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Charles H. Tillson
TRAINING COMMAND - WWII

For every military person that actually served in combat, it is said that ten others were required in support services. I was such a person, serving as a pilot in the Army Air Corp. This is a short resume of my service from January 16, 194 1, when I enlisted in the Air Corp, until I was discharged in October of 1945.

Sworn in as a private in Harrisburg, Pa., I was sent by train to Lowery Field, Denver, Colorado, for recruit training. During this period which lasted three months, recruits were given the opportunity to select their specialty, such as aircraft mechanic, radio operator, or perhaps a cook, or one of many other disciplines. I selected radio operator and mechanic, and in March of 1941, 1 was sent to the Air Corp radio school at Scott Field, Bellville, Illinois. This was a nine month training course, which I finished in September of 1941, but there was an interesting development for me during this training course.

At this time in it's history, the Army Air Corp was having trouble recruiting volunteers for flight training, and the Air Corp was planning a major expansion as WW II was in progress in Europe. Our relations with the Allies in Europe and the concern over relations with Japan was the reason for expanding all the armed forces. At this time, one of the qualifications for flight training was a minimum of two years of college.

To speed up the Air Corp expansion, a program was announced that allowed any one enlisted in the Regular Army that could pass all the requirements for flight training except for the two years of college, could apply, and if accepted, would go through flight training as an enlisted man, and upon graduation, would be ranked as Staff Sargent Pilot. Those with the college requirement however, went through training as Cadets and upon graduation, were commissioned as Second Lieutenants. In civilian fife, I had taken flight training and had a private pilot's license. I applied for Air Corp flight training while still in radio school.

I graduated from radio school in September, 1941, and was assigned to Shepard Field, Wichita falls, Texas. At this time, Shepard Field was under construction. There were only a few barracks buildings and administration buildings. I was promoted to Private First Class, assigned to the squadron orderly room. My job was to type the daily duty rosters, arouse the K.P. each day and march them to the field kitchen. This would last until December 8', and on that day, the day after Pearl Harbor, orders assigning me to flight training came through.

The first thing I had to do was have a complete physical. I passed that and was ordered to report to pre-flight training at Kelly Field. Actually, the pre-flight was an add-on to Kelly, called then, "the Hill". It later became Lack land Air Force base and is still an active base at this time, year 2000. The class here was a mixture of cadets, and enlisted pilot candidates. There was no separation of the two, and all were treated as "cadets" in the pattern of the Officer training cadets at West Point. This lasted about two months, then we were off to primary flight training.

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Primary flight training for me was at a private flying school under contract to the Air Corp. I don't recall the name of the school. It was located outside Muskogee, Oklahoma. The training planes were open cockpit, PT- 19, manufactured by Fairchild. My instructor was an American civilian that had served with the RAF, been injured in a accident and returned home thereafter. I was surprised and happy to find that flying the PT- 19 was easy for me. I had a high rating in primary, and was sent on to basic flight training. It was gratifying because at that time, many student pilots were washed out in primary flight training, and those that made it on to basic, were almost always accomplished enough as military pilot candidates to complete full training and earn their wings.

Basic training for me was at Enid Army Air Base, Enid Oklahoma. The basic trainer was the Vultee BT- 13, also known as the "Vultee Vibrator. Basic was a challenge for me. My instructor was a 2' Lt., unhappy that he wasn't in combat, and a hero with a chest full of medals. He had a very foul mouth, and at times I thought he had been drinking. He put me in spins while on instruments under a hood. I couldn't recover from the spin just on instruments. He sarcastically would say God, I have to save your life every time we go up! (Foul language).

He put me up for a check ride to determine if I should be washed out of flight training. The Squadron Commander, a Captain, gave me the check ride. After we had landed, he complemented me on my procedures and especially on the landing. He said, I'll assign you to another instructor. He did and I finished Basic, recommended for multiple engine advanced flight training.

On to Ellington Field, Houston, Texas, for advanced flight training in twin engine aircraft. The Cessna AT- 17, also know as the "termite transport", as this aircraft had a lot of wooden frame and was fabric covered. Advance flight training was a snap for me. We had our first cross country flight training-Here in advanced I felt totally comfortable with flying and so happy that I now was thinking of making the Air Corp my life time career. I finished Advanced Training, Sept. 9', 1942, was promoted to Staff Sargent, and my girl friend pinned my wings on me at the graduation ceremony. She would become my wife nine months later. We would have a good marriage for over 43 years until her death in 1986.

After graduation, great anticipation as to where I would be assigned. Two long weeks would go by before orders came assigning me to the Navigation training school, Hondo Air Corp Base, Hondo, Texas. I was somewhat disappointed at not being sent to bomber training, but on the other hand, Hondo was only a 120 miles from Houston and with some time off after getting in 140 hours flying time in a given month, 1, with friends that had a car, could make it back to Houston. Anyone reading this will realize that a certain girl was the reason for the Houston trips.

As a pilot here at Hondo, we were flying the Beechcraft AT-7, as a classroom training navigators. The navigator instructor always rode in the copilot seat. There were five school type desks in the fuselage for the navigator students. Each new class started with a basically four hour round robin flight as the students read maps, and were being taught dead reckoning navigation. I delighted in telling friends I could locate every cactus plant in west Texas.

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As navigator training progressed, training flights would become cross country flights, then day - night trips for celestial training. These trip were generally four hours to another air base where we refueled, had dinner, then flew back to Hondo at night. New Orleans was a no no, for these day night trips. Most aircraft would have some kind of problem requiring an over night stay! It happened once to me.

Two happenings late in 1942. Hondo was assigned a few B-34 Lockheed Vega aircraft, and in November, Congress past a law, so we were told, doing away with the Staff Sargent rank. One evening we were actually discharged from the four year enlistment in the Regular Army. The next morning were sworn in as "Flight Officer". This was a warrant, not a commission, but we were to wear officers uniforms. Our insignia was a gold bar with a blue stripe. We could now go to the officers club, and were to be saluted by enlisted men. Also, we were now assigned to temporary duty in the Army of the United States, temporary meant for the convenience of the government.

With regard to the B-34, they were not, during my time in Hondo, used for the training of navigators, but I was checked out in the B-34 and made a couple of cross country flights in it. It was about half again the size of the AT-7, and had R-2800, 2000 HP twin engines. It was a tail dragger.

In March of 1943, a notice appeared on the flight room bulletin board asking for pilots to volunteer for the B-26 medium bomber. I did not know much about the airplane except it was used for bombardment of the enemy. It seemed a proper thing to do as a patriot. Also, one might win medals and be a hero. That and thinking the navigation training school flying was routine and becoming boring, I and three others on the base volunteered, we were the only ones from over 200 pilots on the base. Orders soon came assigning us to the base for B-26 training as pilots for a combat crew and combat assignment, or so we thought, at Dodge City Kansas. On reporting in at Dodge City, noting that we four had about a 1000 hours flight time, and my friend and I had been checked out in the B- 34, we were told. "Your going to be flight instructors here", and so it was.

Our training to be flight instructors was, to say the least, minimal. We were to have a approximate six weeks time to gain experience in the B-26, but in about half that time, our first class of five students per instructor arrived.

Let me digress back to our so called training. It consisted of sitting in the cockpit on the ground to familiarize yourself with the instruments and controls. Then the squadron check pilot gave us the first ride, and following him on the controls, getting the feel of the aircraft, and his explanations, was it for the first few takeoffs and landings. We performed stalls, steep turns, and in a sense came to learn the aircraft limitations. Some of the characteristics peculiar to the aircraft were that the traffic pattern for landing was flown at 2000 feet, not 1000 as with most other aircraft, the approach speed was 150 miles per hour, with engine power until the final landing flak for landing. We were not "owed to shoot touch and go landings, as a crewman, along on every training flight, had to get out of the aircraft and check the brakes for overheating. The landing speed on the usual 6500 R runway required a lot of braking.

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Our students generally were just out of advanced flight training, new wings and wife. They would after this phase of transition training for the B-26, go on to combat type training where the combat crews were put together. The bases for this were typical of McDill Field, Tampa Fla., and Barksdale Field, Shreveport, La. However, the transition phase at Dodge City was designed to give each student a minimum of 20 hours dual instruction, and a total of 60 hours in six weeks, if I remember correctly. Well, also included was night time takeoff and landings, and cross country flying, teaching how to file a flight plan, navigate by map and radio compass. I must write for posterity that the minimum dual of 20 hours for 5 students in six weeks, total of 100 hours, never did the job. Once the student was checked into the left seat, the pilot's seat, and farther into his training time, two students would take the aircraft aloft without an instructor. They could and would switch pilot and copilot time during the flight. In the year and a half I was at Dodge City, I put in just over 1000 hours in the B-26, or on the average of two hours every day I was there.

There were many training accidents. I had the first, on July 12, 1943. A bad landing on one engine and one wheel down. The student in the copilots seat was severely injured. The details of this accident are in my archival file, so I won't go through it all again here. Suffice to report that, believe it or not, there would be an accident the next seven Saturdays in a row, three of which had fatalities.

I married my Houston sweetheart on June 12, 1943. She came to Dodge City, and we went to the court house and had a judge marry us. We first lived in the small hotel downtown, then a private home for a few months, then our own apartment. Being married, I was off the base every night. Now reporting to the base every day was just like getting up and going to work at a job. There were days when I wished I didn't have to go to "work", and days when I couldn't wait to get there. And so it would be until September of 1944 when a request for a pilot with a minimum of 1000 hours in a B- 26 to report to Wright Field in Dayton. I was ask by the base commander if I wanted the assignment. (Was war time volunteering for the second time crazy?) I knew they didn't send people to combat from Wright, and being married, I no longer wanted to be a hero with a chest full of medals, so I said yes, I'll take it.

On reporting in at Wright, I was told my assignment would be to a group of ten pilots that would be at Ladd Field, Fairbanks, Alaska, assigned to fly and test many different aircraft especially instrumented and equipped for cold weather. These were aircraft that would be used to support the invasion of Japan. Several of the aircraft had special features that were new to aircraft, such as neoprene "0" ring seals, engine mounts & control cable temperature compensators, Temperatures sensors were installed in many places in the planes and a temperature recorder recorded their output.

These aircraft were to be kept outdoors, not in hangers, to determine all the problems associated with maintaining them outdoors in that environment. I was assigned as test pilot to the A-26 Douglass Invader Aircraft. We flew every day that the aircraft were in service. Because there were ten of us and the four engine aircraft required pilot and copilot, we checked each other out in those aircraft

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Assigned to our group was a B-29, B-24, B- 17, C-45, B -25, C-47, A-26, P-6 1, P-38, F-3 8, P5 1, and a Bell P-59 jet fighter. We would loose the P-61 and it's primary test pilot in a crash where the plane hit ground nose first from either a dive or a spin. The pilot was killed, but at this time he was alone in the plane. I didn't check out in the P-5 1, but I did in all the rest of the planes, but only as copilot in the B-29. The "29 early on developed trouble and had to be flown back to Seattle for work at the Boeing Plant. It's total time at Ladd that winter was only about two months out of the six months we were there. This was a great experience, and I often like to "Brag" that not many pilots flew a jet airplane in December of 1944, but I did.

The A-26 was a wonderful aircraft. We had no problems at all. The plane was equipped with two 37 mm cannon in it's nose package because the planning was that it would be an attack aircraft against shipping and ground vehicles. I flew simulating attacks firing the cannon and discovered that they would jam if fired while pulling out of a dive. This would not have been the best combat situation as then what ever was being attacked would have the attacking plane on level flight, the only position from which it could fire it's guns, and subject to more accurate anti-aircraft fire. It was the only negative I had to report about the tests. One day at minus 52 degrees F. on the ground, it was the only plane that we could start the engines on, and I flew it in a round robin just to prove that it could get off the ground under such an extreme temperature.

This winter test program was an interesting experience. The biggest part of it was, in my opinion, proving that the necessary maintenance, inspections, and flying was possible, though often difficult, in that environment. All the aircraft performed well, as did the new devices installed on them. In late March of 1945, we were ordered to leave Ladd Field and the various aircraft and assigned primary test pilot were to return to the manufacturer of the plane, there to report verbally on the whole winter test series, and there the plane could be inspected, etc., by the manufacturer's engineering staff.

I left Ladd Field with my crew chief, the A-26 did not have a copilot, and because of the instrument weather condition, we were a three plane formation, the B-25 with a navigator was the lead plane, the P-51 and the A-26 on its wings. This was a bit of a problem as the B-25 was a slow flying plane compared to the '51 & '26, so until we cleared the clouds, we had our wheels down. Once clear of the clouds, the P-51 got on my wing and we were off and ahead of the B-25. We had to land at every field coming back across Canada and then in Montana to gas up the '5 1. On our stop in Montana, I called my wife in Houston and ask her to come to California. I was to be at the Douglas plant in Long Beach for about a month. The Air Corp had a group of rooms at the Hollywood Plaza hotel and that is where we would be living for the time I was to be in California before returning to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. She arrived a day after I did.

War time. Here I was with my wife in a expensive hotel in Hollywood, my "business" was with an aircraft manufacturing Company. The company provider a limousine and driver to bring me back and forth every day from Hollywood to Long Beach. Evenings we often dined at Mike Lyman's just across the street from the hotel where the entertainment was provided spontaneously by musicians and/or actors just jumping up on the stage and doing an impromptu bit of their thing, whatever it was. Steaks were on the menu. This was a bit unusual during the war.

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Actually during the time at the Douglas plant, I only had three conferences with plant personnel. I had the opportunity to roam all through the manufacturing facilities. In retrospect, think that this experience had much to do with my decision to go to college after the war and earn an engineering degree.

When orders came to return to Wright Field, I flew back and was told on the radio when asking for landing instructions, to report in at flight operations for additional instructions. On doing so, I was cleared to take off again and go to a sub base of Wright Field, located outside the town of Wilmington, Ohio. When I landed there, I found most of the others in the test program with their aircraft were there, and we were to be based there during the summer, and next fall, we and the same aircraft were to return to Ladd Field for another winter of testing. And so it was. My wife was coming to Dayton by train, and when she arrived, we went into Wilmington and found a bed room in a private home.

Time now was on our hands. We didn't have cars, and were to report every day to Wright Field, thirty five miles away. So every day the nine of us flew in one of the aircraft to Wright, reported in and invariably were told there was nothing for us to do at Wright, and we were free to return to Wilmington. Very Boring, and now I made a decision. That was to apply for discharge form the service. The point system that had been established gave points for length of service, over seas duty, et al, and I had just enough points to qualify for discharge. The war in Europe had just ended, and various military requirements were already being looked at for reduction in size.

Because I applied for discharge, the assignment for another winter of cold weather test would require a replacement for me. In the meantime. I was given orders to report to the Flight Safety headquarters in Winston Salem, North Carolina. On reporting in there, I was assigned to start writing a flying safety program that could and would be taken to air bases and instituted as a requirement for pilots on the base. This was in June of 1945, and it would be my assignment until my discharge papers came through in October. The headquarters were in a office building in the middle of the city. No air base, no flying. I wrote a program, but never knew if it was use by the air Corp, or later, the Air Force.

My wife and I lived in the Robert E. Lee hotel in Winston Salem. It was a nice place. We had a companionship with other military also living there, and on VJ day, the celebration started. There was not a locked room in that hotel for three days. On the third day, my wife decided to go to her parents home back in Houston. There to await my release from the service. On October 12, 1 was ordered to the air base in Sioux City, Iowa where I was issued my discharge from active duty. I enlisted in the active reserve, and would serve in that for five years.

In May of 1950 1 graduated from the University of Houston with a BSME degree, and the Korean "Police Action" started. I was alerted for return to active duty, and now with nearly 10 years of service credit, an engineering degree, having been a "test pilot", I thought going back in, I would serve at least twenty years or more and have a military retirement.

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1 quit my job. I had worked full time during my college years, going mostly a night and on Saturdays the year around, hence the job. To my dismay a month went by with no orders to report for active duty. A second month, same story. Then comes the notice, your service as a twin engine pilot is not needed. My records had never been updated, and I was broke financially, had not been able to find work while on the military alert for two months. I was mad, disappointed, and so when my five year reserve enlistment expired in October of 1950, 1 had decided to make engineering my life's work. My Air Corp and my flying days were over, my wife was extremely pleased. She did not want the nomadic life of the military service

SUMMARY OF MY MILITARY SERVICE

Enlisted January 16, 1941 - Private - Serial No. 13022059

Graduated Radio School - September 26, 1941

Graduated Flight Training - September 9, 1942 Appointed Staff Sargent Pilot

Appointed Flight Officer - November '17, 1942 Serial No. T-187334

Appointed Second Lieutenant - September 22, 1943 Serial No. 0-535013

Appointed First Lieutenant - August, 1944
Discharged - October 13, 1945

Active Reserve - 14" Air Force - Ellington Field, Houston, Texas October 1945 - October 1950