Bang, he's dead! The pilot would land in a pasture or cornfield and pick up the coyote. There was a ten-dollar bounty on them.

At the end of the thirty days this class received a group order to proceed by the same trains in the reverse direction to Iowa Preflight School at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. This single order contained the twenty names of all the class and since my name was alphabetically first, I was placed in charge of the group en route to Iowa City. Things went along fine until we changed trains in Omaha. During the lay over we were escorted to a restaurant by a couple of Army military police. After we finished eating, my charges began disappearing from sight like rats deserting a sinking ship. Came time to board the train, several were missing, the MPs were having a fit and I was having a fit. They all showed with the last guy being drug from a telephone booth where he was still talking to his girl friend on long distance. There were no further incidents as the train never stopped until we were in Iowa City where we were met by the executive officer of the 20th Battalion and a few shore patrol. Standard procedure, we had committed no crimes.