Ted's Flying Days, Part 2
TED'S FLYING FROM START TO FINISH, Part 2
War had been declared in December 1941 and the U. S. Army wanted pilots so I felt that was my chance to get flying time in big airplanes. Cutter-Carr had an ex-student, Bruce Beton, young and single, that made instructor for the primary course, and so he and I were going to try to join the Army Air corp as pilots. As soon as I flnisied my class of students I sent them all up for their tests with the F.A.A. inspector. One of them failed - he wouldn't keep the airplane nose up on his back so I had to give him five more hours. I was mad about that - his buddies convinced him that he could get into an outside spin - was why he was reluctant to hold the nose up when on his back. I gave him "hell" about it and told him we'll go up and get on our back and if you let the nose get down I'll put you into an outside spin until you red out and your eyes bleed. So we went up and turned over - he held the stick right up against the stop and swish we fell into an outside spin. I recovered for him and I never told him he accidentally spun. I bet to this day he thinks I spun him on purpose.
Bruce and I took our physicals - passed and we were sent to Dallas 5th Ferry Group on Hensley Field at Grand Prairie, Texas, just out of Dallas. First we had the check ride in a T-6 Texan and I've never been so busy, had to use the radio, grabbing the mike, wouldn't have been any worse if it had been a snake and that old low frequency radio was hell to understand even after I knew what was going on. Also retracting the landing gear, changing the prop pitch, switching the gas tanks and through all of this the T-6 seemed like flying about a mile ahead of the pilot. But at least I could fly so passed the check ride. Then came that thing you have read about in the service - hurry up and wait. We laid around operations day after day except when they took us out on the ramp and taught us to march. I was so bad they sent me out with an old master sargeant all alone teaching me how to do an about face and things like that - it was embarrassing but I made it.
They had about 250 pilots at that time and most were as green as I was and it was so hot we would lie under the few buildings they had. In the meantime they would give us tests on navigations, meteorology, air traffic rules and army rules, etc.
Then they had to ferry some Cessna C 78's from Wichita, Kansas to Columbus, Miss. and with the pilots that were checked out in them, they sent some of us along as co-pilots for the experience. It was great for me as this was my first twin engine flying and the pilot I was with let me do all the flying after the first take off. I could never thank him enough because that helped me make a twin Engine Cessna check real easy and started me on the way with multi-engine aircraft. At the start of the Ferry Command they would send us out in flights of about 5 airplanes. One pilot wis assigned flight leader - it was a pain in the neck. Some of them would have plane trouble or pilot trouble it wound up taking about three times as long to deliver the planes as it should. Affer about six months or more they gave that up. You had to buy your airplane, deliver it and return to base. We were flown to Shreveport, La. for another physical for our commissions. In about that time we moved to Love Field, in Dallas, a sea of mud around the building. About the second day at Love Field I was commissioned 1st Lt. That was on October 28, 1942. I was told to get my uniform. So when I appeared at the base on the next day after running around the base for about six months as a civilian and ignored by the military I met an enlisted man who would salute. I would nearly break my neck looking around to see who they were saluting - just could not get it that was 1st Lt. Hill getting all of the attention.
Later I was sent to St. Joseph, Missouri for instrument training. There is where I got in a lot of military training. We stayed in a hotel and they would have us out marching on the streets by some old warehouses. No instrument training yet, after being there for a couple of weeks. One day my name was on the bulletin board to be officer of the day the next day at noon. The officer of the day is responsible for the base next to the C. O. All I can say is that I was a lot greener when I got on the base than when I got off. I had to see that the bombsights were placed in the vault or if left on the airplanes under armed guard at all times. And to make it interesting a blizzard was blowing in. It stirred up a fire on the back of the airport, helped fight it and missed evening mess. My driver used pyrene fire extinguisher on the fire so that made him sick a little later. I managed to get the cooks to give me a bite to eat. In the meantime the furnace at the office conked out - got repairs started on that - then it was time to inspect the guards. So had a new driver, his first week, and we roared out to a big parking area of planes with bomb sights and the blizzard, was really getting with it. The guards shouted, "Halt - who goes there?" and the driver just kept barreling on. The guard repeated and I thought I could hear him load the rifle. I told my driver he had better stop or duck. He nearly threw me into the windshield. We checked with the guard and got out of there, conned the cook out of some coffee and ready to take a nap as it was after midnight. Even got my pants off - no nap as had to let someone get a bomb sight out of the vault. Never did get any sleep. Then about 4 o'clock AM one of the mechanic crew, preflighting the B25's walked into the prop and was killed so I had that mess until I got off at noon. That is learning the hard way.
I did get a few lessons on instrument flying. Then Cessna had been holding up a lot of U.C.78's for an instrument or other parts and had 50 or more planes to move and I was sent back to Dallas so I could help fly them out. That was the end of my instrument training at St. Joseph. By that time I was checked out in B 34's flew them to the east coast bases for submarine patrol, etc. The B34's Lockheed Vegas were designed for the English and didn't have enough range for sub patrol so they were replaced with B24's. We picked them up again and they used them for a lot of things such as trainers, tow targets and shipped a lot to Australia by boat. Then I was checked out in B24's and B17's as well as instrument and pursuit ships. I was rated a 5 p pilot. Therefore I was qualifild to fly anything the army owned and had an instrument card endorsed so I could fly any kind of weather I saw fit and could sign my own clearance day or night.
That fall I was transferred to Great Falls, Montana, as B17 pilot which they needed real bad. Boeing was making them faster than they could ferry them away. But they wouldn't let me fly until I had a check flight up there so I sat for twelve days and finally had my check ride. They then wanted me to instruct in B17's so did that for awhile. I ferried two B24's to Fairbanks, Alaska and a ferry flight to Savannah, Georgia.
Just before Christmas 1943 when I got back to Great Falls, I had orders fo be sent to Africa as Operation Officer. Flew by airline to Miami, Florida, for briefing before shipping out. What I remember most was a doctor's lecture - he was great - said it won't be the lions or tigers or snakes that will kill you - it will be that little fritzy mosquito. My first night in Dakar, Africa, the mosquitoes nearly carried me off. I sprayed with my can of DDT, tucked the netting in better around the mattress and come to find out there was a hole in the net - big enough to stand up in - my first night there - the mosquitoes almost got me. They checked the B17 that we had flown over the next day, then we flew to Casablanca. There I got a taste of all the briefing in the U. S. before flying over. We were told to send all our winter uniforms home, as they would be too heavy where we were going, but relented and let us take one dress uniform, so if worse came to worse we could be buried in it.
Needless to say I nearly froze the first 3 months in North Africa although it never got below 30 degrees above zero. It was the rainy season. I wore one pair of pants until I could just stand them in a corner when I went to bed. At last the PX got some uniforms in and I could send them to the Tunis local cleaners, who lost them but gladly paid for them. Found out later they likely sold them for 5 times that. Back to the trip over, we stayed a few days in Casablanca because of weather; then went on to Tunis where I was to be stationed. They wanted to put me in operations. I told them that I didn't know anything about that stuff, All I knew was how to fly, so I was sent downtown Tunis to see the commanding general. I told him I didn't know anything about all the paper work. He said I don't give a damn about that stuff. You go to El Ewena airport and report to Major Jones. "You'll know when those kids can fly or shouldn't fly, so look after them." All I could say was, "Yes, sir". So I was put in charge of all the pilots at that time. We had about 37 pilots and about 5 flights a day to Italy, Sardenia and Corrisca.
That lasted most of January and part of February so I had just about gotten on top of that scheduling crews which consisted of pilot, copilot and radio operator. Communications department gave me the radio operators, maintenance gave me the airplanes so I could schedule all that were flyable. I usually got off some time between 8 P.M. and midnight. Then they sent me 250 more pilots and more C47's and more people to maintain them. So this old country boy was really in over his head, but I got after it and scheduled about 20 flights a day. None of the 250 pilots had their records up to date so I worked their forms 5s for months. Set up a chief pilot and check pilots, etc. The first chief pilot I set up and after about two weeks his head got the better of him and decided he was over me, so I had to dress him down good. The major said, "Well, you handle it. You know you can't fire him, so I transferred him to a Byran or some place so I was learning how to pass the buck - really army stuff, huh!
It seemed like almost every day I'd get personnel orders, giving me more duties - even mail censor. I had to ask the Col. C.O. to slow them down. I was getting so loaded I didn't even have time to eat, I had the best education of my life in the Army Air Corp. It was just like having a rich uncle. I got to fly all those new or nearly new airplanes, all that training free and when you could master the duty, they would give you something new. One day I was told I had a Link trainer and a Link trainer instructor out on the ramp in an airplane. What was I going to do with it? I liked that, so I found a room to set it up in, so all the pilots could get instrument instruction in each month. I always took all the Link Trainer time I could get. I bet I'm one of the few pilots that came out of the army with 250 hours link time. When I was stationed at Great Falls they had a WAC link instructor and had no idea what instrument flying was like in an airplane, so at Tunis we had a good instructor and I flew him in a C47 , put him under the hood so he would have a first hand knowledge of real instrument flying. It surely helped. It was funny in a way. He could fly just as good as the pilots under the hood but wat lost without it. One thing I really liked, I was on the accident board. That is why I got the name "Pilot Error Hill" and I was correct most of the time. About the middle of the summer I got promoted or demoted. They assigned me the Post Air Inspector as Inspector of Operations and Training.
The pilots were placed under the Chief pilot and I set up the inspection system. I didn't care much for it. I tried to beg out of it, but the Colonel told me I was the only person qualified so I was it. I can look back now and realize I was the top pilot on the base. I got all the test flights on bombers and had the twin engine Cessna UC 78 for staff use, almost all to myself. Later we replaced it with what they called War Weary B25. They stripped off a lot of armor plate, put some seats in the back. Sure made a hot plane faster. I sure loved it. The Colonel said he wanted all the C-47 pilots to have a chance to check out in it. I objected but was out-ranked. The C-47 was one of the most forgiving airplanes ever built. Very nice to fly but the B25 had about two times the power and speed, much heavier wing loading, etc., landing speed of about 110 MPH where the C47 landed at 80 to 85 MPH.
One of the pilots wanted me to check him out but I was busy and didn't care for him as he was sort of a "smart alec", so he got another pilot that had been checked out in the B25 to check him, so they flew to Bizertee 30 miles away to shoot some landings. All training flights were supposed to be only at Tunis. They landed at about 150 MPH on those short runways, burned the brakes so bad they froze. They came back to Tunis, tried to land at 150 MPH, crashed and burned, killing 7 men.
We had two schedules that we called the milk runs. One was to Casablanca. It was over 9 hours flying time and with all the stops, Algiers, Oran, Gibralter, Rabbot Salee and Casablanca - made it in 16 hours Tunis to Casablanca. The other way to Cairo only had two stops, Tripoli and Bengazie. Left Tunis at 1 PM, landed at 1 AM in Cairo. Only thing to worry about was the Germans who were still on Crete. One night the chief pilot was flying and a very British voice came on the radio, said you are off course, turn to a heading of so & so. That would have put him within range of the German fighters, but he knew better and stayed on course.
About that time we received range station for Tunis and set it up. I checked it out and set up instrument approach for its use, but it only lasted about a week, then the Germanrs jammed it with musical notes, but it still worked close in. It was about that time I pulled a real booboo. I was going to test fly a B-24 that the sub-depot had repaired the tachometer. The inspector was a young 2nd Lt. and a non-flying officer. I knew I could fly the B24 alone from past experience, so I let him go as co-pilot. But about time we cleared the airport on take off, the. wastegate on #4 engine slammed shut. That engine surged so much power, it turned the plane a little. I darted a look at the manifold pressure and it was 70 inches, going down, 45 inches was red line, and busted 3 cylinders, I feathered the engine and landed. If I had cracked up, I'd still be trying to explain my unqualified co-pilot.
Tunis was the last stop for 4 engine bomber crews and that was our responsibility besides running our A.T.C. airline, so I will tell some of the things they pulled. We averaged about 85 4 engine bomber crews a day. Some of them were Ferry Command pilots. They arrived from about 3 P.M. until about 5 P.M. I'd spent a lot of time in the Control tower. We could tell a ferry crew. They would land at proper speed on the end of the runway. Our runway was a little over 5OOO ft long and usually they would turn off at the center intersection. Some of the combat crews were not even on the ground at center of the field. The blame was the sorry training they had in the U.S.A. They were trained on 7000 feet runways, taught to fly in at about 150 M.P.H., when the planes landing speed was 115 M.P.H., so they floated half way down the runway with 7000 feet they had plenty of room to stop but not on 5000 ft. runways. They also trained two pilots together. The one that got the best grade was assigned as pilot and the other one co-pilot, and they were given a crew, total 9 men, so at Tunis that meant 7 or 8 hundred guests for dinner and breakfast. If they kept coming in and weathered in, we would end up with about 3000 extra to feed and bunk.
Also, when they made up the crews in Nebraska or wherever, they informed the pilot this was his combat crew that they would fight the war with, so treat them well. In truth, when they landed in Joea, Italy, they put the airplanes in the Sub Depot. I doubt that after landing in Joea, Italy, they ever saw that plane or any of the crew whom were used as replacements on the seasoned bomber crews. In Tunis, the operation was on the south side of the airport and administration on the north side so the crews had to be hauled on trucks around the field to their billets and the mess hall. One time a 2nd Lt. that was the pilot on a B-24 had to set out by his airplane for over an hour before the truck picked him up. He didn't think that was showing much consideration for one as important and who was going to win the war as soon as he could get at it. He was not going to put up with that kind of treatment by a base way behind the lines of combat. So he jumped right in the middle of the Master Sergeant that ran the flight operation desk. Well, a 2nd Lt. should soon learn to never jump on a Master Sergeant. The Sergeant apologized for the bad service explaining that we were away from the war and they only let us have the old truck, etc., the left overs. But when he landed in Jabra, Italy, he and his crew would be met at the plane with a brand new Jeep and it would be theirs to use while there, but here in Tunis, they just let us use the left overs. I would have given anything to have been at the Sub Depot when the 2nd Lt. arrived and asked them where his Jeep was, and was told no such thing and was assigned to tent #183, then when he would have asked about transportation over there, and he was told "You're standing on it and go around the landing field".
Another time it was the navigator that over-estimated himself. The four-engine crews flew into Tunis from Marrekesh, Morroco and that navigator made it all the way over the ocean just like Lindbergh so he was hot. When the flight plan time was up he told the pilot to look over the side and Tunis would be in sight but it wasn't so they went on about twenty more minutes and saw a town. That navigator said that is it, but the pilot found the sea coast running north and south instead of east and west and sure didn't look right. No airport to speak of in sight and couldn't rise the Tunis tower on the radio so they flew up and down the coast until they were about out of gasoline with night approaching. So our hero told the pilot that he had got them into this mess, so he would parachute down and get the people to park their cars and light up that dirt strip so they could land on it. So he bailed out but the navigator was still up to par. He landed two miles out to sea and came in with the tide over two hours later. How he was going to talk to those Arabs that could not speak or understand the English language I'll never know. The British had a network of radar all along the coast and figured out that the B-17 was in trouble so had cars light up an old German airstrip for them to land on. The Arabs had made a cart strip across the runway that spooked the pilot, although it was smooth -- guess he had never landed off pavement in his training. Anyway, he used the Army Air Corp answer to all emergencies - either bail out or land with the wheels up so he used some of both - had the crew bail out, then the pilot and co- pilot landed on the dirt strip with the wheels up and ball gun turret on the belly of the plane rolled to the rear of the plane and just totaled it. Thank God, the war was about over before that kind of crew got over there. Any place in the world you can follow the sea eoast in any direction and find towns or settlements of some kind.
In the summer of 1945 I was the Air Inspector at Tunis. The North Africa A.T.C. was reshuffling their operations and wanted twenty of our pilots transferred to Oran. Since I was so smart about what could be done by transfers my name was at the top of the list. So I was all set - I would trade my Air Inspector job for a full time pilot duty in Oran. Pretty smart, I thought. So I checked in at Oran and got all settled. The second day there I got word the C.O. wanted to meet his new Air Inspector. Oh boy, I had moved to a worse base and gained not a thing. So I went to work and in a couple of months we passed a real good inspection by general inspection, I might explain that the inspection team is like efficiency experts in civilian life. I was the Operations and Training Inspector and I also had an inspector for maintenance, communication and administration. We were in charge with being sure that all regulations were complied with including all technical orders, etc.
Things were pretty routine at Oran except I think we had more ex- A & E mechanics than any base anywhere. So the best of maintenance but a little like MASH doctors, strong on ability, a little soft on military protocol. The best thing at Oran was the beach, which we hit every night so got in a lot of swimming. The Germans surrendered while I was in Tunis. I had been in Oran and Algeria a few months when I got a chance to go home on the Green Program so I packed up and went to Casablanca bo be shipped home. While I was in Casablanca the Japanese surrendered. I found out later the Green Program was a leave in the States then to the Pacific Theatre so I didn't have to leave the U.S.A.
When I got home - used up my leave, then was assigned to Stockton, Califoinia as a pilot and was permitted to choose my run so I flew from Stockton to Sacramento loaded with G.I.'s going home on the east coast. Flew them as far as Tucson and that turned out to be the best deal of my life. Flying to Tucson, rest eight to eighteen hours then back to Stockton with about five days off and then another trip to Tucson. While at Stockton I did some instrument instructing a few special trips so all in all it was great. On only one trip I had to make an instrument approach at Tucson. I had a 1900 foot ceiling and 25 miles visibility but on the California end it was at least half of the time it was usually about 500 feet to one mile visibility in fog and rain. Icing occured a few times and once I let down at Bakersfield from 11,000 feet altitude to 3000 load with ice in a driving rain and flew past Fresno before the ice was worn off the windshield.
Next, the adventures of a professional pilot.
