Hummingfrog, thank you for making me eat my words. Some posts ago I made the rash statement that Danny42C was probably the last poster qualified to tell his tale IAW the OP title. It is my pleasure (and no doubt Danny's :-) to admit to being utterly and completely wrong!
We now have another contender that fits the bill, able once more to take us back to a time when the fate of the world lay in the balance, a balance that was progressively to be tipped in favour of the Allies thanks in large part to Air Power. That in turn started out in the many fields like Terrell, where young men learned their craft and earned their wings.
We are indebted to your father, not only for the telling of his tale, but for being part of that mighty armada of the air to which we all owe so much. The old saw that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it was never so true. God forbid that we should have to pay the cost that your father's generation did. The way to prevent that is to learn from history, from those who made it, from those like your father. Thank you for giving us that opportunity.
Danny, you have often urged those who were diffident about posting their story to do so, even as you told yours. The boot is now on the other foot, so please keep the momentum of your story going in our virtual crewroom, which has the advantage that a dozen conversations can all be attended to individually, and added to in the same way. So as MPN11 and others have posted, you are cleared to finals!