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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of December 7, 1941, dealt a heavy blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying four of its eight battleships and heavily damaging the other four, together with three cruisers, three destroyers, and several support vessels. Also, ninety-two Navy aircraft were destroyed, and at nearby Hickam Field, ninety-four Army Air Corps aircraft were lost. Three days later, two British battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, dispatched to defend Singapore, were sunk by Japanese aircraft off the Malay coast, and within weeks still more Allied naval forces in the Pacific were sunk off Java. The situation worsened as the Japanese in quick succession conquered Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma and landed in New Guinea, thus posing a threat to Australia. Also, the islands of the Marianas (except Guam) were captured by the Japanese, and in June 1942 Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands near Alaska. Good news was scarce, although in April 1942 a force of sixteen B-25 bombers launched from the USS Hornet and led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle bombed Tokyo. This caused little physical damage, but struck an important psychological blow that put the Japanese on notice of what the future held for them. In May Allied forces prevailed in the Battle of the Coral Sea, frustrating a possible Japanese invasion of eastern New Guinea, and in June a Japanese attack on Midway Island was turned back. By December 1941, German forces controlled virtually all of Europe, had occupied most of the Ukraine, and were within twenty miles of Moscow. By mid-1942, the Germans had pushed deep into the Soviet Union and were on the road to Stalingrad, on the Volga River.
The forty-five newly appointed aviation cadets who boarded the train at Richmond's Broad Street Station on June 10, 1942, were in high spirits, pleased after so many weeks of waiting to finally be on the move. Soon after boarding I discovered that other contingents of cadets had come aboard in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and as we proceeded south still others joined us in Raleigh and Columbia, with the total reaching over 400 by the time the last group boarded in Atlanta. Our destination was Maxwell Army Air Field at Montgomery, Alabama.
The train's coaches were worn and soiled from years of hard use. Cinders and soot from the coal-fired locomotive swept in through the windows and doors, and the temperature rose steadily as we rolled toward Alabama. It was an uncomfortable trip, but there was little complaining. The changing scenery and endless talk and speculation about our immediate future occupied the hours, and in the process I got to know many of the cadets in my car. Included were two from Lynchburg-Edwin J. White Jr., a casual acquaintance, and John D. Ripley, whom I hadn't met before. Both were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. Ironically, except for our first ten days together at Maxwell Field, I never served again with either of them and it was not until after the war that we saw each other again.
It began as the train began moving out of Richmond-Rebels! Yankees!-and it continued all through our cadet training. It started when a cadet from New York referred to my group of Virginians as "Rebels" and then someone in my coach called attention to the "Yankees" in the car up ahead. It was all very friendly, but I hadn't expected that the characterizations of the Civil War, ended seventy-seven years earlier, would take hold so readily. The sharp differences in regional speech were what set it all in motion. Not many of us had traveled widely, and few of the Southerners had heard a real, live New Yorker talk, much less a Bostonian. For most of the cadets from those areas, this was the first personal exposure to the Southern drawl. So there was a tendency to attach a label of Rebel or Yankee, not as an expression of animosity but rather as a good-natured, friendly way of identifying those strange-sounding other fellows from above or below the Mason-Dixon Line. Over the months that followed, there were many comments about Civil War battles lost by one side or the other and about Sherman's march through Georgia. I don't know how the Northerners reacted to "Yankee," but I got the feeling that the Southerners were rather pleased with their "Rebel" label. While speech was the most obvious dissimilarity, there were also differences in the cultural, economic, and education backgrounds of the cadets, as well as in age, which ranged from eighteen to twenty-six and a half. But despite all these differences, we all got along well.
Army trucks transported the group from the Montgomery railway station to Maxwell Field and deposited us on the roadside in front of a large group of pyramidal tents, a form of shelter I would get to know well in the months ahead. As the newest arrivals, we ended up under canvas because the base was jammed with cadets. After a roll call and brief welcome, we were shown to a tent and instructed to pick a cot and then gather up all our civilian clothes and assemble outside. As we marched off to the quartermaster warehouse, we were a ragtag group-more a mob than a military formation-awkward in responding to marching orders, many out of step, and no two dressed alike. All that would soon change. After we stripped to the skin and placed our civilian clothes, shoes and socks included, in a bag with an attached tag addressed to home, we were issued cadet uniforms, summer and winter, together with underwear, handkerchiefs, shoes, boots, socks, raincoat, mackinaw, and a duffel bag to carry whatever wasn't being worn. As we were handed the various items of clothing, starting with underwear, we redressed, and by the time we reached the end of the line we were fully clothed as aviation cadets. Though a bit rumpled and not sure how to wear our caps, we felt for the first time a part of the army. After dropping off the bag of newly issued clothing in our tent, we were marched to the barber shop for a quick five-minute scalping. Marching, I soon discovered, was a way of life for cadets; we didn't walk anywhere as individuals but marched in formation, with the commander counting cadence. Starting on our second day, we were introduced to cadence marching songs, and often sang them as we marched about the base.
Our orders assigned us to the Army Air Forces Classification Center where we were to undergo the screening and classification tests that would determine our future. The burning question for all of us was whether we would be classified to enter pilot, bombardier, or navigator training. A few wanted navigator or bombardier training, but the vast majority wanted to be pilots. We had completed what we thought was a thorough physical examination before being accepted as aviation cadets, but apparently the army wasn't satisfied. We were examined again from tip to toe and, in addition, underwent a psychiatric evaluation. The physical exam wasn't of particular concern to me, but I got a little tense when asked to interpret a bunch of mysterious ink blots and answer strange questions posed by a four-eyed MD.
My real concern was the aptitude tests, designed, I was told, to assess our coordination and our ability to quickly and accurately adjust to constantly changing stimuli-whatever that meant. Also, there would be tests to evaluate judgment and resourcefulness in solving practical problems, measure our ability to read and understand technical information, and assess our general knowledge of mathematics and mechanical principles. Based on reports by cadets who had taken the examinations, I decided that the psychomotor tests were the most critical, or at least they appeared to be the most challenging. They involved a host of electromechanical devices (some akin to pinball machines), while others resembled an aircraft cockpit with a control stick and rudder controls. All had blinking lights and buzzers. The whole examination process took about a week to complete, and at the end, when the results were posted on the bulletin board, we all rushed to see how we had fared. I was ecstatic to be among those selected for pilot training. For me, this represented a successfully negotiated hurdle of the many I would encounter in my quest to be a fighter pilot. Ed White, much to his disappointment, was on the bombardier training list, while John Ripley qualified for pilot training.
For those selected for pilot training, the first phase of the nine-month training program took place at the Pre-Flight School (Pilot) on Maxwell Field and lasted ten long weeks. My group of 600 cadets was designated Class 43C, signifying that we would complete the nine-month program and be commissioned in March 1943, if we were successful.
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The Pre-Flight School was a combination boot camp and officers' candidate school. The first priority, it seemed, was to instill discipline and whip us into shape physically. Concurrently, we studied the basic military skills required of commissioned officers and attended classes to refresh our understanding of some basic academic subjects.
Constructed on the site of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flying school, Maxwell Field was one of the Army Air Forces' oldest bases and home of the Air Tactical School where officers studied air tactics and strategy and learned to plan large-scale air campaigns. It was a beautiful base, and still is today, with handsome brick buildings, including a fine officers' club and spacious quarters, but other than observing these facilities from the outside, I had little time to even reflect on such things.
We were housed in wooden barracks, four to a room, with each room opening onto a screened porch that ran the length of the building. Cadets were awakened at 0600 hours by a bugle sounding reveille and assembled thirty minutes later for reports and announcements, after which we marched to the mess hall for breakfast.
Hazing was conducted by upperclassmen as a way of imbuing discipline. Upperclassmen addressed us as "Mister," us...
