I was born in the four room house by the branch--across the sand lane from the big house of Grandpa Hammond. My earliest memories are of Evelyn and our play-like ``Plack'' games. I've always regretted breaking the head off her favorite doll (I hit it on the brass bed footrail) in a spell of rebellion.
Then came my ties with John and Paul. We always got a big Christmas present to ``share.'' A small farm wagon for which we took turns being the horses. The horses always got whipped and addressed in Papa's language. That was one of our most durable gifts. Our B.B. gun was broken before daylight so we never got to rabbit hunt with it.
Christmas was always good. I never felt neglected, cheated or poor. Mama was an artist at making us feel important and fulfilled. This is of my baby and infant years up to my school years and what I will call my boyhood years. My boyhood years were with John and Paul. We played, worked together and fought together. It was generally the three of us against the world and occasionally it was one against the other. I remember on one occasion that John did something and Paul was going to tell on him. We were in the field across the branch over next to Frank Robley's field chopping cotton and Paul was going to tell on him so he crammed his mouth full of dirt so he couldn't tell but Paul made enough noise that I decided that John needed a whipping about that so I set in on John and when I did Paul jumped on me. I decided then that Paul did not need defending against John because they were a pretty good pair. I couldn't handle both of them. That was the last time I gave Paul much defense against John.
We improvised or invented our own entertainment. We made rattletraps and Sam, Kenneth and Mack gave us patterns when we saw them make rattletraps and flying jennies. We would get buggy wheels, any kind of wheel, anything that would roll and make us a rattletrap or go-cart out of it. Most of us have scars to prove that we really used them. I have a scar on my ankle where I almost cut my leg off with a little wagon we made, a kind of flat bed deal, that we would ride down the hill, and the wheel cut back under the bed and gave me a pretty good gash on my ankle and I still carry a scar from that. In fact I have several scars that I can identify but we played and had fun. We usually had Saturday afternoons off and we played in the creek or anywhere we could play. The highway was coming through in those years and we could get a rattletrap sometimes on the highway while it was still closed. We had fun in riding them down the clay hills mostly. You could come down at a pretty fast speed and you would get into a pretty deep ditch now and then--deep enough that it would take all of us to get the rattletrap out. Sometimes you would just leave it in there if you were in bad enough shape but usually we were able to ride it out.
There was the time that an airplane came nearby. We were in
the creek bottom and the airplane landed in what is now Malesus
Heights at a little airfield that Grady Montgomery had
developed there. An old tri-motored Ford plane came in and they
put on a little show. On Saturday afternoon they were taking riders
up for 50 cents each. 
I did not know anyone who had fifty cents but there
were some people riding it. Most of them must have been from out of
town because there were a lot of people I did not know.
One of the entertainments they had was a motorcycle riding through a flaming wall. He hit, flames and all, and went right through it. We decided that we could handle a deal like that ourselves so I built a wall out of orange crates and we had an old Indian motorcycle frame that Grandpa had somehow gotten out of the garbage pile on one of his milk route trips. We kept it in pretty good rolling shape so I rode down the hill by the hog lot fence. They would holler ``ready on the firing line'' and we would answer ``ready in the pit'' and here I would come down and I went right through the orange crate without any trouble. It was not on fire but it was no trouble getting through. I went up for another run and had to put the wheel back on the motorcycle. While I was doing that John, Paul, C. A. and Lloyd Hamilton and a bunch of others were working on the wall for me to go through. Since I had broken up all the orange crates they got them some one-inch boards and whatever they could scrounge up out of the hog and barn lot and nailed them up pretty good and braced them. When I got ready to ride again I do not know why it didn't occur to me that they had been working on the wall too long. I was ready to ride and they were ready for me to come. When I came down that hill I hit that wall and it did not even vibrate. I went right over the top of it through a hog wire fence and still have several scars that remind me of that ride. That was my last time to ride through the flaming wall. I never will forget how they all laughed and rolled over and there I was with both my arms and my head stuck through that hog wire fence and couldn't get out. They finally got me out. We had our own entertainment and it was good and wholesome, even though it got dangerous at times.
We cleared thickets and we did a little of this and that to pay for our antics. Papa would always find a thicket that needed clearing when we would get into something that we should not be into. He would find some way to engage us in something that he knew we did not like to do and of course clearing thickets was one of them.
We had horse races too. We would put the mules and horses in the upper pasture on the old Cottingim place where Miss Florence Pacaud Patton used to live and we would go up there on Sunday afternoons, bridle them all up and we would race. We knew which horses were the fastest and it wasn't much of a contest just to ride the horses so we would handicap it a bit by everyone having to ride sideways. Riding sideways meant that sometimes you would not go too fast and sometimes you would fall off and had to get back on so what made the race was the person who could stay on the horse. You could not lead the horse--you had to get back on it if you fell off. I never will forget a little old red mule we had named Tom. You could hardly stay on that little round scoundrel. You would fall off and hang on his neck and he would stop. You would have to crawl back on. I have fallen off as many as three or four times in one race. I don't think I ever won a race, come to think of it.
All this time Sam, Kenneth and Mack were growing up. Mack was working here and there because he had dropped out of school by the time I was in the fourth or fifth grade and maybe even before that. Mack would work at Wests Blacksmith Shop, worked on Ford cars at a garage, at the dairy for Mr. Fred and Jim Day, and at the State Forest Nursery. Mack was all over while Kenneth and Sam were in school and learning I guess. As I got bigger I decided that I should play with them instead of playing with John and Paul so much. That did not work out too good because they had Jimmy Harton and Pat Black and others to play with and I was too little to get included very often. I did go with them one time when Kenneth and Jimmy Harton had an acting pole up in the woods and they would chin themselves and do other things and I thought I ought to be able to handle that so they helped me up on it. I did a few loops and skinned the cat a few time before my hands slipped and I fell flat of my back and knocked the breath out of me. I could hear them laughing and hear what they were saying. They decided that I was just clowning and there was not anything wrong with me and they were going to walk off and leave me. I pretty well panicked that time because I did not have any breath and I was not sure I would ever be able to breath again but I knew what was going on and that they were leaving me there. They did not go very far before they came back and shoved me around a bit and got me to breathing again and I don't feel much effect of it now. These were growing up years.
John was always getting me into trouble. He would get into trouble and I would have to take up for him. Many times I would let him fight it out but when someone bigger than him would jump on him I would have to get involved. John was not too particular who he picked a scrap with and sometimes they were too big for me . John kept us entertained all the time in school because he was always into something. Of course my cousin Eugene Watlington would come out every summer and Eugene was older than I was and knew a lot of city tricks I did not know anything about and he could talk me into a lot of things I should not be in such as throwing clods at trucks and cars, running off and leaving the little fellows alone, getting me into trouble with Papa and the neighbors.
One time we were going along by the little house where I was born that had a tin roof. We had moved over to the big house after Grandpa Hammond's death and late one afternoon just at dusk we were going from the creek to the house and Eugene ran ahead and I was coming along behind and the next thing I knew I heard the awfuliest racket and I realized what was happening. Eugene had gotten himself an armload of clods and was throwing them on the tin roof and about the time the clods hit the roof he ran and got under the bridge. Here came Lizzie Haynes and two or three others out of that house and there I am standing in the middle of the road, nobody else around. This is one poor child that got a good, genuine first class cussing, Lizzie Haynes style, and I had not done one thing to deserve it. I did not do one thing but stand there with my mouth open and say nothing. I walked on over to the bridge and of course I had a few things to say to Eugene when he came out from under that bridge but I couldn't put it in the same class as Lizzie Haynes had done it. She knew how to address you when you had displeased her. Eugene could always get me into enough trouble with my neighbors that it would take me the rest of the year to get back on good terms with them and then here he would come again next summer. In the city he earned the nickname ``Roughhouse.''
After I got out of high school I started to Lambuth one quarter but I did not have any money and no way to make any money and Kenneth was in school and I was smart enough to know that he needed to stay there. Papa said he would help me if he could but I knew he could not help me. While I was in Lambuth there were some Civilian Conservation Corps boys going to school there and they were taking courses for credit and I could not see why I could not get into the C.C.C. camp and go to college. Those boys were. I could get my college work done at the same time I was getting paid for it so I joined the C.C.C. camp.
Well, they did not send me to Jackson. They sent me to Camp Polk in Louisiana and they just sent me down there to get on the train to Secret Valley California, Litchfield, Ca. They called it Secret Valley because no one knew where it was or how to get there. It was in the sage brush country and it was not uncommon to see wildcats or cougars and herds of deer, all the time. Of course we saw sheep herders all the time, cattle herds on the move. We were supposed to be developing roads, trails and finding water and we did some good -- a worthwhile project.
I was in the field for a while and then they put me in the dispensary--assistant to the doctor. I was in charge of the infirmary. We had several doctors at different times and they would teach me first aid, a little about this and that and it was educational for me. There was always something happening and one Sunday afternoon I heard a noise outside--a stampede. We kept the door of the dispensary locked at certain hours--I can't remember just why. A boy came to the door and I let him in. He said they were after him. It was a boy from Florida that was on quarters all the time. I don't know if his body was as bad off as his brain but he thought it was. I gave him a little haven for a while and told the other boys to go on and leave him alone. It was cool and I had two or three men in the infirmary and I had to build a fire back in the ward for them so old Patterson said, ``let me build that fire,'' and I said yes. He laid the fire with paper and kindling. He wanted the liquid to put on it. Gasoline was off limits but I had a little back in the laundry room and told him where it was and he got it and I heard him pouring it on--glug, glug, glug. I told him he had better let me light that match and he said no. He had on one of those old blue denim hats, he stuck his head in that stove and threw a match in it and WHOOM, that hat took off and it flew all the way across that room to the wall on the other side. He stood back, rubbed his eyebrows and said, that is pretty potent. I agreed with him that it was pretty potent. I never did let him build another fire for me. I got by with that and I sure was glad. Lot of things happened.
We moved from Secret Valley to Gerlach, Nevada, north of Reno. That was a good move. Before we moved over there though, we had been out there six months and I never had seen anyone I had ever seen in my life. This was in 1938 and Hitler was beating his war drums and we would get Life magazine with pictures and some of the boys said we were going to be sent right on over to Germany without getting to go by home. Those boys were mostly older, meaner and uglier than me and I thought they knew what they were talking about. I laid in bed and cried myself to sleep several nights; just a whole lot of nights. I would not write home about it but it did look gloomy for a while.
After this they brought a busload of recruits in and among them a bunch of Pinson boys who were a bunch of trash that we played baseball and basketball and scrapped with. Some of the worst were the Simmons and Sparks boys and wouldn't you know it, off that bus came Bill Sparks, one of the worst of the whole bunch. Old Bill saw me and I saw him and we ran up and hugged each other like we had not seen each other for a long time. We were long lost brothers--old Bill Sparks and I were good friends and still are. We were strangers in a strange land and it was sure good to see someone you knew.
Then we moved over to Gerlach about a hundred miles east in Nevada. That was a different story. I never did go to the field over there but the company was doing much of the same thing--developing watering sites for cattle and building trails. I was still taking care of the sick and wounded. That is a pretty good job in itself. There are a lot of good memories there--some not so good. I had a lot of defense there--but one doctor that was not so good. I did not know it at the time but he had decided to get rid of me because he could not use me in some of the undercover businesses he wanted to operate and I did not know anything about it until the day he left there. Grover, an old German supply sergeant that had been into everything you could get into in Middle Tennessee, came over and said I did not have to worry about my doctor anymore and I did not know enough to worry. But he said the doctor was worried about me and he told me the whole story then. As soon as the supply sergeant and the company clerk found out that the doctor wanted to get rid of me they began checking to see what was wrong with the doctor and they found out and they got him out of there.
I made some good friends out there. One was old Claude Chandler; I still hear from them each Christmas with a card and that is just part of the rewards of being a maverick I guess. It was good to get back home.
When I left home going to the U.S. Military Service in 1940, John was in the National Guard and they mobilized the National Guard. I had made a crop with Papa that Summer and I told John that he could not go down to Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C. by himself. He thought he could make it OK but I said he could not make it by himself so I volunteered and they put me in the medical detachment. That was the only place they had room for me. I went down there and served for a year , then got out and came back. John was not enlisted for a year--he was in the National Guard and would serve until FDR or Hitler or whoever got through with them. I got out when my year was up. In the meantime Mama died. I was down there and got a wire one Friday afternoon that Mama was bad sick and that I should come home. The Major was not there--he was gone for the week-end and the person in charge could not give me a pass. I told him I had to go and when the Major gets back tell him where I am. I hitchhiked all the way home and Mama died just a few hours after I got home. All the time I was thinking I was AWOL but they sent flowers from the Medical Detachment for Mama's funeral. I was hoping they would not lynch me when I got back. I went back as soon as I could and there was never a word said to me.
Our year in Fort Jackson was a wasted year for most of us but I guess we did begin to formulate a little bit of an army. By the time I left there in September 1941 we were beginning to get a little bit of equipment. Up until that time we had been simulating weapons and medical supplies. We waited for everything, we walked everywhere--no trucks. We were even simulating artillery but by late 1941 we were beginning to get a little material, a few trucks and some equipment. I got out after my year but John was with National Guard and was there. They were getting some recruits in. I think the draft had started.
I came home and in December war was declared. I volunteered for the Army Air Corps; had to go to Memphis to take a test and that guy was anxious to get some recruits. You were supposed to have two years of college before you could take the test. Since war had been declared they waived that requirement and when he was grading my paper he looked over a few more things and said I had passed. He checked it a time or two while I was taking the test and told me to skip over the math and get some of the easy ones. I did that and passed. They put me on a waiting list and I was here all that summer of 1942 working for the County Board of Education.
Paul had bought old QE , the old 1928 Pontiac
and had gone to work in Milan and Paris with construction. Later he
left old QE here and Elton, Joe and me had a real good Summer. Since
QE was an old farm truck it was allowed to get a pair of new tires.
Paul paid for it in cash; I think it cost $60. It needed some work
on it but we had a real Summer. I made a crop that Summer and rode
QE; and Paul, Sam and Mack were busting their butts up at Paris,
Tenn., into Alabama and Flordia building army bases. I guess that was
the easiest Summer I ever had but it was not a pleasant time. I would
go to town and I would meet some woman who would say, ``I thought you
would be gone. I thought you would be in the service. What are you
doing here?'' And it would make me fighting mad. It got to where I
did not want to go to town at all. I was in reserve and they would
not call me and I would call them and tell them to call me or let me
out to join the army. No way they would let you out--you
wait. And wait I did. It wasn't all enjoyable.
But I had a very good summer with my family. Papa and I had a good relationship and everything was a ball for Elton and Joe. Betty was getting up good size then and was enjoying school. Evelyn was with Western Union then and I nearly broke her neck riding to work one morning. I was driving a County School Board truck and she was riding with me every morning going to work and at a place where there was a bridge there was just a hole in the road and I knew where it was--in front of Shorty Cupples' house. I braced myself on the steering wheel but Evelyn was not aware of it and she nearly broke her neck. She really frailed me about that for a long time.
I believe in January of 1943 they called me and told me to report to Nashville. I got on a train and rode to Nashville. My ticket called for a pullman. They said I did not need a pullman but I insisted my ticket called for one and made them give me one. I had to get up in about thirty minutes. I was in Nashville for about a week before they sent us on down to Maxwell Field, Biloxi, Miss. Then we went to Union City Tenn. for primary flight training and to Malden, Missouri for basic and to Blytheville, Arkansas, a few miles on down the road, for advanced twin engine training. I graduated from there in the Fall of 1943.
All this time I am an enlisted man in cadet training and I was discharged and commissioned a flight officer from Blytheville and went from there to Alamogordo, N.M for phase training. They would take one class of pilots and put them in transition training and then the next class graduated and they sent us as their co-pilots. They would get us all together and get our crews together in phase training at Alamogordo. We went from there to Charleston, S.C., and did some flight training down in Cuba, Batista's Cuba. That was a nice place to be. A filet mignon steak cost 60 cents for lunch. You could cut those boogers with a fork--no knife needed. We lived it up. We caught a train to Mitchell Field New York, leaving Charleston S.C. in 80 or 90 degree weather, going to New York where it was snowing--as Paul said it was not snowing; it was just passing through. I nearly froze to death. They gave us a B-24 there after we got off that subway. I think Scotty rode it for 24 hours before he could ever find a getting off place.
We flew from there back down to Palm Beach, Florida, before heading for some port in South America. We decided we needed some fuel so we stopped in Puerto Rico and the next day or two went on down to Georgetown in British Guyana. We had a gas leak and put in about two weeks before we left, eating bananas. We went to Belem, Brazil and across to west Africa. There we had another gas leak and stayed a couple of weeks also.
We picked up a little monkey there that someone had picked up in South America. He got away and just came to our plane one day and got in with us. He caused us so much trouble. Liked to have caused a divorce in the whole crew. We took him on with us into Italy and finally gave him to a USO troop. There are a lot of tales we could tell on Cheezy. He had a bad habit that if he needed to take a leak and he was sitting on you he would just cut down on it and he caused trouble. One day Scotty was lying in a tent and Andy, the prankster, was in there with him. We framed up on Scotty and I poured a little water on Scotty's belly, and I hollered ``Get that damn monkey out; Scotty will kill him.'' Scotty came up from there like a wild man. He was looking for that monkey to kill him. He called that monkey some bad names. After that we had to give that monkey away to an entertainer with a fiddle. We didn't have much high class entertainment out there but we had some.
We could go to the city of Foggia and since we were officers we could sit in the British theatre there. We could go up there and sit in the box seats. We could hear opera. I don't know what they were but they were good. I'm sure they were because the British were promoting them. That was our entertainment along with the Red Cross. I don't believe our boys were afraid of combat, but of course they were nervous. The first two times I went on a mission I was not flying with my first pilot who was Gaith because he was being checked out. We got up to the Alps Mountains and we were clouded in so we had to turn around and come back. We voided that mission. I had already worn out the relief tube going back, watering the crops. Started out again in three days and the same thing happened. We had to come back holding formation. You can't fly through the clouds in formation so we came back again.
The next time we took off I was not nearly so nervous; thinking we were just going up to the Alps Mountains and then come home. I was flying along tending to my part of the business, then I looked down and there were those Alps Mountains under us and most of them had gone by us. I thought this is it. We went on up and came back and bombed something with just a taste of flack-- not bad at all. Then we got to the point where we were not really nervous about going out. We knew we were going to get shot at but there was not anything we could worry about. I always wore a good pair of shoes because we had been briefed by someone who had come back saying that those mountains would cut your feet up. I always had a good pair of shoes and never thought about being killed but I thought several times about walking back over those mountains. For that reason I wore a good pair of shoes. We just took it sort of philosophically. We would get these letters from home telling us how bad we had it, how rough it was. They would see these write-ups in the paper about how bad everything was. We were eating chocolate bars and laying up on our bunks playing cards; laying around living it up.
Of course we had to go on a mission and it was not that bad. One time we went out and a piece of flack came right up through the flight deck--about a twelve inch walk between the pilot and co-pilot--and right out through the top of the plane. All of a sudden you heard a big boom and dust flying around everywhere and I looked up and there was a big hole that I could put my two fists through--a pretty good piece of shrapnel. Gaith thought I had been hit and he kept knocking--of course we were on radio silence and oxygen--we could not communicate. At that time we were on a bomb run and we had passed the initial point where on a bomb run we were all on business. When the shrapnel came up through there I was busy checking gauges and equipment. Gaith was trying to hold formation and was pointing toward my foot. We made the bomb run and took a nose dive getting out of there. Gaith pulled off his oxygen mask and said he thought I had been hit. I told him that I had not been hit but it had come within four inches of my foot. He thought he had it all to himself. It did not even scare me--it was all over before I realized it. I told him it was no need to get scared after it was over. We laughed about it--all the dust and mess it made in the cockpit. It did not even cut one hydraulic line. We got the engineer on to it immediately--checking out brakes and everything and he could not find anything wrong. That was a piece of luck--pure luck. Old Scotty said that if it was going to get you; it will get you. I didn't wear just any old flack vest. I wore a flack vest and sat on one in my bucket seat--I was sitting on top of it because I did not want to get hit from that direction.
One day after a long radio silence Gaith told me to go down and check with Scotty, the bombardeer, about something. It was a struggle getting down through there, you could not wear your chute through there--you have to carry it in your hand so I carried it down there and got down in the nose of that B-17 and there was Scotty sitting up in the corner with ammunition cases stacked up all around him, sitting on two or three flack vests. I told him, ``I should kill you right here after all that bragging about if it is going to get you it will get you.'' Sure enough one day a piece of shrapnel hit one of those ammunition boxes and it ripped up ten or twelve shells, ripping out the lid. If it had been the cap I guess it would have blown up old Scotty. He kept that piece of shrapnel. It lodged in that ammunition box. Things like that happen. We laughed about it.
We had one little incident that I was sorry about and embarassed--this boy Sherman transferred to Foggia Air Base to the B-17 group. This was a new experience for all of us--not one of us had been in a B-17 but it did not take us long and after about two weeks we realized we liked those B-17 bombers. It was like riding a truck instead of a cadillac. He was up there for about three weeks before we got the word that the crew he had buddied with had gone straight in and all of them had been killed. He had missed that flight and it just tore him up and he was transferred up to the B-17 group with us. There was not much transition for a bombadeer to change--there is the same equipment in both planes. Sherman was with us and a bit shaky for a while. We were sitting around one day listening to the report and all of our planes were back--all had come back with no losses and no injuries. We knew that Sherman was not injured so we got all of his clothes out and his shoes and lined them up outside the tent for the Italian market man that came around in the wagon every day. He would sell us oranges for cigarettes and shoes. Shoes were a main item. Cigarettes, shoes, candy--anything we had they would trade for them. When Sherman came in, of course, we were watching for him. Somebody walked outside the tent saying, ``Get that stuff in, here comes Sherman. Here comes Sherman, get that stuff in.'' Of course we ran out and got the stuff back in. That was the maddest boy--he was mad all over. We thought it was a pretty good joke.
One day I was lying around the tent--everybody was gone for some reason, and I laid down on my bunk. The little tent we were in was really a four man tent but we moved Sherman in with us. It was a three foot dug-out to give you a bit of protection from bombing and then there was a bomb shelter over that. Mice had just been eating us up and I went to town to try to find us a mouse trap and the only thing I could find was about eight inches long, four inches wide and four inches high. I put me some cheese in it and set that thing hoping to get me a mouse. I was just asleep and I heard that thing click and I thought I had me a mouse. I went on with my siesta and that mouse started gnawing and gnawing. I thought that mouse was going to eat my trap up so I got up and looked and there was a rat as big as a cat in there but he could not get his tail in. It was hanging out the end. His tail was as big as my thumb.
What was I to do with this? I picked up that trap, rat and all. They had stopped us from shooting in the tents because we were trying to kill the mice with our pistols, we never could hit one and we were shooting the clay tile out of those walls. I was going to get him outside and spring him. I had decided the way was just to get him outside, catch the rat with one hand and spring the door and throw him against the ground and stomp on him while he was addled. That was a good idea but when I came out of that tent and swung him over my head the hide slipped off that tail and he went through the air like an artillery shell going through the air. He hit off there somewhere and ran into a hole. We had some gasoline to heat that little old tent because we had some chilly weather. I got that five gallon can of aviation gasoline and walked out there to that hole and poured it in there glug, glug, glug and ran a little trail back to the tent. I got inside and set the can down and struck a match and threw it on the trail and it burned off to the hole and it went ``boom'' with a great noise and smoke came out of every hole over the whole area. I did not know there were so many holes but smoke was coming up from everywhere.
I ducked back in and stayed in the tent while people began to fall out of tents to check to see what had happened. I did not go out to investigate and was not going to try to find out what was happening. I guess that incident is still written up as an unsolved mystery. They may have it on TV one day as an unsolved mystery as far as the 99th Bombardment Group, 416th Squadron was concerned because I never told it, not even to my tent buddies. Nobody ever knew as long as I was in Italy. Little things like that happen to kinda keep you alive and awake.
We had incidents on flights that kinda caused you some anxious moments now and then. I know when I was being checked out for the first mission I was on we had a flame out in the engine that was burning pretty good and we slipped it out. You do this by kicking rudder and let that plane run sideways and down hill to try to put that fire out. We got it out. We didn't have that much of a problem. I thought it was rather routine. Another time when I was checked out as first pilot and was on over in my number of missions we were coming off target one day. We got hit by flack over target and we had an engine smoking real good but we did not feather it. We used that engine until we got off that target; because what the heck if it is burned out, if it's out it is out and no matter what the condition is they have to change it anyway, We came off that target and after I got off the target I figured it was about time to catch on fire so I feathered that engine.
We were way up in Germany and for some reason the group checked out; they stuck their nose down and they left there fast. I couldn't keep up--you have a choice of either burning all your fuel and not getting there or flying the speed you were supposed to and conserving that fuel and getting back. We were moving on and the others were getting farther and farther away. They had gotten to the point they looked like a few buzzards up there in front of us and the boys were calling ``fighters!'' and were a little nervous I am sure. I was a little anxious also but the rule was that you did not fire at a fighter. One of them called in that there was a fighter at nine o'clock high and I took a look and there was; so I said ``well, don't fire until he sticks his nose in,'' but I said that ``if the nose comes in you fire!'' The gunner kept checking with me since we were on the intercom. They said, ``He is sliding in. It is a Messerschmidt 109 or a P-51.'' I reminded them there is a difference so let's be careful about this. He bellied up a couple of times and I saw it was a P-51. I let him slide on in when he wanted to. He slid in on my wing within about fifteen feet of me, he was a bit high so my props were not flagging him but he looked at me and gave me a big OK signal, pulled off his oxygen and winked at me. Man, I pulled mine off too and gave him a big thumbs up sign and he looked as good as any brother I ever had. I sure was glad to see him. He peeled off and took back up. He went on back up because the sun was behind us and they were blocking those fighters from coming in behind us. We were not afraid of them coming head on. Those 51's were staying high and back of us a little bit.
They had a couple of dog fights that the boys picked up by radio. The radio man never stayed on intercom with us but stayed on the radio. They kept them off us--we did not have to fire a shot as far as I knew. We made it on back in and were a happy bunch to get back, too. A public relations man came by and wanted to write me up a Distinguished Flying Cross but I was not interested in it. I said that I only did what I was supposed to; and when I told him that he said, ``Well you did what you were supposed to. That is the way people get Distinguished Flying Crosses.'' Instances happened like that when you were just on an ordinary flight. They could have made that sound pretty rosy.
We finished all those fifty missions and for the last two or three I was flying with crews I was unfamiliar with--didn't know any of them. Maybe it would be a new pilot that would go with me as co-pilot until he knew the operation.
One mission I came in off of we got to the field and circled at 1,000 ft. altitude at least once and some of them had to circle a couple of times. It was hot, you were already worn out and low on fuel. You would start circling the field and get mad. I was the last man in the formation and was circling and had to cut such a long pattern that another squadron cut right in front of me and cut me out of the pattern and I had to go around again. By this time I was boiling. Their tail man was dragging his end so I did not do anything other than cut him out of the pattern with a 180 degree turn in on that runway. When I was over the runway I realized that I had not dropped flaps or anything else because I was so intent on getting on the ground. So I hollered to the co-pilot to give me full flaps and he did. I stuck that nose down when I was not far off the ground and made a good smooth greasy landing. When we were on the ground one of the gunners came up to me and said, ``that was the greasiest landing I ever rode.'' He said he never knew when we got on the ground but he said he was really sweating that approach and I told him I was too. That old boy that was behind me gave me a good cussing when he came by me--on the air. I earned it but that was OK in that I was on the ground and he was still flying.
The fifty missions over, coming back was not like going over. They sent me down to Naples to catch a ship back. I had to stay there for a week or maybe longer. Joe Lewis, ``the Brown Bomber'' was down there and he was the world champion then and put on an exhibition for us. I enjoyed seeing that. Naples was a more important city than Foggia. The ocean trip back was not very exciting. We hit the tail end of a hurricane out there somewhere and I did not get seasick but my back was sore from riding that boat. I couldn't sleep very well and the night we got into that hurricane we got into some rough water and it rolled me around so that it limbered up my back and I got a good nights sleep. Got up the next morning and some of the beams on the deck had been broken in two--that was the kind of waves we had been in that night. If I could have seen those waves I probably would not have been able to sleep, but I was down under. All we did coming back was eat O'Henry candy bars and walk around on the deck a little and sleep. We did remark that it was good advertisement for O'Henry to brag about how many bars they had sold as compared to others. We did not buy them by the bar--we bought them by the box.
We landed up at Newport News I believe. I had a pair of boots I had bought in Africa and had kept all the way through--they were my Sunday boots and I left them on a train when I got off. I sure did hate that I had lost my boots. Came on home and courted Carolyn for a while before they sent me to Miami for reassignment--rest and reassignment, Rest & Relaxation. I stayed there a couple of weeks and they told me I was going to Las Vegas, Nevada to the Ferry Command. They tried to tell me where that was and told me I would be there for the duration--permanent assignment. I got to thinking about it and that night I called Carolyn and asked her if she wanted to go to Las Vegas with me and she said, ``I don't know.'' I told her she had until tomorrow night to think about it, because I will be through there and we can get married and you can go to Las Vegas with me, or it's going to be a long winter. She didn't give me an answer but I caught the train and headed for Athens, and wired for some leave time. Even though I did not get an answer we got married while I was AWOL or something and we headed on west, put in several months at Las Vegas before coming back to Memphis and civilian life.
I never had thought I wanted to raise a family in the service and Lynn did not like that either because in the Ferry Command I was gone two to three days a week or more. I did like flying but I did not like being gone from home so after the war was over I put in for my discharge and got it rather quickly--a couple of weeks or so. We came back to Memphis--Lynn did not want to live in Jackson and no way was I going to live in Athens so we settled on Memphis. That was where we were so we just stayed there. Went to work there selling insurance and started going to school--trade school in refrigeration and I almost graduated from there before they closed the school and I got into TV school--radio and television and I did graduate there. I had some experiences there selling insurance, sundries and candies and was really making some money but I did not want to stay with that the rest of my life. I quit and I could not believe I did since I was making an average of $150 a week.
I went to work for RCA Service Co. making $60 a week. Shortly after I got the job I was laid off. I just worked a couple of months, mostly putting up antennas because it was when Channel 13 was coming on the air. That is when I hit the skids. I really had problems and almost went to work for Sealtest Dairy. My friend, Clarence Roberson, told me to come in and report and I would have a job. I also had an offer for television repair. When I went by to check on it, I told him I had another job and he offered me work for $75 a week and told me to come in the next morning. I stayed with that until Sam asked me to come to Jackson. Watlington Bros. wanted to expand and I did not realize it but I did not know anything about construction and it took me several weeks--in fact over a year before I found out how little I knew about it. I gradually began to learn a little about construction and they were kind enough to keep me on--drag me on and pay me a decent wage and we made it on through past retirement.
Now about my personal affairs--that is a history of me. Lynn and I married in December of 1944 and she stayed on with me through the rest of my military service time and did not leave me when I got out of the service. Jennie was born in 1947, Mike in 1949 and Joy later on. They turned out pretty good--I never was really disappointed with my children. Lynn was a pretty good mother. She did a good job raising those girls--I had a little too much influence on Mike. He took a little after me but Mike is a good boy with a good heart and he will make it good. Jennie is right now looking at just about another four years, maybe five, for retirement and she is at the top level in teaching.
Joy is doing a fine job as a Mama. She is patterned after Lynn and she is raising four fine children. Jennie married David Arnold who was her heart throb at Lambuth. She married him after graduation and lived with him about eighteen or nineteen years before she finally decided that he was not going to grow up--that he would never grow up so she got out of that and married Gerald Longmire. Gerald is a fine man and I have never heard anyone say anything bad about him. He is a banker--manager of the branch out here. I'm proud to have him as a son-in-law. David was a good boy to play with and I always liked him and still like him but I agree with Jennie.
Mike married Mary Frances in 1972 while he was in the Navy in Norfolk, Va. She had one child, Tammy, and they had Mike. Mary has been a good mother; has done a good job taking care of those kids. Mike never did get settled in real good somehow or the other. He got a divorce and married Freida Cupples and they are going to make it fine. Mary would never battle him but Freida will. I think she has him under control and I believe is going to keep him under control so that is good for both of them. I have said everything I know and may have exaggerated on some of it.
-- Herman L, Watlington, Feb. 1995