| We had no choice as to our next assignment. Most of us expected to go on to gunnery school. There were several in my barracks from New York City. They spent hours talking to their parents by phone every weekend inquiring as to the progress that local politicians were having to assure assignment to the Air Transport Command.They made no bones about it, they wanted the ATC because they didn't want to get shot at. I considered that they were cowardly. I didn't wish to be shot at either but I disapproved of political maneuvers to throw the load on their associates. We were marched over to the base theater for our graduation ceremonies. . Most certainly our spirits were 1000% higher than when we had arrived at Sioux Falls. We had started to believe that yes, we did have a vital role in the Corps. We were well into June, 1944. I saw that I was to go to gunnery school, but the town I didn't know. It was to be Yuma,Arizona. Now that is the army way, winter at Sioux Falls and summer in the desert near Yuma. We left by troop train about mid June. Again, the train carrying us did not have the same urgency as the other passenger, troop, or freight trains traveling in each direction. We spent a lot of time on sidings over the next few days. Gunnery school would last until mid to late August. Hot? Indeed it was. In spite of the soaring temperatures, gunnery school was a real fun experience. The Barracks had evaporative coolers and we slept comfortably every night. One thing that we learned was that we should give our boots, and all our clothing, a good hard shake to remove any creatures that had taken up residence therein. There were lots of beasts that sting, bite,claw,and chew all around the base.
We had classes on aircraft identification for planes from the U.S. England, Germany, and Japan. We may have even had a few Russian planes thrown in. We had lessons on how to improve our night vision. I fired a 50 caliber machine gun, just like I had done at Roberts, except this time it had a different mounting and I fired at a moving target on the ground. We fired shotguns, mounted like a machine gun on the back of a pick up truck. We shot at clay pigeons that came towards us, away from us and parallel to our travel.
WW-15-17 P.17
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