Fighter Pilot

by Christina Olds

  As I grew I began to understand the dreams of these early pioneers. World War I made them determined to change things. If they could make air power prevail in future battles, the horror of trenches, endless stalemate, and thousands of casualties with no discernible gain could be prevented. Airplanes could carry the war to the enemy, attack his industrial base and his lines of communication, destroy his transportation system, and quickly erode his will to fight. All this could happen from the air, but with aircraft not yet built. Such was the dream uniting these pilots.

  When publicly expressed, their vision met scorn and resistance. The Air Corps leaders were looked upon as lightweight, flamboyant flyboys whose limited capabilities were of no consequence in the grand scheme of land and sea warfare. Airmen could not occupy territory, or rule the sea. What good were they beyond providing eyes for the real fighting forces? What good was bombing or shooting from aircraft? It was laughingly admitted that the Air Corps could probably penetrate enemy territory, but not much farther than good artillery and certainly not as accurately. Billy Mitchell was court-martialed for his outspoken belief in the future of air power and for his criticism of those who denied that potential. My father was one of the men by his side during that trial. The outcome outraged Mitchell’s followers and only encouraged them to greater effort. Mitchell died in 1936, but it would be World War II that vindicated his theories beyond any doubt.

  In 1934, Roosevelt ordered the Army Air Corps to take over airmail, and Boeing began the development of a new bomber. After an epic struggle with battleship admirals, my father and his peers managed the development of the B-17 in 1935. The first prototypes, thirteen in all, were put under his charge at Langley. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Olds and his B-17s became standard fare in newspapers and newsreels around the world. He led flights on goodwill trips to South America and made the Flying Fortress a household name, also breaking the military cross-country speed record when Howard Hughes held the civilian mark.

  When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the world was stunned. The shock reverberated through America. Our army and navy were seen to be living in the past. While Britain gallantly went it alone, America had time to build, yet we were still not ready when Japan struck Pearl Harbor. It took another two years before U.S. air power could be said to have a meaningful impact on the campaigns waged in Europe and the Pacific. As world war loomed, my father was tasked by Hap Arnold to build an organization to ferry new aircraft from factories to their operational units. The ferry system grew into the Air Transport Command, an invaluable player in the Berlin airlift after the war, and later the Military Airlift Command.

  In high school at 6'2' and 190 pounds, I was a natural for football. I made the varsity and was chosen captain, followed by election to class president for three years. Hampton High won the Virginia state championship in 1937. Subsequently, full football scholarships were offered by Virginia Military Institute and famous coach Earl “Red” Blaik at Dartmouth at the end of my junior year. But I believed the only legitimate way to fly airplanes and not have to work for a living was to get a regular commission through the United States Military Academy. I would earn my wings, join the Army Air Corps, and become a fighter pilot. Simple as that!

  To pass the academy entrance exam I enrolled at Millard Military Prep when I graduated from Hampton High in ’39. Studies kept us busy, but the radio kept us informed of world events. When news of Hitler’s invasion of Poland hit I wanted to go after him myself. There had to be a way to get into battle right away, and not wait four more years! The next day I sneaked off campus in my prep uniform and went to the Canadian legation in Hampton, determined to join the Royal Air Force. I filled out an application and handed it over. The fellow in the office eyed me sharply and asked, “Son, how old are you?”

  “Twenty, sir!”

  He knew better. “Well, you need your parents’ permission. Have them sign your application.”

  I went home to my startled father, who said, “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in school!”

  “Dad, please sign this paper. I want to join the RAF.”

  Nothing doing. He sent me back to Millard.

  By March 1940, we found a congressman in Pennsylvania willing to appoint me to West Point. Only problem was I needed to live in his district to qualify. I headed to Uniontown and lived for ten weeks in a small, shared room at the YMCA, worked for an army recruiter, and swept a grocery store at night. The decaying town and grim faces of local mine workers made me more determined than ever to get into the air.

  On June 1 my father delivered the news: I had passed the entrance exam and was accepted! We raced up the stairs to my room, gathered my belongings, and caught the last train to D.C. I was the first Olds to go to West Point, and the family was suitably proud. Millard Prep had given me a head start on plebe year at the academy, but I was determined to increase my preparation, rising before dawn to do push-ups and run laps around the parade ground at Langley. One month later I crammed with a bunch of other Point-bound boys into one compartment on the D.C. train to Penn Station. I think I saw a couple of girls dabbing at their eyes among the families waving good-bye, but mostly I saw my dad standing stoically behind the group. We locked eyes and he nodded to me.

  Boyish chatter on the way to New York quickly turned to discussions of France’s recent surrender to Germany. Roosevelt was already warning the American public that our nation wouldn’t tolerate Hitler’s suppression of free Europe. Would we make it to the war in time? West Point would provide me with a commission, but would it adequately prepare me for what lay beyond? Carrying a rifle on the long gray line was not my ambition. The last hours before the Point seemed etched in slow motion. We walked from Penn Station to the ferry terminal, rode across the Hudson River, boarded the train from Weehawken, arrived at the spare gray West Point stop, and fell silent when we saw the grim faces of our reception committee. I stepped down from the train and my boyhood ended.

  “You, mister! Stand up straight! Get your raggedy ass in line!” Uniformed, white-gloved upperclassmen screamed into our faces. “You are worms not fit to crawl on this earth! You only THINK you will be officers! By tonight, half of you lily-livered maggots will run home to Mommy! You’re a disgrace!”

  “Yes, sir!” we yelled back. I could hear confusion and panic in some of the nonmilitary kids.

  “What did you say?”

  “YES, SIR!” we roared. And that was that. They herded us into groups at the station, then marched us up the hill through the gray stone portals of West Point. As we emerged into the Quadrangle from the Plain my eyes stared straight ahead, chin jammed back tight and spine erect. No time for awestruck sightseeing; time only for the business of arrival. After uniforms were issued and heads shaved, we were marched back across the Plain to a spot above the river called Trophy Point. There, I raised my right hand with my fellows and swore allegiance to the United States. I was a U.S. Military Academy cadet in the class of 1944, a plebe, a beast. And, by God, this Beast was going to be a fighter pilot!

  Plebe year was an intense grind with the rigors of locked-down cadet life and academics. I met Ben Cassiday my first day in Beast Barracks. Our parents had been close friends in Honolulu, and he and I had been stuck in the same playpens as babies while the grown-ups played gin rummy. We were better prepared for hazing, obeying orders, running an obstacle course, and bouncing quarters off our beds than half our classmates. Ben was the good student, while I excelled at military training and football. I suffered through classes by doodling caricatures. My Company A pals gave me way too much encouragement, and pranks were part of life. Several drawings disappeared only to reemerge on the faculty board. I caught immediate hell from a sour-faced history professor. Oh well, catching hell seemed almost as much fun as getting away with it.

  West Point’s varsity football team in the fall of 1940 had its most abysmal record in fifty years, a second consecutive losing season: 1-7-1. Our freshman squad wasn’t much better in the beginning. We s
tarted with three losses but improved rapidly, ending the year 3-4-1. The low point for the corps came with Army’s brutal loss to Navy in front of a sellout crowd in Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium. It was the rivalry’s fiftieth anniversary. Army-Navy games had always galvanized football fans, but the battles raging in Europe really focused America’s adoration on its military teams. Radios across the nation tuned in to the big game, including FDR’s in the Oval Office. My freshman teammates and I were in the stands for that game, and I was overwhelmed by the crowd’s patriotic fervor. Army lost 14–0, but it didn’t matter. We didn’t feel like losers. Our freshman squad would make a big difference next fall.

  The Point’s new superintendent, Major General Robert L. Eichelberger, knew that cadets and Army fans alike were demoralized by the losing streak. It simply wouldn’t do. He courted America’s best damn college football coach, and Dartmouth’s Red Blaik came on as head coach when the squad started spring practice. I worked like hell under Blaik and made the starting lineup. By the first of May I was first-string offensive and defensive tackle.

  Morale soared throughout the corps at the start of fall semester ’41. Coach Blaik spurred the team to fame as the nation’s newest darling, and West Point was an undefeated 4-0 by the time we met Notre Dame in Yankee Stadium on November 1. The game was played in a driving downpour before a capacity crowd of 76,000. It was a total mud bath. My right shoulder hurt like hell from a stupid late-summer swimming accident, but I played both offense and defense for the full sixty minutes. By the end of the first half we were so muddy nobody could tell numbers or uniforms apart. I was in physical agony, felt like a goddamn pig in a wallow, but God, it was fun! We battled the Irish to a stunning scoreless tie. It felt like a win and we went home heroes.

  Surging national pride carried us like gladiators into the Army-Navy game on November 29. Tickets were sold out for months. A crowd of over 100,000 crammed into Municipal Stadium. Parking lots and city streets were jammed by groups of fans listening to their radios. All of America was tuned in. FDR’s intention to attend the game was thwarted by the escalating situation in the Pacific. He was sequestered with advisers in a hotel but listening to the radio. The emotional roar of the crowd hit us like a tidal wave when we ran onto the field. We weren’t two separate teams meeting to battle. There was only one team, united with the crowd, united with our country.

  It was the most memorable football game of my life. Army lost to Navy 14–6, but it didn’t seem to matter who won or lost. Fans rushed onto the field. Both teams were engulfed in a wild celebration. Spectators in the stands stood hugging and weeping. Both team alma maters were played. The national anthem was played again. Cadets and middies stood close together, all of us singing our hearts out.

  One week later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt’s address to Congress on December 8 was broadcast to the corps in the mess hall. Pandemonium broke loose. We stomped, cheered, whistled, and clapped until our hands were bruised. We were going to war! America’s first troops would be on the ground in Britain in January. Pilots would follow by early July. Dear God, we thought, please wait for us!

  Big news awaited the cadet corps in the spring of 1942. Europe’s descent into the maelstrom of war had galvanized the nation into action. Roosevelt’s commitment to ramp up military preparedness produced a stunning announcement: The class of 1943 would accelerate to graduate in January and the class of ’44 would graduate in June 1943! By God, it was really happening. Better yet, everyone in the corps was asked to choose regular army or Army Air Corps as his service branch. To the great dismay of the old-time infantry and artillery guys who’d been running the Point for years, almost half the class chose AAC. This was it. I was on my way!

  When classes ended in late May, we were routed to flight-training bases scattered across America. Qualification was determined through the neutral process of overall class standing. Thankfully, my military grades rescued my average academics! I was off to fly. Nothing else mattered.

  The summer of 1942 was glorious. A group of us volunteered for the Spartan School of Aviation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after Ben Cassiday suggested he had friends nearby, meaning girls! With sunburns from Virginia Beach and a few successful days around the swimming pool at the Army-Navy Club, Ben and I boarded the train to Tulsa with our group. Upon arrival we were met by an enormous man naturally called Tiny. He turned out to be jack-of-all-trades for the flight school and mentor to all aviation cadets, military and civilian. We noticed Tiny was trying to hide his laughter from us. It was our damned Jungle Jim helmets. Some sadistic wag at the academy had foisted them off on us as the prescribed cadet summer head covering. Where was my riding crop? We loved our khakis and hated those stupid hats. To our chagrin we became the laughingstock of the upperclassmen at flight school. We quickly found alternative headgear.

  The first day we met our instructors. My primary instructor pilot (IP) was a solemn-faced guy named John Kostura, who turned out to be far less menacing than he looked. He gave us flight schedules and instructions with a fair bit of humor, a good sign. Flying would be mixed with ground-school courses on weather, aeronautics, flight regulations, engineering, some field training, emergency procedures, and blah, blah, blah.

  Kostura was a thorough, patient instructor. His admonishments came in a steady, quiet voice, his guidance taking quick effect. I found myself liking the man almost as a father figure and did my best to learn as quickly as possible all he taught. In our barracks bull sessions I learned other cadets had instructors who believed fear was the best teacher. They shouted angrily and banged their students’ knees with the control stick for emphasis. My IP’s teaching style, on the other hand, greatly influenced my future. Our initial dual flights went well, and one sunny day, after I had amassed five and a half hours of flying time, Kostura got out, patted me on the shoulder, and said, “OK, Olds, take her up and give me four good landings.”

  I gulped. Take her up? Oh my God, by myself? I was shaking as I taxied to the takeoff end of the grass field. I was on my way to being a pilot! Despite the nervousness, I took off smoothly. Hot damn, I was solo! The landings were good and I knew it. Mr. Kostura’s smile when I taxied in was one of the richest rewards of that period.

  Days at Spartan passed swiftly. Most of us passed the challenges. A few washed out and returned to the academy or went on leave. In between having me march occasional punishment tours with a parachute on my back, Mr. Kostura spent extra time teaching me aerobatics. We looped, rolled, and spun daily out of sight of the airfield. Sometimes he’d point out an isolated shack and yell, “It’s full of Japs! Strafe it!” I dove in, pretending my training plane was loaded with bombs and bullets. He laughed at what I thought were perfect attack passes. More solo flights were sheer joy. Being alone in the immense sky, master of plane and self, was beyond anything I had imagined. Practicing what I’d been taught, and experimenting further into the envelope of possibilities, worked a magic I can only describe as ecstasy. It was total exuberance, surrender and mastery all at once.

  The day finally came for a last check ride with an Air Corps officer assigned to Spartan. This was it. Flunk and you were out. Pass, and you graduated from primary and went on to basic training. Mr. Kostura briefed his flight and told us not to worry. We’d be OK. Just do what he’d taught us. “Remember the importance of picking out two good objects for turning points in the pylon eight maneuver. Make sure they’re ninety degrees to the prevailing wind. That’ll make it easy to keep your wingtip pointed right at the pylon when you do your figure eights. And make sure you pick out a good emergency landing spot when the instructor suddenly cuts your engine,” he added.

  Pylon eights? What were those? I had never done one. When Kostura finished I rushed up to him. “Sir, we never did those pylon eight things, ever!”

  Kostura looked blank for a moment; then the light dawned. He’d spent time with me playing, doing acrobatics beyond the normal curriculum, attacking storage sheds and other useful things. He shouted,
“Hold it right there!” then went running down the hall. He returned quickly and told me to grab my parachute for a quick lesson on pylon eights. I was as twitchy as the proverbial cat on a hot stove, but I managed to pass the check ride and was declared ready for basic.

  Everyone was authorized a ten-day leave before reporting back to West Point for fall semester. My father had a special treat in store. He sent a plane to carry me back up to Spokane, Washington, where he was commanding the 2nd Army Air Forces Bomb Wing as a new major general. Reaction on the Tulsa flight line was priceless when a huge B-24 arrived. Of course I milked it for all it was worth, sauntering casually out to the plane and turning with a final thumbs-up at the stunned crowd. The B-24 pilot turned out to be a West Point grad who would rise to be a four-star general, then president of Pan American Airways. After a lazy five days with my father and his delightful new bride, Nina Gore Auchincloss, I was flown back to Washington, D.C., in another B-24. I was twenty years old and completely full of myself. I was a pilot and a first-class cadet! Life was innocent. Life was good.

  Those of our class in flight training knew we’d take basic and advanced at nearby Stewart Field during the compressed coming year, but how were we to fit it all in? Life was a frantic routine. Days were divided between classes and flying, alternating mornings and afternoons, plus football practice every afternoon. Study time was at a premium, and there were many nights in the johns after lights-out, just trying to keep up. Academics were intense, with two full years now compressed into one. All of us were graded each day in every subject, and the grades were posted. There was no such thing as a bell curve or getting off easy.