Allies, now!
Our instructors were not happy bunnies. All creamed off from last year's graduation classes, they would have much preferred assignments to a "Pursuit" or "Bombardment" Group. Their classmates from Flight School would soon be going overseas into action, winning glory and promotion (and dying like flies in the 8th Air Force first B-17 mass daylight raids into Germany).
It was said that they didn't need to navigate on the way back - just follow the smoke trail from burning aircraft on the ground. The casualty rate was appalling. I remember a good book on the subject: "A Fall of Fortresses" by one of their navigators (can't recall author or publisher). But all this was well in the future, meanwhile our people were stuck in the back of their BT-13s, chanting the patter all day, and it might be finished before they got there. It was like the "It'll be all over by Christmas" cry in 1914. In the end of course, there would be plenty of War for everyone, and a bit too much for some.
The consequence was that our officers didn't have the professional attitude of the civilian instructors we had had at Primary School. So we got, I don't say rougher, but certainly less patient treatment. Not only that, but you chopped and changed instructors, and that never makes for smooth learning. Nevertheless, we all got through, except for one or two like the road runner, who'd really asked for trouble and pushed their luck too far.
The BT-13 had a full set of blind flying instruments, and we sweated away in cloud, or "under the hood" , in the front cockpit. "Never mind the goddam ship - fly that goddam panel!", Lieutenant Akin hammered into me. And on "power let-downs", "Your stick controls your goddam airspeed - your throttle controls your goddam rate of descent!" (counter-intuitive, but true). And always the mantra "needle-ball-airspeed". Put in practice, this is much like herding cats (not that I've ever had to do that), inasmuch as: as fast as you corralled one, the other two had got away from you.
And we started formation flying, too, but I can't remember much about any other exercises. The only other thing I can recall about the BT-13 is the one helpful trick it could play for its pilot. Landings were always off a glide approach, and you could trim the thing to glide "hands-off" very nicely at 70 mph. On final approach (from a square circuit), you started high, looking over the nose well into the field, and then slowly hand-cranked the flaps down. As you did so, your glide grew steeper, but the 70 mph stayed rock-steady on the clock. You cranked away until the fence (or runway threshold) came into view just over the nose. Stop cranking, and "every time a winner". Touch-down would always be in exactly the right spot.
We witnessed an interesting (on the ground, of course) experiment one day. Two of our instructors decided to see whether it was feasible, wearing parachutes, to abandon the aircraft via the front and back knock-out side panels in the canopy. Perhaps a five-dollar bill was riding on the outcome. They were not the mountainous Americans you see today, but wiry young men. One got hopelessly jammed half way, like Pooh Bear, and it took a lot of manhandling to push him back into the cockpit. The other got out, but it took over five minutes. The moral was clear - get the hood open, or jettison it, for you'll never get through it! As i've mentioned, I came across the same canopy on a "Vengeance" a year later, so it was very useful experience for me.
I can't remember any Christmas festivities, bu I suppose there must have been some. Our hosts were still in a state of shock from being pitchforked into war a fortnight before, and were in no mood for jollification. For that matter, my twentieth birthday had gone unnoticed (except by Mother) the month before.
It was at Gunter that I first met that magnificent American military facility, the Post Exchange ("PX"). In our service stations overseas, the "NAAFI Shop" is the equivalent, but a very poor one. The Americans start with this principle: that their Armed Forces should have the best that money can buy (I'm afraid we tend to take the opposite view). So, if you're going to run a Camp Shop for your troops and their families, it has to be a first-class one. The goods on sale were always of high quality, and usually far cheaper than in the town shops. I bought quite a good wrist watch at Gunter for five dollars. It flew with me on all my "ops" in Burma, and I relied on it for all my hit-and-miss navigation out there until 44, when I stupidly took my eye off it, and it was stolen from a train compartment.
For the same money, I bought my first pair of "Ray-Bans", then the standard aviator's sunglasses, which were necessary in the blinding sunshine of the southern States, and in India/Burma. Now that I had left the open cockpit and flying helmet of the Stearman, we flew (in the States) just with forage cap and headset, so you could wear sunglasses quite comfortably.
Years later in 61, I spent a short time in Berlin, where there was a magnificent PX for American forces and their dependents. It was really a huge department store, where "white goods" and every conceivable electrical item of household equipment was on sale at half the price in Britain. They were quite happy to sell us this stuff, but we couldn't take advantage of the opportunity - it was no use to us, as it all worked on 115v. Berlin (and the rest of West Germany) was on 240v (like the UK), but the Americans had organised a special 115v mains electricity supply just for themselves from the Berlin municipality. Truly: "to the victor, the spoils".
All in all, my two months in Gunter were largely forgettable. At the end, I happily put the name "Vultee" out of mind, not knowing that it would come back to me (literally) "with a Vengeance", on the far side of the world the following year. Next stop would be quite close by - Craig Field, Selma (still in Alabama).
More soon,
Danny.
Pass right down the car, please!
Last edited by Danny42C; 1st Mar 2012 at 17:15.