July 1943 - December 1945
This report is on my Grandpa Reeves and this is what he told me.
After he graduated from high school, the war with Germany, and Japan was in a dangerous phase and its outcome very much in doubt. the country was totally mobilized and many difficulties to normal life were experienced. Sugar, meat, gasoline, tires and many articles were rationed or unavailable. It was normal where families with someone in the service displayed a small cloth flag in a window, red bordered with a blue star on a white background for each serviceman. In the event the serviceman was killed, the star was then displayed as gold. Few homes did not have a displayed flag.
When he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force, we were losing the air war in Germany. We would send out a 100 plane group of bombers, and not uncommonly have a third of them shot down, with another third being so badly damaged that they were not repairable. More importantly, since there typically was a 10 man crew on a 4-engine bomber, when 30 planes out of a 100 plane group did not return, it meant that 300 men did not come back. Death and injury was also a problem with those planes that did not return.
When he went in there was a desperate need for a large number of airmen. Prior to the time he went in, pilots, navigators, and bombardiers had to have graduate degrees. To make the numbers required, standards were changed, and it was for this reason he was accepted with only a high school degree. Before acceptance it was necessary for him to pass a comprehensive battery of tests both mental and physical. Out of the group only 7 of some 50 were accepted. Incidentally, they told him he would only be accepted if he went to a dentist and had a tooth pulled, which he promptly did.
He was inducted in July 1943 at the age of 18 in Indiana, and set to Florida for Army basic training. From there he went to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for a comprehensive course in physics, meteorology, aircraft mechanics, radio theory, etc. It was a crash course that was worth one and a half years of college after the war.
From there he was sent to San Antonio, Texas for classification. He was subjected to a full week of testing. At the conclusion, he qualified as a pilot first, navigator second, and bombardier third. There were a large number who did not qualify and were sent for training as ground crew or other flight personnel. He was sent from there to Bonham, Texas, where he took primary flight instruction in a PT-19 Fairchild Trainer. This was a basic open cockpit, low wing monoplane, in which basic and aerobatics flight was learned. From there he was sent to nearby Sherman, Texas for basic flight instruction in BT-13 aircraft, a much heavier and more powerful low wing plane, in which he received more flight training in blind flight (instrument) night flight, formation cross country and more advanced aerobatics. This was the most comprehensive phase of his training and involved more careful concentration.
From Perrin Field, he was sent to Pampa, Texas. There he took his advanced flight instruction in the B-25 bomber, used in the raid on Tokyo, launched from an aircraft carrier. In this phase of training he was instructed in the operation of a multi-engine aircraft, more advanced instrument flying, night formation, long cross country, low level (flying 50 feet above the ground at 200 miles an hour can be a real thrill) and higher altitude operation on oxygen. He enjoyed this phase of training the most, because the B-25 Mitchell bomber was a powerful airplane with good manners. At the conclusion of his training there in May of 1945, he received his commission as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps, along with his coveted flying wings.
From Pampa, Texas, he was sent to Liberal, Kansas. for airplane commander training in the B-24 "liberator" 4 engine heavy bomber. This was a 4800 horsepower plane used extensively in various theaters of the war. Over 18,000 were built, more planes than the B-17 which received far more press. In this phase of his training, he was in the management of a heavy multi-engine high performance aircraft.
Although he had various "close calls" during the war, he had his most exciting experience in a B-24. they were flying with an instructor about 10,000 feet just north of Amarillo. Texas at night in a thunderstorm and extremely heavy rain, when all 4 of the engines quit running simultaneously! They quickly started on their own, but the propellor speed governor failed on the #2 engine, and the engine "ran away" (over-rev'd). To bring the speed down, the instructor mistakenly hit the feathering button for that engine, shearing the gears in the engine propellor pitch mechanism. This resulted in two blades feathering, the other going flat to the airstream, resulting in a tremendous vibration which destroyed cockpit lighting and radios, and more importantly produced so much parasitic drag that in combination with the driving rain making them unable to hold altitude. The instructor told them to get their chutes on, that although he would head them south with the hope they might break out of the storm, they would have to jump if they were unable to stabilize their altitude. A few minutes later they did break out of the weather to a beautiful star filled night. Without the driving rain, they were able to hold their altitude, however they were hopelessly lost with no radios and virtually blind in the cockpit. They continued south, eventually spotting a rotation beacon, and they landed rather precariously on the Army Air Force field.
From Liberal, Kansas, he was briefly stationed in Monroe, Louisiana, flying navigator students in Beech AT-11 airplanes then sent to Victorville, California where he again flew the B-24 on radar navigating training missions. Here it was anticipated he would continue to get flying hours and experience in flying 4 engine aircraft with eventual upgrading into the B-29 bomber being used on missions over Japan. He understood that he was two weeks from going to B-29 airplane commander school, when the atomic bombs were dropped from B-29s on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. He would end up soon after the end of the war, flying all the B-24 planes on the field that were capable, to an airplane graveyard in Kingman, Arizona. He continued on at Victorville until December of 1945 assigned to officer records, until the give opportunity to leave the service and go home. This he chose to do, processing out at March Field.