On Wings Of The Morning

by Marie Bostwick

  “Sir, I was concerned that they might come back and attack a second time, so I gave chase to make sure they’d gotten the message.”

  “But that is not the procedure. When you are on escort duty, your orders are to defensively engage the enemy. This isn’t the Wild West, Lieutenant, and you’re not the Lone Ranger. You don’t go off chasing the bad guys unless you’ve been told to. Fortunately, it worked out for the best both times. But what if, while you were off hunting Japs that had already decided to call it a day, there had been an attack from another direction? Your section would have been down a man. Your absence could have given the Japs the advantage they need to take out one of our pilots, one of the boys in your own section. The pilots that you are supposed to be leading!” In spite of his assurance not to bawl me out, the general’s voice was loud and accusing. I didn’t blame him. I deserved it.

  “Then we’d be down two pilots, and that, as you know from experience, could be just the opening they’d need to shoot down the rest of the escort craft and then start bombing the hell out of the ship you were assigned to protect! Your little stunt could have caused the failure of the entire mission—not to mention a terrible and unnecessary loss of life! What in the hell were you thinking, son?”

  “I ... I guess I wasn’t, sir. It was a stupid mistake. It won’t happen again.”

  The general took a deep breath. “I’m sure it won’t, Glennon. But I don’t believe it was just a mistake. You’re too fine a pilot for that.” He picked up his pipe and wedged it between his teeth before fishing a match out of his pocket and relighting it. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. Something in his tone and inflection reminded me of Papaw.

  “You were in Walker’s section, weren’t you?” I nodded. “He was a good man. Captain Conroy tells me you were with him when he was shot down. You were the only one who made it home that night, weren’t you? Can you tell me about it?”

  It was an order phrased as a request. General Martin waited for me to respond, but it took me a minute. It seemed like my Adam’s apple was stuck in the middle of my throat.

  The only other time I’d spoken about it was to brief Captain Conroy the day it happened. I’d made my report, answering all the captain’s questions and including all the pertinent information, but at that time it hadn’t really hit me yet that Fountain Walker, Brian Holman, and Tony Campezzio were really gone.

  Later, no one asked about it, and I didn’t volunteer. That was the unwritten rule of the Thirtieth. But when I walked into the mess hall and sat alone at a table that had been crowded with my buddies the day before, moving my eggs from one side of my tray to the other and tearing my toast into pieces, I could feel the stares of the other men boring holes into my back. They wondered why I was the only one still alive. So did I.

  Now the general was ordering me to tell him about that day. It took all my effort to bring forth a painful trickle of words, but once I started it was almost a relief. Memories roiled to the surface like a flood, so brutal and unyielding that they knocked me off my feet, forcing me to abandon the stoic posture I’d held for so many weeks.

  I told him everything. How it had started off as a routine escort of a routine bombing mission, like dozens we’d flown before, and what a clear blue the sky had been that day. How relaxed we’d been after takeoff, joking back and forth on our radios, certain we were too close to the base for the Japs to show themselves. How Fountain had razzed me about brushing off the advances of an old streetwalker who’d approached me on Thursday night. How he’d called me Choirboy of the Fighting Thirtieth, and everyone, including Fountain, had laughed. And how, just like that, the sound of our laughter was engulfed by a wave of engine noise. They were on us.

  They shouldn’t have been there, not that close to the base. I guess there were so many of them they felt like they could risk it. They counted on being able to hit us hard and fast, to finish the job before we could radio for backup. They were right.

  They took out Holman first. A Zero came boring down and got off a lucky shot right into his gas tank. The explosion was so fast and fierce that I doubt he ever knew what hit him. I could hear Fountain hollering on the radio, telling the base that we needed more backup. I knew help was on the way, but I also knew there was no way they could get there fast enough. We were going to have to take care of these guys ourselves.

  Campezzio was next to go down, but not before he scored some pretty serious hits to one of the Zeros. The crippled Jap plane bugged out and headed for home, but we were still outmanned two to one, and the whole time we were trying to hit those Zeros without getting ourselves killed in the process, they were buzzing in and out, taking turns with the bomber.

  I banked hard right, came up behind one of the Japs, and scored a direct hit that sent him into the drink, but Campezzio was hit at almost the same moment. The two planes, one Japanese and one American, spiraled into the sea side by side, streaming smoke. If you could have blocked out the sound of roaring engines, stinging bullets, and Campezzio’s screams coming over the radio, it would have looked like some terrible and beautiful aerobatic ballet as they floated toward the blue below, striking the water at the same time, sending up a final wave of white before disappearing under the waters forever.

  There was no time to think about the fact that two of my friends had been killed in a little over two minutes. We were weaving in and out between the planes, trying every piloting maneuver we knew and inventing some new ones, fighting to keep the Zeros away from the bomber, to get ourselves into a decent firing position, to stay alive long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

  Everything was happening so fast. Two Zeros were after Fountain, stalking him like wolves. In the meantime I had problems of my own. Fountain hollered a warning to me over the radio. Thanks to him, I spotted the Zero just in time and barrel-rolled right to evade a hail of Japanese bullets. I pulled out of the roll and, for a split second, was in a perfect position to hit one of the Japs that was after Fountain. He went straight down.

  Then, I’m still not sure what happened, but I think a stray bullet must have hit the pilot of the other Zero, because I saw him slump forward over his controls, either dead or unconscious. I called out a warning to Fountain but I don’t think he heard me. He was trailing smoke, and the Zero was closing in on him fast but Fountain didn’t see him. Another Jap was after me, but I looped down and lost him, then banked as hard as I could and circled behind, trying to get into a position where I could shoot down the Zero before it collided with Fountain. But I was too late. The unconscious Japanese pilot slammed into him, setting off an explosion that engulfed both planes in a ball of fire.

  The blast was so powerful that I could feel the heat of it through the skin of my plane. If I’d have been three seconds quicker, maybe even one, I could have saved him.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to compose myself, trying to banish the mental picture of Fountain’s plane—strafed with bullets, flames shooting out of the starboard wing—the nightmare picture that invaded my dreams and startled me from sleep every night, the last image I had of Fountain before five of our guys flew in and Japs took off. The bomber was crippled but still in one piece. My tail was so shot full of holes that it was like trying to fly with a cement block tied to my rudder, but we made it. The other planes stayed close until we landed, first the battered bomber and then me—the only fighter out of the original four who made it home that day.

  “One second. Just one,” I whispered. “I was too slow. That’s what killed him.”

  “No,” General Martin said sternly. “It was the Japanese that killed your friend. It was the war that killed him. What you did was try to save him, but you can’t save everybody, Morgan. Is that why you’re going off, chasing after every Zero you see, trying to kill them before they get another one of your guys?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I just ... I just don’t understand why I’m still here and Walker, Holman, and Campezzio aren’t. Especially Walker. Half those maneuve
rs I used to get myself out of trouble that day was stuff he taught me. He was ten times the pilot I am. It should have been me that died, not him. Why am I still alive?”

  Looking up, I could see the sun dipping lower in the sky, beaming shafts of light through the venetian blinds that covered the general’s windows. I’d talked longer and said more than I’d intended. The old man probably thinks I’m a nut job. He’ll probably take my wings and bust me down to kitchen steward before the day is out, I thought.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he opened a wooden box that sat on his desk, took out a cigarette, and offered it to me. I don’t really smoke and was about to tell him so, but all of a sudden, a cigarette seemed like a good idea. I needed something to do with my hands. The general held out a lighter built into an enormous hinged conch shell. I leaned toward it and lit up.

  “Ugly-looking thing, isn’t it?” he said as he snapped closed the shell lid. “MacArthur sent it to me last Christmas from Manila. I’ve known Doug since we were cadets at West Point—gave him his first pipe. He’s got a brilliant military mind, but not a nickel’s worth of taste.” He chuckled and leaned back in his chair before continuing.

  “Morgan, every soldier who’s seen combat—at least, any soldier that’s worth his salt—wonders the same thing. I don’t think civilians can really understand the bond that exists between soldiers. You go through so much together that the guys in your unit get to be like brothers, even closer. That’s what I love about the military. It’s also what I hate about it.” He took a long pull on his pipe, making the tobacco in the bowl glow orange-red before he spoke again.

  “If you’re a guy selling insurance in Peoria and your neighbor drops dead of a stroke while mowing his grass, you feel bad about it, but life goes on and you forget about it before too long. After all, it wasn’t your fault. It’s different for soldiers. We’re a unit. When we lose a buddy, we lose a piece of ourselves. And pretty often that brother dies while we’re watching, and we can’t shake the feeling that it could have been, maybe even should have been, us. But who lives and dies is God’s business. There’s no ‘should have been’s in a war, son. There’s only ‘what is.’ Somehow or other, you’ve got to find a way to live with it.

  “On the battlefield, when the man who carries the company flag falls, one of his buddies comes up and carries it in his place. They can’t do a thing about their friend who was lost, but they can pick up the ideals he died for and carry on. That’s the greatest tribute we can offer a fallen comrade—not to die in his place, but to live in it. And to live well, in a manner that brings honor to his memory. Isn’t that what you would have wanted Walker to do if the tables had been turned?”

  “I guess so, sir. Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t know who was the better pilot, you or Walker, but Captain Conroy says you were two of the best he’s ever seen. Conroy earned his wings before you were born, so that’s saying something. He thinks you both rely too much on your instincts, but, thank God, your instincts are good. Nobody but you two could have held off that many Zeros for that long—long enough to save that bomber and her whole crew. You and your buddy saved a lot of lives. Walker is gone, and there is nothing you can do about it, but you can pick up his flag and carry it in his place. That’s why I’m sending you home.”

  “Sir?” I asked, not sure I’d heard him right. I leaned forward and crushed out the butt of my cigarette in the ashtray he pushed in my direction. “I don’t understand.”

  The congenial air of comrades-in-arms suddenly dissipated. The general was a general again, and I was a junior officer with only one pathetic bar on my uniform. The general stood up, and I did the same.

  “I’m sending you stateside for a few months. You’re going to train to fly P-38s, and then you’ll be assigned to a new unit.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but what about my current unit? The men in my wing are used to me and—”

  “Well, they’ll have to get used to someone else. We’ve got a new crop of junior officers coming. One of them will take over for you. They’re arriving on a transport tonight, the same transport you’ll be taking back, so you’d better get your gear packed and say good-bye to your men. You leave tomorrow morning.” He picked up an envelope from the inbox on his desk and handed it to me. I didn’t have to open it to know that it contained my orders.

  I wanted to argue with him, but there was no point. I took the envelope and said, “Yes, sir,” but couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness from creeping into my voice.

  The old man narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down. “If you were a different kind of man, Glennon, I’d probably ground you for that Jap-chasing stunt you pulled. But you’re too good a pilot to lose. If you get yourself rested, retrained, and refocused, you might just turn out to be a great pilot. And I need every great pilot I can get my hands on. Don’t disappointment me.” He saluted. “That is all.”

  15

  Georgia

  Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas—March 1943

  “Dah-da-da-da-duh! It’s time to get up in the mornin’!” Pamela Hellman bawled an enthusiastic and off-key version of reveille into my ear. I threw a pillow at her and put my arm over my eyes, trying to block out the light, but it was no good. Pam cheerfully flicked the light switch on and off.

  “All right, already! I’m up. Knock it off.” I pulled myself into a sitting position on the edge of the cot and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Why do you always have to be so happy in the morning?”

  “Dunno. I was born this way, I guess. Irritating, isn’t it?” she answered cheerily as she opened my footlocker and began rifling through it.

  “I’ll say. How can you be so perky at five in the morning? I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

  “Well, probably it has something to do with the fact that you were up practicing night landings until two a.m. while I was safely tucked up in bed by ten. Here we go!” She pulled a clean flight suit out of my footlocker and tossed it to me. “And one more thing, it isn’t five, it’s half-past six. You’ve got fifteen minutes until breakfast.”

  “Fifteen minutes! Are you kidding? Why’d you let me sleep so long? I’ve got a flight check with Maytag today!” Panicking, I jumped to my feet and started peeling off my pajamas. Just a few weeks before I would have felt self-conscious about getting undressed in front of Pamela, but three months of communal living with six women in the cramped rooms we called bays had banished all modesty.

  When I’d first come to Avenger, I’d been amazed at the number of girls. I knew there were other female pilots, of course. Growing up, I’d poured over newspaper accounts of famous lady flyers like the brave and tragically doomed Amelia Earhart, and the glamorous Jacqueline Cochran, two-time winner of the Harmon Trophy, aviation’s most prestigious prize, winner of the 1938 Bendix Transcontinental Race, and now director of the WASP. But I’d rarely met another female pilot face to face, so I was surprised to find sixty-eight of them at Avenger, and that was just in my class! Before the program ended, more than one thousand women pilots would graduate from WASP training.

  I was equally surprised to see the variety of our backgrounds and life experiences. We had everything from housewives to college professors and debutantes to movie actresses. My own baymates were a perfect example. We couldn’t have been more different. Besides me, former waitress, sometime bookkeeper, airport manager, and recent widow, we had Carol Peck, a high school physics teacher from Pennsylvania and Betty Barry, a golf pro from Florida. Then there was Fanny Champlain, who had a degree in psychology from Mills College in California and had learned to fly through the college’s CPT program. She’d been three weeks away from walking down the aisle with an architect from Oakland when she’d gotten her WASP recruitment letter, called off the wedding, and took the first train to Texas. Donna Lee Curtiss was the only daughter of a wealthy Chicago family who owned a chain of carpeting stores. When Donna Lee wasn’t riding airplanes, she rode thoroughbred Arabian horses and had won scores of jumping competitions
.

  Pamela, my favorite, was a blue-blooded Connecticut Yankee from a well-off family in Darien. Her father was a banker and her mother a clubwoman. She was a tall, angelic-looking girl with a heart of gold and a decidedly wicked streak, at least when it came to her attitude toward her mother. After graduating from Vassar she’d moved to New York City’s lower east side and taken a job in a settlement house. A position she’d taken because “I couldn’t imagine a career that was further from my mother’s plans for me. At least, not until I heard that women could fly airplanes. Naturally, I took that up as soon as possible.”

  We were as different as any six individuals could be, but we had one thing in common: we all loved to fly, and that bound us together as tightly as if we’d been family. I loved those girls. If I hadn’t, there would have been no way I could have shared a room and bath with them for all those months.

  Actually, it wasn’t as crowded now as it had been. Of the original six baymates, only four were left. Carol Peck had come down with appendicitis in the second week and had to leave, but she’d written and said she was going to join another class as soon as her stitches healed. Darling, athletic Betty Barry had washed out just the day before, sent home for failing to pass the same flight check I was going to take today, with the same demanding instructor. We called him “Maytag” because he had washed out so many girls. Betty was a terrific pilot. If Maytag had sent her packing, what hope was there for me?

  “Pam,” I said, moaning. “How could you let me sleep so late? On today of all days?”

  “Calm down,” Pamela said, unzipping my flight suit and holding it out for me. “I know you have your flight check today. That’s why I let you sleep, and that’s why I came to help you get ready. Relax. As long as you don’t fool with trying to get made-up or fuss with your hair, you’ll have plenty of time.”