About ten years ago I started a synopsis of my life and times at my kid's request; Childhood, High School, WWII, "career". The WWII took the most pages. I am enclosing copies of it. Of course, it is no doubt like thousands of other stones. Done in dribs and drabs... sort of like playing back an old tape in my head.

Being a small town kid, I was somewhat awed by the "cool" members of our group. Most of them were from Minneapolis. Some had had a couple of years in college. They even smoked and played poker. But our destination, Jefferson Barracks, MO, seemed to erase the differences.

Jefferson Barracks in February and March was miserable. On the Mississippi, just south of St. Louis, it was cold and damp. We lived in wooden huts. They must have been patterned after hot dog stands at the county fair. Three walls had double bunks; the door was on the other wall. In the center stood a a sheet metal stove about the size of a large wastebasket, plus a bucket of water. The water often had a skim of ice on it in the morning.

Everyone caught cold. We would march for what seemed like miles to the mess hail, and for what seemed like miles to where we would be drilled on close-order marching or for calisthenics. For the first few days we were in our civilian clothes; not good for that type of activities. Especially the shoes. Some guys muttered about writing to their congressman about conditions, actual or perceived, such as the rumor about the deaths from spinal meningitis.

We finally got uniforms. The long woolen overcoat and the army shoes felt good. Still at the end of the day when we were all back in our huts we had a little ceremony. Doors would open simultaneously, six heads would pop out all up and down the company street and shout in unison, "We hate this ing place!"

Until I arrived at Jefferson Barracks profanity was something I was aware of, but barely. There was a little around the lumberyard back home, but then used judiciously to make a conversation more effective--kind of like adding a bit of ketchup to a hamburger. But at JB, the drill instructors and all literally smothered their conversation with profanity. At first I was shocked, but it soon became a way of life.

I must not have gotten all the message, or read the fine print, during the recruiting process in Winona. I was not yet an aviation cadet. I was a buck private. And we would be privates until we were qualified through a pre-flight classification center. In the meantime we marched around JB with wooden rifles sawed out of 2x4's and tried to stay off sick-call.I managed. They actually let us into St. Louis one day. Had my first Chinese dinner and was awed by the size of the Fox theater.

One day, they announced "test day". I had fever and diarrhea. And the Army had two tests to give. The first was a regular Army test that would qualify a person for Officer Candidate School (OCS) should one want to try that route... that is where "90 day wonders" second lieutenants came from. The second test was the exam that qualified one for the Aviation Cadet Program. I'm glad they announced the difference and that the second test was of more importance to us than the first test. I did not complete the first test, having spent a good deal of the time in the latrine. I bore down on the second test, and my little bit of math, etc. at Winona State seemed to be of help. (I doubt if I would have qualified on the OCS test, but the Cadet test turned out okay.)

We were kept uninformed most of the time at JB. Probably because the powers in charge might have been in the dark also. So many people were being inducted into the Army that training bases were overwhelmed. But one day, near the end of March we were told to get ready to ship "out". But to where?

Our meager possessions went into barracks bags. And they formed us up for a quick physical. I held the thermometer loosely in my mouth and drew in cool air so I wouldn't register a fever. (Another physical exam practice in those years was a surprise early morning "short arm" inspection. All the guys would be rousted out before reveille--wearing nothing but shoes and a raincoat. The doc would go down the line checking for venereal disease. Very humiliating. But probably worse for the doc.) But I digress!

We got on a train and left Jefferson Barracks, not knowing or much caring where. We could see we had crossed the Mississippi; and at road crossings we could sometimes see the name of the state on the road signs: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan. We eventually pulled into East Lansing, Michigan and things got much better. Our officers and non-coms seemed to know what was in the plans. And they told us.

We would spend some time here in Michigan, at Michigan State University, until the Cadet Classification Center in San Antonio could take us. They installed us in college dormitories; we ate in the dorm cafeteria. They divided us into five groups. The first would leave in two months; second in 3 months and so on. The groups were selected according to the scoring we had done on the cadet tests taken back at Jefferson Barracks. To my total surprise I was in the top quintile! I'd leave in two months. I got a big confidence boost: the cool cats from the big towns were in lower quintiles. I really enjoyed standing up and joining my group as they sat there waiting to be called. I decided then and there, and have tried to remember it ever since, that I wouldn't be intimidated by presumed rank or position: don't be a snob, but be confident. That premise has served me well.

Michigan State was a little slice of heaven after the miserable weeks at Jefferson Barracks. The Spring weather came on. Food was good. And we were a novelty on campus, although we did not not get much of chance to mingle. We marched in formation to classes and our classes were exclusively for us. Not coed. But we were permitted out on some evenings and we met coeds. Nothing serious. Just a party or two. Elaine and I were still exchanging letters and she met a few cadets-to-be at U of Minn. but nothing serious there either.

Our classes were more of the same that I had at Winona (and would continue to have): meteorology and dead-reckoning navigation. Lots of close-order drill and calisthenics. I vividly remember running up and down stairs in the field house until ready to drop.

And we actually got a taste of flying. At the local airport we were introduced to civilian flight instructors. Mine was a very big, but quiet guy. He took me up in his Porterfield, which is a light single-engine plane much like a Piper Cub. All of us got in about eight hours of flight time, but it was policy not to let anyone solo. It was just as well, because my instructor seemed to ride the controls and wouldn't let me get the feel of the airplane... he was a new instructor and I was a grass-green student so I can understand his concern. My last flight there was with an experienced instructor to evaluate progress. That's when I realized my regular instructor had been riding the controls and that it took more effort on my part to take off and fly the aircraft. A couple of years later when I left active duty and was given my flight records, I saw a notation that check pilot made: "Good pilot material." But, at the time I certainly did not feel like a hot pilot. I sort of enjoyed flying but wasn't head over heels in love with it as some guys were. Rather, I saw myself as becoming a navigator or a bombardier. But the army had different plans.

After a pleasant April and May on campus at East Lansing my bunch of army privates (not yet cadets) took a rattley old train to the Cadet Classification Center at San Antonio. And new and tougher existence began. There were lots of tests: Psycho-motor, written, physical, even interviews with some sort of "shrink",. During one of those interviews we could hear an airplane go over the building. The interviewer asked, "What type of plane is that?" At that time I hardly knew one type of plane from another, but I had seen some in the area that had been pointed out as B-24s. "Sure sounds like a B-24 to me", I answered. He looked out the window and said, "You got it."

We had to kill some time in the Classification Center because the training schools to come next were all filled up. So we were allowed into San Antonio a couple of times. The Gunter Hotel had a party room for us youngsters ( I was 18, nobody over 26. Anyone over 23 was called "Pop". )The Gunter Hotel obviously had a great deal of experience with the soldiers from all around San Antonio. The room they allowed us to party in was bare, with heavy wood furniture bolted to the floor. That wasn't very appealing so most of us non-drinking sprouts checked out the Alamo and the beginnings of the River Walk, which had its inception with WPA just before the war began.

A friend, Norris Echternacht, and I decided to experiment with booze. We bought a pint (or was it only pint?) of Old Crow bourbon. We made it back to the bus and to our barracks. But we both felt as though we would spin right off our bunks, so we slept on the floor. Dean Martin once said, "You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." But I held on. That cured me of drinking--- at least until I got through flight training.

Hazing of underclass cadets was still in practice in early 1943. Right across a street from us, with a high wire fence between, was a pre-flight training center that took raw cadets. Still not yet cadets, we could stand there and watch the newest of the cadets get hazed... nothing really physical, but the upper classmen there gave them a really hard time. The "hazees" would look over at us and yell, "You'll be over here next, and WE will be the upper class, so be careful!" Fortunately, the Army Air Force chose to abolish hazing that very month. The Floren luck had kicked in again.

We were allowed to state our preference for cadet training: to become pilot, navigator or bombardier. I checked them off in reverse order because I felt my best chance of making it all the way through was as bombardier. An interviewer called me in and I explained my choices. He said, "Well, in your battery of tests you scored best as navigator, then bombardier then pilot. But we need pilots. Those who wash out of pilot school usually go into navigator or bombardier school anyway; your tests show that you've about an 84% chance of completing pilot training and you could start with the next class. If you really want bombardiering you'll have to wait around here for several weeks."

I didn't want to wait around, and the odds looked good. So I opted for pilot training. All through my life since then, I have occasionally met guys who have said that they would have given anything to have gotten into pilot training, but couldn't for some reason or other. And I was talked into it! But I'm glad it happened. (Down deep, I'm kind of proud of it.)

Now it was on to pre-flight training as a cadet (and the pay finally went up to $75/month). Summertime had come to San Antonio and the physical training was tough--cross country runs, steeple chases and calisthenics. We wore short pants and I swore my legs got burned on super hot stones as we lay on the ground doing exercises. And we did a lot of close-order drill, mostly to fill in time... we were going to fly, not walk. Already we were calling ground troops "gravel agitators" or "ground pounders".

Ready for flight training in August 1944, I and a few dozen others found ourselves at Primary Flight School in Cuero, Texas. It was a civilian school and field leased by the army (Brayton Flight Service). The instructors were civilians, but the army was in charge in key positions. One instructor had four or five cadets to train and they worked long days. My instructor was easy-going, his name was Grier. On our first flight he demonstrated a spin and how to recover from it. Then he put the plane in a spin again and told me to recover. I sat there frozen and he said, "Dammit, do something, even if it's wrong!" In some situations that is good advice, but I soon learned with those primary trainers that if one did nothing, the airplane generally would come out of awkward attitudes all by itself.

The planes at Cuero were PT-19s...single low wing, a front and rear open cockpit, 175 hp in-line engine. The instructor usually sat in the rear cockpit; a rear view mirror let the student see the instructor give hand signals. The inter-corn was one way: a speaking tube fitted to ear flaps in the students helmet.

We students called Mr. Grier "The Weasel". He had a little 'mustach, was short, and in the rear view mirror just his head showed in the rear cockpit. He gave the appearance of a weasel peeking out of a hole. Early on we would just go out to auxiliary fields (pastures) and practice landings and takeoffs. After about eight hours total of that, The Weasel climbed out of the back seat and said, "Take it around by yourself." IT WAS SOLO TIME! So I took off, stayed in the traffic pattern, flew through a half dozen raindrops, came in and landed uneventfully. Told my friends I had soloed on instruments! The Weasel's wife had just had a baby and he was short on sleep. At times he would sort of doze there in the back cockpit as we shot landings or flew figure-eights across a road (to learn handling wind drift).

Two events at Primary Training taught me the value of training:
1.Quite often the instructor would pull the throttle back, stopping the engine and shout, "Forced landing!" The student would pick out a possible place to set it down and start gliding into position. While doing that he should switch the gas line valve over to the second gas tank and pump a little wobble pump. We never really landed; the instructor would start the engine again before touchdown and merely critique on whether you would have crashed or made an acceptable approach. Well, I would get so interested in wind direction and field selection that I would forget about the gas valves and the wobble pump. Result: a good chewing out. Well, the next day after a chewing, I was practicing maneuvers solo when the engine quit. I started looking for a landing spot and was sweating out a forced landing when at the last minute the engine started up. Then I realized I had actually switched gas tanks and pumped the pump. The gage on the left tank had stuck at 3/4 but the tank was empty. Fortunately, I had been trained (read "chewed") to avoid calamity.

2. I also learned to not try a maneuver I hadn't been taught. One day, solo, I thought a loop would be interesting although The Weasel had never really worked on it. So I dove a bit to gain airspeed and then pulled the nose up. But not enough to keep the plane going around over the top of the loop. I just hung in the air with the nose straight up and then started sliding backwards toward the ground. The controls just flopped around uselessly. After a few seconds (seemed like hours) the little Fairchild plane recovered from the "hammerhead stall" all by itself ...the nose whipped down violently into a dive, gained flying speed and all was well.

OK, I got by Primary without washing out. Had to pass a check flight with an army check pilot. We called that riding in the Maytag Messerschmit. I forgot to lower the flaps while coming in for the landing. He asked why I didn't use the flaps, which was the usual thing to do. I said I wanted to come in faster and get to the end of the long runway sooner. He bought it. But eventually "washing out" loomed larger in the back of my mind.

The next training phase was Basic at Waco, TX. The planes were considerably larger and more powerful, made by a company called Vultee. We called them, quite accurately, "vultee Vibrators". In Primary training we had done some spins, snap rolls, barrel rolls, slow rolls, chandelles, etc. I enjoyed some of them, but not all aerobatics. My Basic instructor was Army and not as benign as The Weasel. The "washout factor" loomed even larger in my head.

About halfway through Basic the bulletin board had a noti that invited interested cadets to sign up for an experimental class in multi-engine craft immediately without completing the regular Basic stuff. I saw this as an opportunity to escape an instructor who I thought wanted to wash me out, and to avoid aerobatics that made me half sick. So I volunteered for the experimental class... knowing I'd now never be a hot fighter pilot, but multi-engine seemed to present more of a future both for longevity and possible career.

About 50 of us got word that we would immediately go to multiengined training.

FYI: Normal flight training had PRIMARY (9wks) BASIC (9wks) ADVANCED (9wks) Primary and basic were single-engine and advanced was either single or multi-engine. Cadets got commissions and wings after Advanced, then went on to "transitional" training in combat aircraft.

Our little class was an exercise in seeing if nine weeks could be cut from the program, because the war was at its peak and replacement pilots were badly needed in some areas. And more planes were being manufactured monthly.

It meant that the normal BASIC and ADVANCED schools would be telescoped into nine weeks and our real "advanced" before graduation would be in twin-engine bomber transitional school that in the past took only men who had graduated with their bars and wings. Gulp.

But we felt cocky about it as we flew our last half of basic in Temple, TX. We were now in "advanced" twin-engine trainers called AT-17s. We called them Bamboo Bombers as they were made of wood and fabric. Very light, easy to fly once one caught on to handling two engines. Most of the training was two cadets flying together, trading off as first pilot and co-pilot. The AT-17 was very slow; it could cut back to about 50 mph a before stalling. So if it was being landed into a stiff breeze you almost had to fly it down onto the ground and hold it there. (Things would change dramatically at our next training stint!)

The B-26 Martin Marauder.

We cadets who would go on to our true "advanced" in a "transitional" school felt sure the airplane would be the the famed B-25 (the type Jimmy Doolittle had used in his mostly symbolic but morale-building raid on Tokyo.)

Imagine our surprise and second thoughts when we bused into Laughlin Field, Del Rio, TX and saw B-26s parked on the flight line! That's because the Martin Marauder B-26 had a really rotten reputation. Throughout the Army Air Force it was known as the "Widow Maker" due to its early poor record. It had been hurriedly designed and rushed into production because of the need for a faster medium bomber that could carry more load than existing craft. The Martin company was in Baltimore and the plane was also called the "Baltimore Whore" (because it had no visible means of support). That's because the wings were short for its size and weight. But wingspan had now been increased by six feet, helping immensely.


The low-powered Bamboo Bombers we had just left seemed like kites. The B-26 had two 2,000 hp engines! It took a big four-bladed propeller on each to soak up all that power. And they had a nose wheel, not a tail wheel that dragged along on all the trainers. This new tricycle gear was great even standing still on the flight line the craft looked fast... and big... and formidable.., thrilling, too.

The Marauder was fast for its day. We flew the final approach on landing at 150 mph air speed. And once committed to landing, it sat down and stayed down because of its heavy wing loading. Its cruising speed was 200-220 mph. It was red-lined on the airspeed indicator at 400 mph (achieved only in a dive). It could haul a 4,000 lb. bomb load. Without auxiliary gas tanks its range was about 1,000 miles depending on air speed and wind conditions. You didn't want to stall it close to the ground because it took a good 1,000 feet to regain control. An unloaded B-26 could fly o.k. on one engine.

So as the first cadets to train in these awesome machines, we were quite a novelty at Laughlin Field, Del Rio. And our instructors approached their task with some trepidation.

My instructor's hands broke out in rash and he chewed on me quite a bit. But things went ok. Our class, being short on previous training, paid attention and flew the plane as we were taught.. with respect.

One of the highlights was a cross-country exercise. From Del Rio to Alameda (across the bay from San Francisco). Going and coming we stopped in Phoenix for fuel. There were two cadets, a flight engineer, and our instructor. We stayed in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel and hit a couple of nice spots including the Top Of The Mark. Big stuff for a kid from Kerkhoven. The instructor was off seeing relatives or girl friends so we felt free. (Right now I can't remember the guy's name.)

I do remember the name of Capt. Spangler. He was the check pilot and he could end your career real fast if he wanted to. When my time came for a check flight with him everything progressed all right until the instrument phase. The student flew "under the hood". He wore red goggles and green cellophane covered the windows and windshield. That made the outdoors black and the instrument panel reddish. Without goggles the instructor could see out through the green cellophane.

I had my trouble on the radio range. Had to find one of four radio beams, get headed in the right direction and fly the beam to a cone of silence. It's a little more complicated than I care to go into here, but deciding just where you are in the whole radio range field can be confusing. And I botched it big time.

Spangler sort of knew me. He played basketball on the instructors' team. I played against him on the cadets' team. So after we landed from the radio range fiasco, he said, "Those radio beams were shifting around today. Very unreliable. I think you can do better. Let's try tomorrow." The next day things went better. When we landed my regular instructor was waiting for us and he asked me if I passed. I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "I'll be dipped in shit!"

And so our class (designated 44-C for 19944 March) got our wings and gold bars of second lieutenants. We had already purchased our officer uniforms, no more free government issue. This was the years of "hep cats" and "zoot suiters". One of the guys had a uniform cut with padded shoulders and pegged pants but the Army straightened him out in a hurry.

After our graduation ceremony in the Post Theater. We went back to our quarters. Nothing had changed, the stools in the latrine were lined up side by side. And so my friend John Donnelly and I were sitting there side by side. He said, "Cal, I just can't understand it!" I asked what was bothering him. "Well", he says, "I've been a second lieutenant for half an hour and my crap still stinks." I agreed. (We WERE side-by-side you know.)

The next phase of training would be "operational", getting ready for combat. To acquire a crew, practice gunnery, bombing, etc. This would be at Barksdale Field, Shreveport,LA.

BUT FIRST I HAD A LEAVE COMING!

With 30 days free before reporting to Barksdale, I headed back to Minnesota as fast as I could. With no priority for the scarce commercial air travel, I went by train. And it seemed to take forever (I had been away for over a year.) I saw Elaine in both Minneapolis and Kerkhoven, my parents and sisters and two or three former schoolmates who happened to be home on leave also. It was a great time. Elaine and I agreed that we had seen enough of the outside world to realize that we wanted to be married some day. We would make it formal when I could save up enough money for an engagement ring. (Being a 2nd Lt. on flight pay was the best paying job I'd ever had...over 200 bucks a month!) She wouldn't have to wait long.

The days whipped by, and then I was off to Barksdale Field, Shreveport, LA.

Barksdale was a busy, crowded place. It was where aircrews were formed and quickly trained in basic combat operations; then sent overseas as replacements for casualties or for people who had served a "tour of duty" and were returned to the States. (Original combat units were formed into Squadrons in a Group and then sent overseas as a unit. But they had enough units as such and now they needed replacements quickly.)

I was assigned a crew. Co-pilot Tom Fox from Long Island. Bombardier/navigator Jim Cain from West Virginia. Both were second lieutenants. Corporals, soon to be sergeants, were radioman/gunner Loren Martin from St. Louis; flight engineer/ gunner Jim Hendrix from Alabama and Dee Madsen armorer/gunner from Utah. Dee was the only married man on the crew and a good solid devout Mormon. The others weren't so devout.

We did not get into our training quickly because most of the aircraft were old "war wearies" which had a lot of down time for repairs. So we killed time. Among other things, I was assigned to "swimming pool detail"...every afternoon go laze around the pool at the officers' club and make sure things were in order and clean. Didn't do much flying for the first weeks. We did get some practice in on crude flight simulators (Link) and bombing simulators.

In the air we worked on coordinating the pilot and bombardier dropping dummy bombs, formation flying and some navigation trips for the navigator. (One night Cain positioned us over Oklahoma City rather than Wichita Falls, then led us into a restricted zone near a Memphis defense installation and a few warning tracer shells were lobbed in our direction.) We also did an enjoyable tree-top level run and back to Hot Springs, AR where we buzzed some semi-nude sunbathers off a hotel roof.

The pilot controlled four 50 Cal. machine guns mounted on the fuselage and firing forward. The only way they could be aimed was to aim the entire airplane. I practiced that once or twice on ground targets.. .and also lay smoke screen (or chemicals!) from a tank mounted in the bomb bay. We never did the latter in combat. And only once did we have a low-level mission calling for me to use the four machine guns.

The planes had seven other fifty caliber machine guns. One was in the plexiglass nose for the bombardier; one on each side hatch for the radio/gunner; a double in the top turret for the engineer/gunner and a double in the tail for the armorer/gunner. All those guns were aimed by each gunner and we gave them a couple of gunnery missions over the Gulf of Mexico firing at a target towed (on a very long cable) by another airplane. They also had one practice with cameras mounted on their guns simulating firing at an old P-40 fighter plane "attacking" us. We had to slow down so the P-40 could catch us.

It was interesting, but of borderline adequacy. One sad note was the loss of a friend, Gowey, and his crew who disappeared on a gunnery exercise over the Gulf. We surmised he may have tried a wave-top run for fun and misjudged his altitude... an easy thing to do because the sea surface does not provide good points of reference.

We were at Barksdale at the time of D-day in Europe June 1944. That was one of the few times I attended church while on active duty. Happy and awed by the invasion's success, some of us young and dumb jocks actually worried the the fighting in Europe might be over before we could exercise our newly acquired "skills". We surely were not interested in the Pacific theater of operations as our short range aircraft didn't fit that great expanse.

In August we were evidently found "adequate" and assigned to Europe. There were no airplanes for us to deliver, so we were herded on to lowly ground transportation (a rickety train) and chugged off to Hunter Field, Savannah, GA. There we would await more specific assignment.

We had hoped there would be some brand new B-26s to ferry from Hunter Field to Europe. (It would have involved flying down the Caribbean islands to Brazil, then across the narrow part of the Atlantic to Africa and thence up to Europe.) It's just as well that there were no planes to ferry because my trip to Europe had its own highlights. But first I got back to Minnesota for about two days.

Hunter Field authorities were authorized to give us a three day pass. They then hooked it onto a free weekend. So I booked a ticket on Delta Airlines to Minneapolis. Got as far as Cincinnati and got "bumped" by someone with a high travel priority. Spent the night in a hotel and was able to catch a flight the next morning. The planes were the old super slow DC-3, and bouncing around in the back I almost got airsick... unthinkable for a second looie wearing silver wings! But I made it to Minneapolis. Spent a day with Elaine who had received her diamond engagement ring via parcel post a month earlier. Greyhound got me to Kerkhoven for a surprise visit that lasted only a day. It was a sad goodbye when Mom and Dad put me on the bus back to Minneapolis and the airport.

I have always felt somewhat guilty about not showing enough emotion to my Mom and Dad, but I guess that's the way they reared me. While not expressed often enough, my love and respect for them was deeper than I even knew at the time. I am quite sure they felt it...certainly hope and pray they did.

Elaine met me at the bus depot and went with me to the airport. Another sad goodbye. We pledged to write often. And we did.

Back at Hunter Field we were soon entrained for New York. Going through Washington, DC it was a thrill to view the Washington Monument and Capitol dome from the train window. Later the New York skyline.

We stayed three or four days in NYC. (Actually Ft. Hamilton in Brooklyn.) One night we got to Manhattan and saw "Life With Father", a long-running Broadway hit. The new smash "Oklahoma" was also there but sold out.

The next night tested my naivete. My buddies went bar-hopping. But I wanted to see the town, and besides, I was broke. So I strolled through Central Park. And there a conversation was struck up with a nice civilian who offered me a drink and a nice view from his apartment in a high rise residence hotel adjoining the park. So OK. As we walked into the tiny lobby and got into the elevator, I noticed the desk clerk give me a funny look. And an instant before the elevator doors closed the thought came to me: "Is this one of those 'queers' some of the guys mentioned once in a while?" I didn't wait to find out. With an "Oops, gotta go!" I was out the door, to the subway and back to the barracks. Was he or wasn't he? I knew I wasn't.

One other incident at Ft. Hamilton has stuck with me. One morning I went into the latrine area to shave, etc. There were about a dozen lavatories in a row. At the far end, nearest the wall, a Negro was shaving. I said "Hi" and took a bowl, shaved and left wondering where everyone else was, as the place was usually crowded. But I was soon asked by my "friends" from Alabama and Louisiana why I went in there with a "nigger". The military was segregated in 1944 and I don't know who the Black was or why he happened to be there. But racial discord was never an issue back in Minnesota. There were Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Irish...and once in a while we would see or hear of Dagos or Niggers. Just two more ethnic names to my family, but not derogatory... maybe curiosities, but never hated.

I knew we would sail to Europe. But never dreamed it would be on the famous Queen Mary. We trucked up the pier and were conducted into this building" We knew it wasn't really a building but that was the size of the ship. About 15,000 troops got on board. So did Winston Churchill, who had been meeting with Pres. Roosevelt. I never saw Winnie, but evidence of his presence was there. Such as the warship escorts we had all the way to Scotland. (Usually the Queen Mary crossed the Atlantic solo, because of her speed. By moving fast and making small course changes, German U-boats could not get a bead on her. But Churchill rated extra care. We didn't mind.)

The Queen was crowded. Bunks were hung four high in staterooms and even set up in the swimming pool. As officers we did get to eat in the dining room. But of course it was crowded and with no menu choice, one got what they had but was better than going through a chow line. As an officer, I was assigned the task of getting some GI's up in the morning and having them tidy up their area. They were happy to be on the Queen Mary too and were no problem.

It took only about four days to get to the Firth of Clyde at Glasgow, Scotland. One of those days was my twentieth birthday. At busy Glasgow port we disembarked on" rather than pull up to a pier. Thence on to a train and down to Stone, England.

Our barracks at Stone had bunks with boards for springs. The mattress consisted of three cushions filled with matted down straw.. Every time I shifted the cushions parted and part of me was down on the wood. But here we had our first chance to visit a British "pub", try their bitter, dark, warm beer (horrible) and meet some Brit girls (odd).

Before long we entrained for Portsmouth to catch a ship to France. It was a Liberty ship (of which the Kaiser shipyards in the USA turned out by dozens). And the English Channel crossing was ROUGH ...much more so than the open Atlantic had been. It was to be a quick crossing so there were no facilities except for the crew. The restroom was a plank parallel to and overhanging the rail. Food was canned "C-ration" hash which we would heat by hanging the can in a tub of hot water on deck. The water would get greasy and the lip of the can would be gooey with grease when it was opened. That was sickening enough, but almost everyone was seasick also. The rail got crowded. I spent some time up on the bow seeking solitude. The waves we were heading into looked forty feet high. We would plow into one, rear back, then over the top and plunge down with a sickening crash. At times the propeller would come clear of the water and wind up with a horrible noise. I don't recall losing my lunch, but that's because I didn't eat any.

The guys I felt for on that ship were some infantry men who had been wounded in France that summer. They had been sent back to England to recover. Recovery was too good and they were being routed back to combat instead of to the States.

Weather improved off the coast of Normandy. We pulled into a makeshift harbor. Old ships had been scuttled to form a breakwater. We clambered down rope nets into small tenders to get ashore. There was still D-Day wreckage around the area and minefield warnings (D-Day had been four months earlier.) It was hard work climbing the bluffs and carrying a small musette bag. I thanked God I had picked the Air Force and not infantry... especially the assault force that had made the landing against fierce Nazi opposition.

Supplies were being unloaded there on the beach. Going out were some German prisoners being marched down the bluffs.

Up on flat ground, near the village of Ste. Mere Eglise, we were directed to a grass air strip. No buildings. Just a sign that said "9th Air Wing report here. Wait for transportation." There were only a dozen or so of us so we got permission to sleep in a nearby barn for a couple of nights. Once or twice an army food truck came by and we got bread and Spam. We had little French language booklets and tried to "Parlez Francais". Navigator Jim Cain had taken some French in school, which proved worthless. In a shop we looked in our booklet and asked for some "fromage". The shop lady said, "How much cheese do you want, fellas?"

And so we survived for a brief time until a C-47 (known to civilians as a DC-3 long-time transportation workhorse) came bouncing in, picked us up and headed to our home-to-be.

It was known to us as A-72, an airfield northeast of Paris, near the city of St. Quentin. And getting close to Belgium and Luxembourg. Now the base for the 397th Bombardment Group, belonging to the Ninth Air Force.

A-72, FRANCE Oct. 1944 to VE-DAY

The field's runways were just barely long enough to handle B-26s. It had been built by the French to back up their ill-starred Maginot defense line. The Brits had used it for a while before the fall of France in 1940. And the Germans used it four years until the Americans ousted them.

The 397th Group had trained as a unit in Tampa, Florida. Then went to England and operated out of there until soon after the Normandy invasion. Soon after that it moved to western France. As the fighting front moved east, so did the 397th. I joined it as it was settling into A-72...October 1944.

The officers' barracks were filled up. So, being new, Cain, Fox and I were billeted in a tent next to the barracks. A couple of other guys were in there also. (It was a big tent.) There was a wooden floor (the space under the floor proved to be a haven for pack rats, as we found when moved in April!)

But the tent was double thickness and with low sidewalls, and a low door with glass for some light. Boards lined the sidewalls. -We used cots and sleeping bags ...aired 'em out once in a while. In the center of the tent was a small, round sheet-iron stove. Coal was available, so the place stayed warm. We heated water on it and occasionally fried eggs in GI oleo which just gooed up like cheap cheese. For quick wash ups an up-side-down steel helmet served as a basin. A flat spot was pounded on the top of the helmet to make it stand.

There was a latrine building with showers. But warm water was only a sometime thing. A winter trip to it was postponed as long as possible.
The 397th Bombardment Group consisted of four squadrons: 596, 597, 598 and 599. My crew was assigned to the 598th.

Wisely, the brass checked us out before assigning any combat flying. (By today's standards we were woefully lacking in training ....and especially those of us who had gone through the accelerated cadet experiment. Also, most of the co-pilots had been in the B-26 only the operation phase of training at Barksdale.) So we got a couple of check flights including some formation flying. "Wow! We never flew such tight formations in the States," I said. "You will here or you won't fly," I was told. So I did.

There were three reasons for flying a tight formation (at times wings would overlap). 1. We bombed in a flight of six planes; when the lead ship released its bombs, the other five released instantly. The tighter the formation, the tighter the bomb pattern and the more likely the target would be plastered with hits. This, of course, depended upon the accuracy of the lead bombardier. (The Norden bombsight was touted as super precise back in the States propaganda. But we discovered it was not infallible.) 2. A tight formation bunched up our defensive machine guns. German fighter planes took some losses earlier in the war, but when I got there they pretty much left us alone and went after the heavy bombers. 3. The third reason for a tight formation was pride, and fear of getting chewed out. While not the first reason from the army's point of view, it was from the view of us "GI pilots".

We were Tactical medium bombers, as opposed to Strategic heavy bombers such as the B-17 and B-24. The Strategic 8th Air Force remained based in England and did long range missions going after German industry. Tactical mission was to give more direct support to ground forces. Our targets were bridges, rail junctions, defended positions, supply depots, etc.

New pilots were not sent out with their assigned crews immediately. Instead the crews were broken up temporarily and inserted into seasoned crews. So I drew co-pilot duty.

By now we were into November and the weather not good. When it finally improved, I got my first and second missions on the same day. I think the target was a bridge about two hours away--must have not gotten it all in the morning, so they sent us back in the afternoon. Our lunch was at a Red Cross donut wagon on the flight line.

That day I was co-pilot for a pilot who was stressed out quite far. The first time I saw black puffs of flak from the German "88's" they looked non-threatening. They weren't hitting us. Glancing at my pilot, he was ghostly white, sweating and snuggled as deep as possible in his flak helmet and jacket.

The scariest part came at the end of that second mission when we were in the landing pattern. He thought he got a signal from the lead ship to slip under and up into echelon. But he hadn't. I thought he was just a bit sloppy in formation and was going to pull up into proper position. But he didn't. Instead he kept moving under the lead ship and almost into the number four ship which was directly behind and under the lead. When he realized the boo-boo he hollered at me, "You got it!" I tried to pull back up. Guys in the number four claimed our tail gun ticked their nose gun. The formation scattered and slowly came in, one at a time. That pilot was sent home the next day. Maybe he'd finished his tour of 65 missions or got a medical reason. Anyway that was my first close call.

The German counter offensive known as the Battle Of The Bulge had now started. Our field was situated not far straight west of the "bulge" the Germans had created in American lines. There were some plans to evacuate and pull us back. But mostly we just kept our 45 automatics close and waited it out. The weather was terrible... snow and cold ...bad visibility. So our group did not mount many missions as December advanced.

I was not assigned to fly on Dec. 23. To enemy action and weather, our group lost about 16 aircraft. The German armored divisions concentrated in the "bulge" near Bastogne, Belgium were very accurate with their 88mm cannons against air or ground targets. The 88s were high velocity and considered the best artillery of WWII and they could throw flak up in a hurry. Because they were on mobile Panzer units they could be almost anywhere and were hard to avoid, unlike fixed ground defenses. (An aside: one of our drinking songs was "Those 88s are breaking up that old gang of mine." Sung to the tune of "Wedding Bells are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine.")

My fifth mission was Christmas Day. I was still co-pilot, flying with an ex-co-pilot (George) who was being upgraded to first pilot rating. We experienced some flak. Because of bad weather we were turned away from our home field on the way back and sent to another. As we touched down on the runway a horrible racket went up. Our right main tire was flat and we touched down at just under 150 mph. Luckily the landing gear strut held up as we went bumping off the runway. And later we could see the flak hole in the nacelle where the tire had been retracted.. The airframe was sprung and I don't know if the plane ever got back into service.

The next excitement came on the sixth and next mission Jan.13, 1945. George and I were still together. We had completed our bombing run and were just crossing back into friendly territory when the 88s nailed our right engine which was just off my right shoulder. Parts came off. The propeller would not "feather"; our airspeed made it "windmill" and vibrate and create drag. With that disability we could not maintain air speed or altitude on our one good engine and there were no landing spots in sight. When we got down to about 2,000 feet we told the crew to prepare to bail out. (The tail gunner who could see all the debris streaming back didn't wait for for the final word. He jumped.) At about 1500 feet we told everybody to go out through the bomb bay which fortunately opened okay. Protocol indicated that, as co-pilot I would be next to last to jump. So I left my seat with George coming a couple of seconds behind me. At the bomb bay our crew's engineer was standing hesitating and we were down to about 1,000 feet. I hollered at him to follow me and stepped out. He followed.

The only parachute training we had was being told to be sure it was strapped on tight. And to count to three, then pull the ripcord. I always kept the straps tight, but we were so low that I wasn't about to count slowly to three. As soon as I saw I was clear of the plane I jerked the ripcord. And what a lovely jolt it was when the chute opened. I received a cut lip either from slashing it with my lusty flip of the ripcord pin or from my chin snapping against the harness when the chute opened.

There I was, floating above a canal and on the other side of it a rail yard. I timidly jiggled the shroud lines trying to miss the canal and the tracks. But it was only a few seconds before the bank of the canal came up to meet me. I bounced off it and out into the water. And the chute floated down nearby. I was able to pull in some slack on the shroud lines and paddle to shore. Just then a GI in a jeep came bouncing up and pulled me out. He even pulled the chute out. He took me over a bridge and to a warming shack in the rail yard.

This was now American territory. It was a resting area for airborne troops who had seen heavy fighting in the "bulge". They interrogated me, put me in a hotel room in Rheims and called my home field. A truck was sent for us the next day. One of our crew had a broken arm. The early jumper was missing; He had hidden out for a couple of days because he thought he was in enemy territory. But he got back, too.

A point of family interest here is that I retained the parachute. Packed it up with a note saying, "this chute is no longer of use to the U.S.Army" and shipped it back to Kerkhoven. Elaine's mother used the white nylon to make a fantastic wedding dress. Pretty damn romantic, eh?

Only had one more mission in January because of the rotten weather. But got nine in in February. And on February 22nd I was put back into the left (first pilot's) seat. And that was a very memorable mission.

We were briefed for a low level attack of a rail yard. (It had been months since B-26s had gone in low level. And when they had it had been a total disaster, losing almost all aircraft. That's when they switched the Marauders to medium altitude bombing.) I read somewhere that some persons get sleepy when they feel they are in danger. I got sleepy as hell. Afterward the crew commented on how calm I seemed... but I was stifling yawns-and churning inside.

My co-pilot was a rated first pilot just over from the States and he had a lot of flight time and savvy. Good. First we bombed a bridge from normal (12,000 ft.) altitude. Then we peeled off for the low level attack. I was tail-end Charlie, last to the target, and wasn't interested in getting too far behind the rest. We held the plane in a shallow dive getting to about 400mph where the airspeed indicator was red-lined for safety. Normally we didn't fly over 220. The air slipstream over the control surfaces was so strong that the controls felt as though they were frozen.

As we came down on the rail yard, our gunners fired at freight trains to our right. Dead ahead of me and my four fixed 50 cal. guns was a station building. It was of masonry construction and shooting into a wall wouldn't hurt the Third Reich very much. So I concentrated on shooting through a window, hoping to damage equipment inside. As I leaned on the control yoke to get the nose down and the guns on target, my co-pilot was pulling back on his "stick" because he thought we were getting too low. Anyway, about five tracers slapped through the window (and for every tracer there was five unseen rounds). We didn't draw any fire that I could see, although ricocheting tracers from the planes ahead of me fooled me at first approaching. I didn't worry about hitting people because they would all be tucked in a cellar by now.

We later learned that this type of mission was going on all over Germany that day as a show of muscle and for reassurance to Allied P.O.W.s who might be in prison camps nearby. I'm sure we made one heck of racket as we came over at chimney height.

Well, our flight formed up ok and headed home only to find that our field was closed due to weather. So we flew to a strip near Rheims that was fast closing in, too. Our first planes got in all right being the last one, wasn't so lucky. It was now dark and the ceiling was only about 200 feet. All we could see was a glow in the clouds where the field was; no runway definition. We attempted landing several times. Each time we would break through to see the runway, we were either too far down it to land or not lined up. So we would pull up into the clouds, on instruments, and try again. I was getting vertigo and thought of having the crew bail out over the field. But the co-pilot radioed one of our planes that had just landed... there being no other radio service on the field. He asked if the plane on the ground could see any high hills or obstructions nearby. The answer was, "I don't think so."

So the next time we broke through over the runway, we just stayed down to keep it in sight, circled and landed. That was scarier than getting shot at. When we flew out the next day we did notice some hills out a ways from the field. We had stayed inside of them. Incidentally, one of the de-briefing officers that night was pointed out as being Robert Preston, movie star, later to gain fame as "The Music Man". I was pooped and couldn't care less. We spent the night in a cold unused barracks with a faulty heater and awoke in the morning covered with soot.

From now on we were running missions almost every day. I got 23 during the last week of Feb. and all of March. And I had my original crew back, except for Jim Cain, the navigator bombardier. He rode as back-up nav-bomb on the lead ship in the flight. And just being a wingman, all I needed was a "toggleer" gunner who opened the bomb bay doors and flipped a toggle switch to release bombs when the lead ship released its.

It was an awesome sight, when we were in position to see it, to view six, twelve or even eighteen planes in formation drop bombs all at once. Usually each plane carried eight 500 lb. bombs... in some cases 16 250 pounders.

I almost never saw the target before or after bombing. All my effort went into staying glued on the lead ship's wing, Or just under it's tail if I was deputy flight leader. If the lead was taking evasive action all attention had to go into holding formation.

Evasive action was taken by the lead ship if briefing had revealed there were gun batteries in the area..or after we received some surprise flak. You knew the evasion worked if, two or three seconds after making a turn, puffs of flak smoke would appear right where you would have been had you not turned.

Evasive action was a guessing game between the lead navigator and the gunners on the ground. It took a few seconds for the ground guns to track the planes, set the fuse for the right altitude and fire. And a couple of seconds for the projectile to reach altitude. If we would turn just as the gun fired, it would miss. Some navigators said they would wait for muzzle flashes, then call a turn. Of course, if there was a whole battery of 88s they could throw up a barrage all around you and you just had to fly through it. I'd do the flying then to stay busy. My co-pilot Tom Fox would sit there and smoke cigarette after cigarette. Once he nervously put the lighted end of one in his mouth and hollered, "My God! I'm hit!"

We couldn't take evasive action once we got to the IP (Initial point) where the bomb run commenced. Then the bombardier took over, his bomb sight sent signals to the pilot via a Pilot Directional Indicator on the control panel. The pilot just tried to keep the needle centered as the bomb sight was zeroing in on the target. Corrections were very slight with a good bombardier. That meant we were flying straight and level for a couple of minutes before "bombs away". That's when we were sitting ducks for good flak crews. And that's why it was a good feeling when the plane leaped as a two-ton load dropped out. And that's also why I never saw bombs hit the target, for by the time they reached the ground we were in a turn and on our way out of there. (Our fixed cameras focused on the ground usually got pictures of the horizon or clouds out to the side.)

As the war drew to a close many of the missions were "milk runs". Little or no enemy action. The easiest ones were when we bombed through the clouds. We would be led by a special "Pathfinder" plane carrying radio gear that teamed with radio gear in friendly territory. Supposedly "Pathfinder" could find its way to an obscured target and we dropped when it dropped. The Nazi 88 crews couldn't see us except with radar. We jammed that with shredded tin foil that the Brits called "window" for some reason. My radio man (Martin) was flinging "window" so furiously once that his wristwatch went out with it. On a really good mission one plane would get the assignment to fly out in front of the formation and spread "window". That is, it was good if you weren't assigned as the window plane.

One careless crewman, not on our plane, .threw out a bale of "window" foil without cracking it open. It jammed in the engine cowling of the plane behind; the engine overheated and the plane came home on one engine That could have been Martin, but it wasn't. At one interrogation after a tough mission we all were asked how much flak we saw. The standard answer was "we could have gotten out and walked on it", but Martin said "Just one burst". I asked him if he was blind or what ...and he said, "I see one burst and I don't look any more."

Late in the war we could see vertical appearing condensation trails that puzzled us. Then we hear that the Germans had developed jet fighters, but they only had enough fuel for one pass. I never saw one.

While we liked to bomb unseen above the clouds, we did not enjoy going up through them in formation. Sometimes we followed a procedure of spreading out, going up through alone on instruments and then rejoining after breaking out on top. This was time consuming, so often a flight of six would get real cuddley and go up through in formation. If the cloud was dense someone might lose sight of the next plane and panic would set in and a mid-air collision was possible with planes flipping every which way.

We were in this type of overcast once and I was on the left wing of the leader. That's all I looked at, his left wing, and glued to it. I could feel we were making some turns and climbing, but I left the instrument watching to Tom Fox. He did a good job that day, for he tapped my shoulder and pointed to the artificial horizon instrument and the airspeed. We were in a steep climbing turn to the left and almost stalled out with a full bomb load ...we were on the inside of the turn and therefore going slower than the lead ship! Tom and I simultaneously pushed the nose of the plane down to gain vital airspeed. As we started down, the lead ship stalled out and rolled upside down over our back and disappeared. We dove down through the overcast, composed ourselves, and climbed back up and tacked on to another flight. Upon getting home we learned that our lead ship had spun in and blown up. Why we, on the inside of the turn, didn't I'll never know. Maybe it's because some people back in Minnesota were praying regularly.

In the same vein, I aborted one mission and flew home because the plane's supercharging system went out and I couldn't keep up. An aircraft flying "spare" just for that sort of contingency took my place. It got shot down and the crew was lost.

OKAY, one more war story. Then I'll quit.

If you've seen the movie "A Bridge Too Far" this must have been a part of that operation. We were sent out to where troop gliders and paratroopers were to make a landing across the Rhine River in the north. We carried fragmentation bombs with proximity fuses, meaning that once they were armed they would go off just by being near something. Once such a bomb cleared the airplane a tiny propeller spinning in the air stream would seat the fuse and the bomb was armed. We flew a very loose formation that day... didn't want to be near anybody else's bombs. We were supposed to fly around until the "Krauts" fired on us. Then we were to bomb them to clear the way for the air drop. Well, they knew what was coming so they held their fire. So we finally bombed a secondary target and headed home. And now came a fantastic mass of transports towing gliders, almost filling the sky. I'm sorry we hadn't been much help to them.

Not many weeks before Germany surrendered-the battle lines had moved quite a distance to the east. To shorten our missions, we moved from A-72 to a captured German field on the border of Germany. It was just across a river from Venlo, Netherlands. I can't remember mounting a mission from there ...our ground forces were overrunning our targets too fast. Didn't mind. The only flight I remember out of there was to "go back to A-72 in France and pick up the squadron's liquor supply". The only crew I took was my engineer and a navigator. The clouds were low, I flew instruments until the navigator said that we were there. There was no longer any radio service from the field. Letting down to the field, I found that there was no ceiling so we turned around and flew home on instruments. The new German field was camouflaged and hard to find in the heavy rain. Couldn't see forward so had to land by looking out the side window... smoothest landing I ever made. The next time out, in good weather, I noticed a few barrage balloons in the area which I had unwittedly avoided on my failed liquor mission. Right after Victory in Europe day things loosened up. We were allowed free time to look around. Some guys "liberated" motorcycles from Germans. But our CO banned them; too many accidents. Four of us were given, by MPs, a German "jeep" Volkswagen that looked like a Model T Ford with a fold down top. We were soon relieved of that. It went to the Motor Pool. But we did tour a bit to Dusseldorf, Essen, Munchen Gladbach. They ad been horribly battered by air and by artillery. Some streets had been cleared leaving just square blocks of jumbled brick and rubble.

In some areas we met recently released prisoners, still in their striped prison garb, wandering around looking for food and shelter ...also barbed wire corrals holding hundreds of German soldiers, all asking for food and cigarettes.

I have been impressed and amazed at how quickly Germany recovered after all that devastation. The USA's Marshall Plan was a wonderful thing.

Three or four of us hitched a ride to Brussels, a fine functioning city. Even then they washed the streets every night. Met a British captain who confirmed the rumor that his General Montgomery had convinced Eisenhower to cut back on General Patton's gasoline supplies because Patton was advancing into Germany faster than Monty.

At our new field we all lived in tents. That was one reason we moved back to A-72 in France. Here we were billeted in a French Chateau rather than our old digs. The house had belonged to someone who was reported to have collaborated with the Nazis. We crowded bunks into the bedrooms, but kept the drawing room downstairs clear for parties. It had a grand piano, and there was always somebody who could play it. Sort of. A few German P.O.W.s served as housekeepers. They didn't mind. We slipped them food and smokes. And there was a stream and a formal garden out back. Also a stable which, when whitewashed became a neat mess hail with a table in each stall.

We were all anxious for word of when we would be sent home. But Japan was still fighting and we weren't in a hurry for Pacific duty. We knew the B-26 had too short a range for Pacific duty...but maybe we would be reconstituted as troop glider pilots! (Worst possible scenario).

We flew a few training missions: night formation, instruments, etc. But mostly we partied. Our Commanding Officer, Col Coiner, had always seen to it that his group got a liquor ration. None came from the U.S. Most came from Britain: Scotch and gin. Good brand names, too. That's how I came to like Scotch whiskey. We also got excellent champagne for peanuts; being crude yokels, we drank it out of our zinc canteen cups.

I had gotten to Paris a couple of times on leave during the winter. Just a couple of days each. The city was blacked out then, of course. One could get around by the Metro subway, but daylight sightseeing was difficult. But we'd go to the Place Pigalle (Pig Alley in G.I. talk) and catch a show. Sometimes topless! Big stuff for a 20-year-old Lutheran from Minnesota.

The best break was in June when many of us were awarded four or five days in Cannes on the French Riviera. The enlisted men went to Nice nearby, also a great place. We were put up in nice hotels right on the beach. The food was mostly Army fare, but fixed up nicely. The weather and the water were perfect. And we rejoiced when our transport plane was delayed a day in picking us up to go back to A-72.

Maybe co-incidentally, maybe not, the code name for our radio contact with A-72 flight control was "Drunkard". Drunkard could be relied upon to give us a heading home if we were uncertain about our position. What with our ample liquor ration, free time, and minimum flying after war's end the term "drunkard" could easily have become an accurate adjective for most of us.

Fortunately, I soon got orders back to the states. The last time I ever was in a B--26 was as a passenger to an airport hanger in Paris. (Not long after that almost all of the B-26 Marauders in Europe were junked, as being too expensive to fly home ...and no job for them when they got there.)

After a night or two on a blanket on the concrete floor of the hanger, we were loaded into the bench-bucket seats of a C-46 two engine transport and headed home. We went to Wales, stayed a night. Prestwick, Scotland, stayed a night. Iceland, stayed several days because of weather. Flew to Greenland, stayed a night. On to Labrador. Thence to Connecticut.

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SOME SIDE COMMENTS: I think I started this reminiscence when I was 69 years old. Now I am 73 and not done yet. I sometimes go for months without adding anything. So that's why this is disjointed and unorganized. (If you have plowed through this far-congratulations!) And of course, it is once-through, no editing. As I said, this is a stream of consciousness, playing back bits of memory tape. There must be errors.

Before leaving the topic of wartime Europe, I'd like to mention the French family I knew during the winter at A-72. The Percevals lived in a tiny village on the edge of our base. Mama did our laundry mostly for extra soap and some cigarettes for Papa. Their son, about 12, spoke some English and was our go-between. When two of the guys in our tent were killed (in that overcast spinout) Mama cried and baked us a loaf of bread. And before we moved out the Percevals had us to their house for simple dinner and shared their wine... and I am sure they had very little. So, while the French in general can be vexing, I have a good memory of at least one family in the north of France.

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Back to our story. From Connecticut we were given 30 days leave and orders to report to Santa Ana, Calif. when the leave was over. The rattly old train ride back to Minnesota seemed to take forever. We got off at Camp McCoy, Wis. That is near Winona so Arda and I got together first. As I recall, she went with me to Minneapolis and on Kerkhoven. Of course, Elaine joined us, too, when she could get time off from her training. (The Nurse Cadet program was a 5-year course and she drew a lot of floor duty at General Hospital as well as classes at the U. of M.)

Stepping off the train in Willmar and meeting Mom and Dad was one of the highlights of my life. However, it was not visibly very emotional. But I'm sure we all felt it. I must confess most of my thoughts were with getting more time with Elaine. And it was a wonderful 30 days. To top it all off, the A-bomb was dropped while I was home and Japan surrendered.

But I still had to report to Santa Ana. Another long train trip. I had bought the ticket when I was in Minneapolis seeing Elaine. And had reserved a Pullman bunk.