ONE LUCKY BASTARD! TALES FROM AN ETO MUSTANG PILOT
I grew up during an exciting time for aviation. My first recollection of flying was at about 10 years old when I shook Lucky Lindbergh’s hand. In fourth grade I won a model airplane contest, and the prize was my first ride in an open cockpit plane. I had no goggles. When I raised my head up above the windshield, the air felt like it blew in behind my eyeballs!
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, I was a freshman at Columbia University. By the time June came around, it seemed to me and a lot of the other guys that school was pretty darn irrelevant. A number of us decided to join the Army Air Corps. So, one July day in 1942, we went down to Whitehall Street in New York City to an Army Recruiting Center, where we signed up. We were sent to Governor’s Island in New York for a physical. In September, we received letters to report. I went to the Armory in Newark and got on a train heading for Keesler Field.
I went through the usual Basic Training, Classification as Pilot, Cadet Training, and Ground School, then Primary Flight Training in PT-17 Stearmans, Basic Flight Training in Vultee BT-13s, Advanced Flight Training in AT-6s, and finally to the first combat aircraft, the P-40.
Reporting for duty
After completing training, I received my orders to go to England. We took a freighter in a convoy to France on January 3, 1945. From
