CHAPTER ONE

A FARM BOY GOES ABROAD

I’M AFRAID THAT IF THIS story is to be judged by the standards of the thousands of air stories that have been available to the American public in magazines the last few years, it will be classed as a failure. It is not very bloodcurdling, with fewer people taking part in the entire story than meet death in the first three pages of most air stories.

The hero is not tall and muscular and steely-eyed, with grim, wind-bitten, hawklike features; and his accomplishments in the story are few. Worse yet, he’s anything but fearless; he scares as easily as you do, perhaps more easily, and in the whole story he never does anything particularly heroic. Worst of all is his identity, because actually he’s only me.

But this story is true, and I hope that some of you may consider its shortcomings compensated for by the fact that the characters in this story really exist—or existed; that the occurrences in this story, though less spectacular, really occurred; and that the characters who meet death in it really did meet death, in the savage and desperate struggle that is being fought for the safety of the world, including you.

The most that can be said for myself is that I tried and tried hard, and fought hard, as I hope to be still trying and fighting when you read this; and I have probably accomplished as much against the enemy as the average of those who were in action at the same times as I. And I did have the privilege of being numbered among the few score pilots who met the first German mass onslaughts in the Air Blitzkrieg against England. Of these facts I shall always be proud, even if I fail to add more to them.

And in this tale of an ordinary American from a Midwest farm coming to a warring country, joining its fighting forces, mingling with its fighting men, and finally fighting and falling and fighting again, I hope that I can tell you enough of “what it’s like” to keep your interest. If I fail it will be my fault as a writer, for I’m sure that what I’ve seen and experienced will interest average Americans if I describe it right. I’m an ordinary American myself, and it has been tremendously interesting to me!

I was born and raised on a farm at St. Charles, Minnesota, and at the age of eighteen I went into commercial flying. During the years of the depression this wasn’t always too lucrative, and at various times I worked as garage mechanic, construction worker, and truck driver, in addition to working on my father’s farm quite often. Always, however, I tried to work at some place where I could also keep my hand in flying part of the time—barnstorming, instructing, and the like, and working as aircraft mechanic. For the most part of the year and a half before I went to war I was engaged as an instructor at the International Flying School at Laredo, Texas.

As I remember, when I started flying there were about a hundred and twenty licensed pilots in Minnesota; and if you had lined us all up at that time and ranked us according to our possibilities of ever flying in a war, I’d have been in about the one hundred nineteenth place. The only one less likely than myself would have been my good friend Shorty Deponti of Minneapolis. Shorty would never fly in a war for two very good reasons: first, there wasn’t enough money in it; and second, there wasn’t enough money in it. My flying instructor, Max Conrad of Winona, would be more easily moved because he’d get higher pay out of allowances for his five daughters. I didn’t have any of the qualifications of a soldier. I was neither big nor very strong; I was quite mild-tempered and absolutely afraid to fight, and I was more cautious in my flying than the average pilot then. Yet I believe I am the only one of them all to have gone to war. Tom Hennessy, whom I’d have ranked in those days as the most likely prospect, is now married and settled down sensibly on an airline.

When the war started I should have liked to volunteer at once for England. I felt that this was America’s war as much as England’s and France’s, because America was part of the world, which Hitler and his minions were so plainly out to conquer. Consideration for my folks, whom I didn’t want to saddle with a lot of worries, held me back. As the next best thing, I applied for a commission in the United States Army Air Corps Reserve, so that I could learn something about military flying anyway. This looked easy on paper, but I found myself frustrated for months by delays that were mostly hard to understand.

I paid a visit home in mid-June of 1940, and was cultivating corn on my dad’s farm at the time of the collapse of France and the evacuation of Dunkirk. I had heard that American pilots were being hired for noncombatant jobs with the Royal Air Force, so when I left home I went to Canada to investigate. I was promptly hired, and about ten days later I boarded a boat for England.

It was a big passenger liner and should have been gayly painted and lighted, with flags flying and decks lined with tourists as it sailed—at least that’s the way they were in all the pictures I’d seen. But instead it was painted in dull drab colors and there were only a handful of passengers. Nevertheless it was my first ocean trip, and I was plenty thrilled. Orders were posted about that we must keep our portholes closed at night and not show any lights on deck; and I realized that whether I fought or not I was in part of the war now.

I boarded the ship in late afternoon, and after I was settled and had had my supper I went out on deck. We were sailing down the St. Lawrence River and it was nearly dark. Not a light showed on the ship. At the stern I saw some men on a platform above the main deck swinging what looked like the boom of a big crane out so it hung over the water, and I wondered what they intended to lift with a crane out there. Then my eyes became accustomed to the darkness and I saw that it wasn’t a crane at all, but a big cannon being prepared for use—more evidence of war! Remember, I was just an ordinary American, to whom war and battles and actual shooting at human targets were unreal things that only occurred in newspapers or movies or books. This was real, and it wasn’t in a newspaper or movie or book, and I just stood there awhile gauping at it!

I enjoyed every moment of the trip across. I had a whole cabin to myself, and the excellence of the service and food gave me a feeling of luxury. Here on the smooth Atlantic life was so peaceful and relaxed that it was difficult to remember, except when I looked at the grim cannon at the stern of the ship, that within a few days I should be among a people fighting for existence, with their backs to the wall.

The prettiest sight of the trip was furnished by a number of icebergs one afternoon—something I didn’t expect to see in July. The sun was shining brightly, making them appear crystal-white and gleaming. We were nearly always within sight of half a dozen, for several hours, and we sailed quite close to some. One which passed close had apparently shifted its position in the water, and a wide ring of blue marking its old water line was visible. It contrasted beautifully with the white of the rest of the iceberg, cutting across it diagonally. The blue band, I suppose, was clear pure ice, while the rest of the berg was ice and snow, very white. It was about a mile away and was at least one hundred fifty feet high. It was one of the most beautiful and striking pieces of scenery nature ever produced.

We arrived in an English port on a dreary, foggy Sunday morning after a final twenty-four hours of constant zigzagging by our ship to upset the aim of any lurking enemy submarines. The ship stood in midstream for hours while we passengers leaned on the deck railings and dodged the sea gulls that flapped overhead, squawking and bombing indiscriminately.

We left the ship in late afternoon and an R.A.F. officer took me in tow and escorted me from the dock to a green and tan camouflaged automobile which was parked near by. Instead of a license plate on the front of the car there was a plate with three big letters: “R.A.F.”

My baggage having been loaded on, we set out for the railway station, and I got my first look at an English city. I had never realized that English cities were so different from American cities, with their winding irregular streets and their closely packed stone houses and business buildings of wholly different architecture from ours. Traffic is left-hand in England, and it seemed impossible for so many cars to be driving on the wrong side of the street with no accidents! I expected we’d crack up every minute. We didn’t, though, and at the railway station the officer got me a ticket for London.

I found that my train didn’t leave until midnight, so I set out to find a restaurant and eat supper. On the ship each passenger had received a gas mask in a little cardboard carrying case, and I now carried mine. However, after walking about a block I realized that it looked out of place. No one else carried any, and people were staring at mine. I went back to the station and put it away in my suitcase!

Then I sallied forth again and found a restaurant; but I still didn’t get any supper. I understood but little of the menu on the wall and nothing of the prices, which were in English money of course, with its set of signs absolutely foreign to any American. Furthermore I...