By Herman Belmont
By Herman Belmont
(Roger H. Zierenberg, Sr.)
Woodbine Five-Nine is a historical memoir-based story inspired by the wartime experiences of Lieutenant Roger Revelle, a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot serving with the 31st Fighter Group in Italy during World War II.
Written under the pen name Herman Belmont, this work combines personal memories, military aviation, humor, friendship, family, and the realities of combat flying in the European Theater of Operations.
Through a series of interconnected chapters, readers follow Roger's experiences from the airfields of San Severo, Italy, to bomber escort missions over Germany, while also sharing in his memories of home, his wife Wilma, daughter Beth, fellow pilots, and the unique camaraderie that existed among young American airmen during World War II.
This manuscript was written by Roger H. Zierenberg, Sr., P-51 Mustang pilot, veteran of the United States Army Air Forces, and member of the Greatest Generation.
"Chicken!" A word with a thousand meanings. Yet at this moment, to Roger, the word had only one meaning...
Southern fried! It had been at least three or four months since he, or any of the other boys in the squadron, had enjoyed any fresh meat. This is what had brought Roger up to the monastery, high on an Italian hill, overlooking the Adriatic.
One of the peasants down in San Severo, in the valley, had let it slip that there were some chickens up in this abandoned monastery. As Roger contemplated the capture of one of those chickens, he looked about him, as if he expected something sinister, something black and creepy, might come out of one of the doorways.
After all, this was stealing! Yet no-one seemed to own these chickens. The make-shift cage was ready on the back of the jeep, waiting to be occupied by that chicken!
Just how do you go about capturing a chicken?
"Well, at least it's cool up here," he mumbled.
The deep white-capped blue of the Adriatic reminded him of the view from the Pacific Palisades at home.
HOME! Boy, that was a long way away...
Seems like a long time ago. Just a few short months, really, since he had left Wilma and little Beth.
"Now hold it! Don't start thinking about that. Let's knock that off right now... Gotta catch that chicken."
"Here chicky, chicky, chicky, chicky." How do you catch a darn chicken?
Roger looked Westward, towards the town of San Severo. Over to the left, way out on the horizon, somewhere, was Foggia, where all the bombers were. San Severo was a base for fighters. The Thirty-First Fighter, the candy-striped group, red and white tails and red-tipped nose-spinners.
Even the quiet, high-up on the hill, was broken by the angry whine and growl of the P-51 Mustang taking off from the metal-mat runway. The Thirty-First shared runways with a photo-recon group of British Mosquito's.
Directly below him, in the valley, stood the bombed-out balloonists camp, long-since abandoned by the Italians, and now serving as barracks for the Thirty-First Fighter Group. There, Roger shared a small room with Red Taylor. Red was from Buffalo, New York.
Wonder what Little Red was doing right now? Probably talking to the Doc.
Red and the Doc had some really good conversations about "things". Things such as, "What would you do, Doc, if Fisk, here, had appendicitis? Could you operate right here, on the cot?" or "Tell us again about the time you took out that eight-pound tumor from the fat lady."
Doc Caldwell would probably relate the whole thing again, leaving no detail untouched, making every effort to be as gory and nonchalantly professional as possible. You could sure lose your appetite for supper mighty fast, listening to Doc Caldwell.
Supper. Gotta catch that chicken!
Roger took several steps forward, backing the chicken into the corner. It was a black and white chicken, with gray on the edge of its' feathers. It was eyeing Roger, backing up sideways to the corner of the little courtyard.
Roger advanced carefully, holding his jacket out-stretched in front of him, crouching, closer, closer, "Gotcha!"
"That wasn't so tough."
Back to the jeep he ran, and proudly placed his prize catch in the waiting cage. Chicky, looking kinda ruffled, continued to give Roger that same sideways look, like a haughty stare.
He looked back at Chicky, and, with hands on hips, said out loud, "You, little friend, wont look so haughty when you're belly-up on the mess table. So get your dirty looks in now, 'cos you ain't gonna be lookin' for long."
Rog put one foot on the running-board of the jeep, and pulled on his jacket. He looked down into the valley again, and watched another P-51 come in for a landing on the San Severo strip.
This was the same hill he almost crashed into about three days ago.
Same kind of a frivolous day, the same kind of a day that makes a fighter pilot do the things shouldn't oughta do.
Like what Rog did.
He was up around ten-thousand feet, and he looked down at the balloon barracks, and thought, "It'd be great to go down there and just dust that off."
He rolled over into one of those whining dives that only a Mustang can throw itself into, and was down around five-thousand feet, below the tops of the hills, coming into the valley, when suddenly, the plane ...went into a terrible yaw!
Rogers' first instincts told him, as the plane whipped over onto its' back, that the rudder, the vertical control at the rear end of the tail, was stuck side-ways for some reason. His head swiveled, turning backwards to verify this.
The rudder was okay!
He was fighting with an out-of-control airplane.
He pulled back the throttle, jammed in the opposite rudder as far as it would go and started to wind the trim controls to relieve the pressure on that rudder pedal.
Still the plane was in a terrible, sickening sideways yaw, heading for the side of this hill, the one on which he was now standing.
A glance at his right wing explained the problem.
The right ammunition door in the top of the wing, had come loose, but had not come off completely, which would have been just fine, but the way this door was sticking up it was spoiling the flow over his right wing control, and causing this terrifying situation.
As the plane decelerated, it began to right itself. It had all the stick and rudder Roger could get into it.
It was a sweating, wilted Roger that called into Gracie Tower, to request permission for emergency procedure.
As luck would have it, Major Buck was in the Tower.
"Hello, Woodbine Five-Nine...Woodbine Five-Nine...Buck here. What is your position?...Over."
"Woodbine Five-Nine here...I'm directly east of the field, about eight-thousand feet. Request permission to either bail out or land this thing at Gracie...Over."
"Woodbine Five-Nine...Buck here. You have permission to do whatever you have to. Be sure you head it out over the Adriatic if you bail out. Do you think you can bring it in?...Over."
"Woodbine Five-Nine here...I practiced the landing at ten-thousand feet, she fell off on the right wing at a hundred and eighty. If you'll clear the end of the runway, I'll bring it in hot...Over."
"Woodbine Five-Nine...Come on in. We'll be ready for you...Out."
Roger had always secretly wanted to experience the bail out. Here was the chance, and yet, how could he part with this airplane?
This is an airplane that he had grown to love.
"Bad Penny 11," it said on the side of his plane, "always comes back."
This was the only P-51 Mustang on San Severo with two spitfire mirrors on it, with screenholes drilled into the back. There was no mistaking when Rog came in for a peel-up, as to who it was.
The high-pitched whine would build up as he came down to the point of the runway, then it would wind down to a dying scream, as the P-51 whipped up into a peel-up.
Lowering the landing gear while upside down, and just about land out of a loop...but not this time...
This time Rog made a long steady approach coming in at well over two-hundred miles an hour, wheels down, no flaps, lots of power. He was trying to come in low enough to touch the runway right at the start.
He was going to need the entire length of the runway, if he was going to save "Bad Penny 11" and himself.
Rog accomplished this, but it was hard to keep the wheels down. He topped the throttle as the wheels touched ground, and down the runway he flew...
Hundred-eighty..hundred-seventy..hundred-fifty..hundred-twenty..hundred..eighty....
Off the end of the runway, in a whirl of dust, sage brush and sand...
Finally.....STOP!
Everything okay.
How lucky can you get?
But dang it all, he'd missed a chance to bail out. He wondered what it would be like.
Then his thoughts turned to his armorer.
Oh, that poor guy.
Major Buck knows what he did. He left off the Zeuss fasteners on the top of that ammunition door. He is really gonna catch it. He might even get court-martialed!
Roger wondered what would happen to the armorer, as he taxied into the revetment where he parked his "Bad Penny".
The armorer and some of the crew members ran over to the plane. Henry, the armorer, had no idea that he was the cause of the problem, and he jumped up on the wing with Sergeant Goenel, the crew chief, and asked, "What's going on? What happened?"
The prop was just making its last turn, as Rog unbuckled his seat-belt and shoulder straps. He undid his oxygen coupling, pulled off his gloves, and gave a deep sigh.
Roger looked up at Henry and said, "Henry, you'd better get lost, man, 'cos Major Buck's on his way over here right now, in that recon, and when he gets here he is going to chew your ear."
Poor Henry! Poor Henry!
You could almost feel him fall through the wing.
He gulped. His face turned red, then white.
"But Lieutenant, er what? How? er..."
Rog pulled off his helmet, wiped his brow with his arm, leaving sweat on the inside of his flight jacket, and pointed to the right wing.
Henry stood up tall, and looked over the canopy at the wing, where the door was half in and half out of the ammo box, looking about as ridiculous as an ammunition box door could look.
"But, Sir, I fastened it down tight, I know I did! I know I did!"
Roger uncoupled his throat-mike and grasped both sides of the cockpit to heave himself out. Both Sergeant Goebel and Henry helped him onto the wing.
"Well, Henry, all I've got to say, is if you'd put that door on properly, you had best find out who put it on improperly. I'll not say another word to you about it."
With that, Roger slid off the wing onto the revetment mat. His knees buckled under him, and he almost went down, but he managed to keep his balance.
He walked into the operations shack, carrying his chute over his shoulder, as Henry and Sergeant Goebel stood there watching.
Lieutenant Roger Revelle, Army of the United States.
Henry turned to Sergeant Goebel, and said, "Man! This sure is a crappy day!"
The chicken was great! Not withstanding the fact that it wasn't Southern Fried.
The squadron had been without flour for three weeks, and it seemed that going without bread was one of the worst fates that could befall an American pilot - no flour - no southern fried! But it tasted great, nevertheless, just roasted.
It was Boudra who spoke, "Ya know, it doesn't seem possible that we could be left out here for three weeks without flour. There must be plenty of flour in the States."
Then it was Maloney who spoke. "Who cares? With chicken like this, who needs bread?"
It was Doc Caldwell who looked out from behind the well-picked ribs of the carcass and said, "I'll tell ya, Boys, we got little to complain about, when you think about those two kids."
Roger put down the last wing bone and said, "Yea, Doc, what about the kids? How are they?"
Lt. Beeman, who had just arrived that day as a brand new pilot to be added to the 31st. Fighter roster, had not said a word up to this point, swallowed his last bite rather hurriedly and said, "What kids are you talking about?"
Doc Caldwell, with his lopsided frown, but serious look he gets when something dead serious comes up, replied, "That's right, you weren't here yet! Well, you see, it was about a week ago, and," he hesitated, long enough to search deeply into the carcass ribs with his teeth, for the last remaining string of meat, and went on, saying, "There were a couple of old Italian women in the shack just South of the fence where we're confined, and that shack is off-limits, see. The G.I's were told to leave those women alone, they're off-limits. But somebody cut a hole in the fence, and the boys kept going back and forth to see the old women. Well, some of the Iti men around, didn't go for this, so they strung up a hand-grenade along the path, so that if anyone tripped the wire, they would be blown up by the grenade. Well, it wasn't any GI's that walked over there and caught this. It was two little kids, a boy and a girl, about 7 and 8 years old, that caught the grenade. We all heard the blast, the terrible explosion, we all knew something had gone wrong over in that direction. I know when I ran over there, I found these two little kids just full of shrapnel. The little girls' leg was blown right off. Rog, you remember helping me put her in the ambulance. It was just terrible, and neither one of those little kids cried. Guess they were in shock."
Rog turned to Beeman and said, "Yea, I never thought they'd make it to the hospital. They were so white."
Maloney injected, "Those 'dogies' should've known better than to kept seeing those two little babes. You should have seen them like my Grandma."
The memory of that horrible moment made a chill run down Rogers' spine, as he sat there unable to shake off the thought of those two unfortunate children. His thoughts turned to little Bethy......
"I wonder what Wilma and Bethy are doing right now?"
Bethy was five months old when Wilma had brought her down to Wako, Texas, on Christmas Day. The loneliest Christmas Roger had ever known, up until the moment that Wilma and Bethy drove up to the front of the barracks, at 7:00pm, in their beautiful little '38 Plymouth convertible. Sea foam green with white side-wall tires and a black top.
He remembered how he'd been upstairs in the barracks all by himself - alone - The tears had come because ...it was a lonely day.
Then he heard the horn. It wasn't an ordinary horn - you couldn't mistake it, because it played, "Mary Had A Little Lamb" with three push buttons.
It was a cold day for Texas, and he had dashed down the stairs and out to the car, pulled open the door, leaned across and grasped Wilma in his arms and kissed her quickly and hard.
One of the things he had not been prepared for was the smell of a baby who had been travelling. Being cooped up in the car, of course, Wilma had grown accustomed to it, and had not noticed.
This was something that was new to Roger. This was his first child, although she was five months old, he was not quite yet prepared to be a father.
That was SOME NIGHT!
Trying to find a place to stay, buying formula, going to the travellers aid, to try to find a room, listening to a cranky baby cry, seeing the Sweetheart of his dreams look wilted, slightly plumper, with wisps of hair where they hadn't oughta be. Tiny spit-up stains on her shoulder.
What a lousy war! No place to stay....
Then one of those things happened, that sometimes happens in lousy wars.
A Mrs. Babson called in to Travellers Aid on her own volition, and announced to them that she had a place for a serviceman and his wife, if they had someone who needed it.
The Travellers Aid lady motioned to us and we went over to her, not having any idea that such a thing could have happened.
Wilma thanked the Travellers Aid lady so profusely and so many times, that Roger had to take her by the arm and lead her away, while she was still asking the Travellers Aid lady to come and visit us sometime.
It was funny how Wilma could make friends anywhere she went, and she always seemed to talk about homey things. Never getting into the subject of politics or religion or cultural things - but homey things. Things people really deep down, want to talk about.
I guess that was the secret of her friendliness. I'm not that way. I respond alright, to friendly feelings to I don't seek them.
The Babson's were lovely people. They just loved Bethy, as they had no children of their own.
They were surprised when we did bring a child into the house, and a little bit apprehensive, but it wasn't long before they ignored the sounds that a baby makes in the night, and the various messes a five-month old can get into.
We had three days.
On the morning of the third day, the Babson's surprised us with a jumper kind of a swing that they put in their kitchen. They bought and paid for it themselves. so that Bethy could bounce and jump around.
It was the greatest thing.
Ever hear a five-month old whistle?
Well, Bethy could whistle, not a tune, but by sucking her breath in and out and holding her lips in a certain way, she could whistle.
Oh! She was the greatest!
Those were two happy days, out of the three, anyhow. The unhappy day, being the day of out first meeting, and the loneliness and the dejection and the doldrums that we were both in. She calls it a blue-front now.
The only other time in the Service that I had ever felt this bad, was when we first arrived in civilian clothes in Miami Beach, and had to stay in one of those great big expensive hotels only we slept on the marble floor of the lobby, and the toilets were full right up to the top, and unable to be flushed, and guys were coughing and one guy died!
The food was great, but no uniforms. We marched out in the dust and the dirt, in our overcoats and civilian suits that we had worn down there on the terrible train-ride, from Pennsylvania while in a coach.
Those were days when I remember marching along the street watching every car I could peek into, to see if there were some keys in it. If I had found a car with the keys in it, I would have taken off.
Basic training is rough for anybody with the thought of being able to go to pre-flying in San Antonio, thing looked up.
Then there was another low-life spot at San Antonio in pre-flight, where I was attempting to do a 1½ of a full twist in the military pool at Kelly Field, and I lost it, landing on my left ear, breaking the ear-drum.
It was John who got me out of that one. John went up in the air-chamber for me. That's where they take you up to altitude inside of an air-chamber.
Of course, I knew my ear wouldn't stand it, as it was just beginning to heal. I went to his class, and he became Roger Revel, cadet, as he went into the air-chamber.
Good old John, wonder what happened to John.
I know he washed out of flight training at one of those airfields up in Kansas.
I liked John so much, I even went to Mass with him one Sunday, even though I'm not a Catholic.
We were both sent up to Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the Armies College Training Programme, where we spent four months together. That's where we met "Moon" and the three of us kind of pall'd around together.
Moon had SOME wife. Molly! There was a woman!
She was really in love with Moon and Frank Sinatra records. She was nuts about the way John walked, and I remember one afternoon when we were alone together, listening to Sinatra records, which didn't seem to thrill me the way they thrilled her, and I tried to kiss her.
She kept telling me I couldn't do that to Wilma, and she was right, I really shouldn't and couldn't.
Those were the days when we had good times together. We put up with all the inconveniences of the wives having to live together in grubby rooms with cockroaches when you turned off the light.
They would scramble down the drain, and crawl out of the corners.
Those were days when we got prickly heat and had to use some kind of Mexican powder to make yourself comfortable.
Those were days when we all lived out of suitcases and barracks bags, and we could see one another, only at brief interludes, and once a week overnight, but this was cadet training and cadet friendship!
It was Moon that taught me one of the most impressive lessons of my life.
One day when we were discussing the war over in Germany, I made the foolish, unthinking remark, "Well at least Hitler's getting rid of all the Jews."
With that, Moon stopped dead still and looked me straight in the eye and said, "Would you like to get rid of me, too?"
And I said, "Heck, no, What do you mean?"
With that same piercing look in his eye, Moon said, "Well, I'm a Jew!"
I don't really ever remember before in my entire life, ever wanting to be forgiven or to ask someone to forgive me, and to this day, I have never said anything against the Jewish people again, and Moon never seemed to hold it against me.
Moon and I quietly rounded up all the guys in the barracks to stand in a circle around John, and as we awakened him, WOW!
Now here is a case when I don't think John has quite forgiven us for this.
Doc Caldwell had a silly grin on his face, when he looked straight into Rogers' eyes, and he said, " What's so funny, Son?"
Then Roger realised that he had that same silly grin on his own face.
As he sat there twirling the well-picked chicken bone, Roger let out a little chuckle and extended his grin into a wide smile.
"Doc, I guess I was daydreaming for a minute. I was thinking of something that happened way back when I was a cadet."
Doc Caldwell had to laugh, too, because Rogers' chuckle was contagious.
He said, " Well, Rog, you get all the laughs you can now, because this is a lousy war!"
There were eleven pilots on the battered olive-drab recon vehicle. Several clinging to the front fenders. Others hanging on where they could. Barely daylight, the air was crisp and bitey, and it was easy to make your breath look like you were exhaling cigarette smoke.
The briefing had been swift this morning. Clear and concise. Directly to the point.
The Colonel had done that.
After listening to which way the bombers were going to go, where we were going to meet them, which direction they were going to come in on the target, and where we were supposed to go after they left the target, and all the other details of a Mission to Munich, better known on the map as "Munchen," the Colonel got up on the little platform, so that he hovered above the pilots, sitting on the small bomb-stands, that were used as seats, in the interrogation and briefing tent.
He spread-eagled his legs, put his hands on his hips, and with his flight jacket on, and his hat with the fifty-mission crush in it, he looked out under his dark brows, and said,
"If a P38 so much as points his nose at you - shoot him down. Now I've said it, and I will take the responsibility, and that's the way it's going to be. You heard what I said. Is there anyone who did not hear what I said? Is it clear to everyone?"
Every pilot in the room, as well as the Operations Officers and sergeants, and the exec's gave back the same piercing look to the Colonel, as he gave to them. Their attention was undivided.
As the recon bounced along the dirt road to the airstrip, the same thought kept rolling back and forth in Rogers' mind.
What would the folks back in the States think, if they knew there was a war going on between the Lockheed Lightnings and the North American Mustangs?
A war just as declared as the war we were in against the axis.
A war where everyone involved would probably be too ashamed to ever talk about.
It all started innocently enough.
One of our new P-51 pilots, elated by the thought of being able to buzz and fly close to the ground, really cut a swat for himself when he accidentally buzzed over a P-38 fighter field.
Most of the older pilots knew that it was too much taboo to do this, because we knew that we would receive retaliation, and nobody likes all that dust kicked up around their tents, from the twin tops of a P-38.
One of our boys even made the mistake of dusting off a bomber base, and they retaliated by going over our tent area with a B-24, about tent-high level.
About eight tents went down.
It was like being in a tornado!
That was the morning the Colonel told the boys in the briefing that if any pilot ever went over and dusted off a bomber field again, they'll not even come back, because he would personally tear them apart.
So now, here's this P-51 pilot buzzing gayly along.
A P-38 pilot sights him below, and decides to dust him off while he's right down on the tree-tops.
Well, this was an unthinking thing, on the part of the P-38 pilot, who still remains anonymous, because the minute he zoomed down over the nose of the P-51, the P-51 wavered in the prop-wash of the twin engines of the P-38, flipped over, and hit the ground in a great ball of fire and black smoke.
END OF PILOT.
This act was confirmed by witnesses on the ground, and was very much the subject of discussion in the various P-51 groups that day.
Later that afternoon, two P-38's were buzzing along, and a lone P-51 zoomed down out of the sky, right in front of one of the P-38's, and flipped him over in the prop-wash, and he hit the ground in a great burst of fire and flame and black smoke.
END OF PILOT #2.
The next day in the target area, a lone P-38 was seen to attack a P-51. They both went into a cloud, neither one has ever returned. The next day, a P-51 pointed his nose at a B-24, innocently enough the B-24 let him have it. He went down in flames.
END OF THAT PILOT.
Later that afternoon, there was a regular dog fight (without bullets) over San Severo, between P-51's and P-38's.
Speaking of fear, that Warner and Warren - Two chickens if ever I saw them.
Like this morning, when I came in to wake them up and told them they were on the roster for the mission.
Warner's first question was, "Where are we going today?"
I knew that if I had answered Zagreb, or one of the easy milk-run missions that we have occasionally, he would have been ready to go.
However, when I said Munich, he started to cough and sneeze, and said that he didn't feel very good, and didn't think he would be able to go today.
Warren knew how I felt about him, and didn't say a word. He was on the roster and he was gonna go.
Every pilot was waiting to see if he would drop his tanks, as he had been doing on all the rough missions to which he was assigned.
Whenever a rough mission came up, Warren would drop his tanks on the runway.
One morning, the crew-chiefs were ready for him. They had a dolly with two more tanks all ready for him out on the runway, so that when he dropped his tanks, saying that they accidentally released themselves on the runway, they went right out with the dolly and put new tanks right back up there, and dog-gone it, if he didn't drop them again on takeoff.
Now, that's dirty pool.
What makes a man so afraid that he would do a thing like that?
Why doesn't he just come right out and quit?
Why doesn't he just come out and say, "I'm scared, and I can't do it!"
Instead of all this sham.
He's had fifteen early returns, that means, he's come back fifteen times before he got to the target, stating that he had engine trouble or a tank fell out or that his oxygen equipment wasn't working, and the crew chiefs were absolutely disgusted because they could never find anything wrong.
Once they did.
Warner was almost as bad. He had nine early returns.
The two of them were like peas in a pod, big handsome faces, baby-like faces, with those big kissable lips that the girls like, I guess.
Funny thing, too, how none of the pilots ever threw this up to them, at least not to my knowledge anyway.
I never heard anyone say anything about it.
Then there was Fisk, too, who always complained about having a bad back.
He told us once, that no-one could ever prove that there was nothing wrong with your back, if you said you had something wrong with it.
He kind of picked his missions, a little bit, too.
He was the only one who came back out of a flight of four that got jumped over the North end of Italy, off the Coast, and that's where Johnny Myers bought it.
A lot of the guys say that Fisk ran away, how are you gonna prove it?
No-body saw it yet with all these phony guys.
This is the best outfit with one of the best records in the E.T.O.
There were guys like Maloney who became beligerant at the first shot of whiskey, or rather, cognac, which is all he had mixed in grapefruit juice.
If you want a rotten drink, that's it!
He would fight at the drop of a hat.
Good kid, Maloney, except that he shouldn't drink.
He gets up on top of the bar and says, "I'm spinning in", and he would spin off the top of that bar and depend on someone to catch him everytime, because he closed his eyes, and spun in, and the guys would always catch him.
I don't know how he got through that war without fracturing his skull.
Then there was little Red Taylor.
He's the first guy to live after ditching a P-51 in the water.
He was taking off the coast of Southern France, on a special mission, the engine quit on take-off and he accidentally stuck one wing into the water first.
This spun his plane around backwards and it landed in the water in this position.
He was able to free himself from the cockpit before the plane sank.
The P-51 has a reputation and a record of hitting the water going forward.
The water catches in that big scope underneath the pilots' cockpit, and the plane noses down just like a submarine, never coming back up.
It just keeps going down.
So the pilot doesn't have a chance trying to belly-in a P-51.
Until pilots learned this little trick from Red Taylor, who wheeled one in backwards.
So now that is standard operating procedure. (SOP in the technicians manuals).
Red was a nervous little feller.
The kind that constantly reached with his thumb over to his third finger, and twirled his wedding ring.
No, it wasn't the wedding ring, it was a black stone with a little diamond in it, 'cos now I remember, Red writes faithfully to that gal of his, who is about three inches taller than he is, but he doesn't care, and neither does she.
Maybe it's that cruddy red hair, and those freckles that get the gals.
Then there's Lt. Harwood, a good Mormon boy from Idaho, by far the cleanest looking guy in the whole bunch, and with some real good standards, too.
I guess he was probably the best example in the whole group.
We had some interesting discussions about the Mormon Church, and actually I found out that the Mormon Church is really called "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", and Lt. Harwood, was what they call a Latter-day Saint.
The word Mormon is just a nickname for the Book of Mormon, which is supposed to be a record of the people on this Continent, or I should say, the American Continent.
I forgot that I am way over here in Italy, now.
Roger woke from his thoughts, which were interrupted by the clatter of the runway mat under the wheels of the Re-con.
He could barely make out the forms of the crew chiefs working over the airplanes, preparing them and topping off the tanks with gasoline, getting them ready for this mission to Munich.
The brake-drums on the Re-con really squeeled as they stopped before the operations shack.
There by the door stood Henry.
"Hi, Lt. Revelle, Good Morning, Sir," said Henry.
"Good Morning, Corporal," said Roger, as he started to pass Henry to enter the operations shack.
He stopped and said, "Henry, are you sure you have all the Zeuss-fasteners down tight?"
Henry gave his head a nervous jiggle, chuckled and said, "Yes Sir, I'm sure. I checked 'em twice."
Roger merely gave Henry a smile, with the center of his lower lip in an arch, winked, and went on into the operations shack to get a cup of coffee.
He glanced over at the early-return board, noting that Warren was still at fifteen, and Warner was at nine.
Roger is the only one in the squadron who has had more than ten missions, but no early returns.
Well, they'll come a day, I suppose.
A secret thought went through his mind. That of being able to show Warner and Warren that a guy could fly all his missions without any early returns.
What a stupid ambition!
He actually snorted out loud to himself.
Then he went over to check the whiskey chart.
This chart told who had whiskey coming, because each pilot received a shot of whiskey after each mission.
You could take the shot immediately after the mission, or you could save it up until you had a whole bottle.
You could even split a bottle with another pilot - half his and half yours.
It was getting up to the point where Rog almost had a full bottle!
Green River!
Where did they ever find that whiskey?
Green River!
It was Green River Whiskey that Rog had paid $17 for to an elevator boy in Arkansas, because in Arkansas you take your own bottle in, and they provide the set-ups.
Crazy law, but that's the way it was.
We bought this bottle, drove into Little Rock, and as Wilma opened the door, no that's not the way it was, the doorman opened the door, and as he did so, the bottle of Green River rolled out and smashed right on the sidewalk.
What a mess!
What an entrance!
Well!
That was the end of my evening.
Green River!
Lt. Harwood was getting his up to a full bottle, too.
Wonder what he's gonna do with his?
Mormons don't drink, you know.
In fact, they don't even drink coffee or tea.
Or smoke either.
How do those Mormons get up in the morning???
He may trade for candy bars, but I like candy bars, too.
What am I gonna do?
Oh, well!
I got bigger problems than this!
Rog stepped outside of the operations shack.
He could just see the light coming up over the mountains now that surrounded the valley of San Severo, on the eastern edge.
He could just make out the Monastery at the top.
Wonder if there are any more chickens over there?
Funny thing, he thought.
What would the headlines read today?
"Twenty-two Year Old Fighter Pilot Steals Chicken."
Or would it read, "California Pilot Becomes Ace"
Wilma had sent him clippings from his hometown newspaper, telling of some of his exploits, and transfers from one place to another, and so on.
A couple of the articles made pretty good reading...if you like Flash Gordon!
We had a pretty good publicity officer in the squadron, and he was always at his best when he was writing up a story about one of our daring, dashing pilots.
Especially the 22-year-old ones.
Being a fighter pilot was nothing like they showed in those crappy war movies that we got to see once in a while.
All the hooting and hollering you hear in the movie when one pilot hollers over to another pilot in another plane, and they can understand each other...That's a big laugh!!!
Or when they get out onto the wing and pull down the landing gear while hanging onto the bottom of the plane, and all such impossible feats.
We didn't throw all our glasses into the fireplace, either, or steal one another's belongings when a guy went down.
We did, however, go through his stuff to see if there was anything he wouldn't want his wife or mother to see, and if he had any good sun glasses, ammo or weapons.
These things were confiscated, and divided up, as there was a shortage of these items out here in the war zone.
As Roger walked out to his revetment, called "Bad Penny 11", he heard footsteps behind him.
He heard Lt. First's voice...
"Hey Rog, I'm taking a page out of your book!"
Rog turned to look.
He saw that Lt. First was stuffing candy bars in the knee pockets of his flight coveralls.
Rog answered with a grin, "Well, I always say they'll come in mighty handy while you're sitting in one of those concentration camps!"
They waved and went to their separate airplanes.
Roger stepped up on the wing of his plane, entered the cockpit and started the engine.
He taxied out of his revetment onto the taxi-strip, following the P-51's ahead of him as they zig-zagged back and forth.
Most people don't realise this, but you can't see through the nose of a P-51 when it is taxi-ing.
The nose sticks out in front of you at an angle and you cannot see ahead.
You must look out the side, so you have to zig-zag when you taxi in order to see where you are going.
As he paused at the end of the strip before taking off, a silly thought entered his mind.
He thought he was one of those movie pilots, and this was the spot in the movie where he would let his white scarf blow in the breeze, look directly into the camera, and shout,
"Geronimo!"
FLACK! - - - Nine o'clock High!
Roger had already seen this - the flack.
He said, quietly, but calmly, "Ninety Right, Woodbine."
You could see the tremendous formation of bombers high up at twelve-o'clock.
They were going into their bomb-run and the flack would soon become quite intense.
Roger had witnessed this time and time again, mission after mission.
The bombers going in and bucking this flack.
At Munich, there were six-hundred guns, every gun pointed upward.
These guns were all coded to different barrages.
The Germans would wait until they saw the bombers turn on their bomb-run, and then they would approximate their course and altitude and call a certain number to all six-hundred guns.
Each gunner would then position his gun to a certain spot in the sky.
He would set the altitude dial on every shell to go off at the same altitude and then he would start firing as fast as he could.
These patterns were figured so that no bomber could fly through, theoretically, without being hit.
However, time and again, bombers would get through without going down, although they might quite possibly be hit with this flack.
The sky was black already, in this one-mile square cube where the six-hundred guns kept firing.
The bombers never moved off their course.
We couldn't see the bombs go down, but we could see the bombers bucking that flack.
There goes one!
A big ball of fire in the sky.
There goes another one.
Another ball of fire, and then the ball of fire spreads into smaller particles, like engines, wings, and other pieces of airplane, and pilots and crew and parachutes.
Boy!
There's no chicken in us bombers!
People think fighter pilots live a dangerous life, but any fighter pilot would tell you that he wouldn't trade jobs with a bomber pilot for anything.
"Flack at eleven-o'clock level," came the voice over "C" channel - the secret channel that the 31st Fighter Squadron operated on.
"Ninety Left, Woodbine," said Roger confidently.
Then a voice cracked over the air, "Have no fear, the Rock is here!"
This made Roger smile, because he knew they were referring to him because many times he was affectionately known as "Roger the Rock."
This was mostly due to the reputation he had attained through friendly rat-racing, as it was known.
That is dog fighting with one another, whereas no-one as yet, had defeated him, or rather bested him in friendly dog fights.
Roger thought about this for just a moment and wondered what made it so.
Could it be that being a California hot-rodder and handling high speed pieces of machinery had something to do with it?
Was it his attitude, being the kind of a nut that tries almost anything once?
Or was it because of co-ordination being a diver and a tumbler?
He thought of the times he had given exhibitions at the Y.M.C.A. on the trampoline.
I wonder what the major would say if he knew that Roger had the aneroid removed from my engine so that I could get more than 60 inches of manifold pressure at anytime to give me that extra energy boost that none of the other pilots had in their airplanes.
This was dangerous because if the boost went up over a certain point it would explode.
72-inches of manifold pressure held for one minute, which is considered war emergency, is enough to melt the engine.
Roger had once pulled 115-inches on takeoff.
There goes another bomber!
I hope they all get out.
No chutes.
That one blew too hard.
They must have got the bomb-rack.
The colonel always said, as we went off on a mission, "Be careful, boys."
How in the heck can you be careful flying in a bomber like that?
Something my primary flight training instructor used to say was, "There are plenty of old pilots, and plenty of bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."
That's what Wilma always used to say, too.
"Be careful."
Guess she got it from her dad, 'cause whenever I would take her out on a date, her dad would say, "Be good, and have a good time."
Wilma would always turn to her dad, with that one-sided grin of hers, and say, "Make up your mind, dad. Which do you want?"
He would throw back his head, laugh, and say, "Well, be careful anyway."
At this point I think it would be a good idea to bring-up the important aspects of our courtship. Bring up the fact that Warren & Warner both had early returns. Bring in the eleven left fight, where I shot down two planes, and Harwood is on my wing, and we return with the missing engine, bending the wings, bending the valves, being listed as Missing IN Action, taking a drink of whiskey at the end.