I remember a dinner at his house. The table groaned with heaping dishes of potatoes and vegetables, all complementing the main pork loin course. Herman kept heaping my plate as though I were a starving Armenian and I ate until my stomach hurt. His wife cleared most of the table, and I hoped I could find enough room in my stomach to tackle the dessert. Not so. The next thing I knew, Mrs. Hickman brought out a platter holding one of the biggest steaks I had ever seen. Herman proceeded to carve this into slices and ordered me to pass my plate. You guessed it: The meal had only just begun. There were four different kinds of pie, two cakes, and three flavors of ice cream. I still get stomach pains just remembering it all. In later years Herman went on to coach Yale, and if memory serves, Old Eli had some of its best teams during the years he was there.
Most of the original Blaik staff would progress to coach major teams. Stu Holcum went to Purdue, Av went to Pittsburgh, and Andy went to Miami or Florida State. After I left the academy, Colonel Blaik hired a new coach named Vince Lombardi. Red Blaik had a profound influence on the game of football in the forties and fifties. No one who loves sports can forget his national championship teams or the men who were inspired by his leadership and foresight. I hear that Lombardi guy did OK, too.
When the 1945 season ended with the Army-Navy game, I went around to the adjutant’s office for the first time since my arrival. The old boy recognized me and I stood under his close scrutiny waiting permission to speak.
“Well, Olds, what do you want?”
“Sir, the football season’s over and I would appreciate knowing where I am going next.”
He stared at me as though I were some kind of dunce. “You’re not going anywhere, Major. You’re going to be here for a four-year tour, just like everyone else.”
With that thunderbolt, he turned to some papers on his desk. I was dismissed. No sense arguing. Done deal. My fate decided. No choice in the matter. I was furious. I was missing everything going on out there in the air force, opportunities were being grabbed by others, new aircraft were being tested, the force was settling down in the aftermath of the war, and I stood a damned good chance of being totally forgotten over the next three years. I couldn’t let that happen.
I went back to the BOQ, grabbed my toilet article kit, jumped in my Buick, and headed for Washington, D.C. Good Lord, was every new assignment going to be as difficult as going to war, getting back, and now this? It seemed as though I needed to be my own personnel officer or nothing good would ever happen.
Vast as the Pentagon was, it didn’t take long to find the personnel section of the U.S. Army Air Forces. As though fate had ordained it, one of the first people I saw was Lieutenant Colonel Ham Bonham, a yearling when I had been a plebe. I remembered him well. He had been the first upperclassman in A Company to recognize me with a handshake long before June Week. We greeted each other warmly and stood there in the hall playing catch-up.
“What are you doing here in Washington, Robin?”
I explained my predicament, adding that I couldn’t see wasting four years doing something for which I had little liking or any great talent. Ham made sympathetic noises and asked what I wanted to do. I suggested I be sent back to my squadron, or to one of the fighter units on occupation duty in Germany.
“You don’t want to do that, Robin. That’s no good right now. The whole place is in turmoil. People are coming and going. Nothing is really organized or permanent. Got anything else in mind?”
“Well, how about that new jet outfit in California?” I asked hopefully.
Ham looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and said, “Go down to my office two doors on the left. Our secretary will fix you a cup of coffee. I’ll be back shortly.”
The coffee was good and I scarcely had time to fidget before Ham came back and reported, “OK, you’re on.”
I could have kissed him. “You mean it? I’m going to California? When?”
“Quit jumping around waving your arms,” Ham said, laughing. “Your orders are being cut right now. Give it a few minutes.” Sure enough, a sergeant appeared about fifteen minutes later with a sheaf of papers that would send me on my way. I gave Ham a bear hug, thanked him, and turned to go.
“Wait a minute, Robin, don’t think you can just leave here and drive back to March Field. Remember, you’ve got to check out at West Point.”
Whew, was that all? I could do that in the blink of an eye.
I did the next day. A bit quietly, I might add. I was afraid someone would discover my good luck and pull some strings to have the whole deal canceled. I paid my mess bill, collected my pay record, packed my B-4 bag, loaded the trusty Buick, and waited until 1700 hours, when I knew the staff offices would be empty. It gave me great pleasure to sign out in the ledger book in the front hall of the admin building, and it was an even greater pleasure to place four copies of my orders on the center of the clean blotter on the adjutant’s desk. I grinned, thinking how his face would look the next morning when he discovered I had skipped.
Not wanting to be anywhere nearby when that happened, I drove out the North Gate, turned left, and headed west in the gathering dusk. My only regret was not having had the courage to pay my respects to Colonel Blaik before sneaking away like that. I was afraid he’d cancel my orders. He had been a fine boss and I admired him tremendously. I also regretted not having said my good-byes to Herman, Andy, Av, and the other varsity coaches. But what the hell, the war was over, peace was peace, and good jobs were few and far between. I was off and running, singing lustily as I drove on through that night. It was the twenty-second of December and I had just wangled myself the Christmas present of a lifetime.
11
Life in the Fast Lane
I reported for duty at March Field in January of 1946. The 412th Group commander, Colonel Tex Hill, impressed me immediately. Even slouched forward with his elbows on his desk I could see the man was tall. He had on khakis, no tie, and an A-2 leather flight jacket. He wasn’t smiling and his expression didn’t exactly convey a warm welcome.
“Major Olds reporting for duty, sir!” I saluted smartly.
His return salute was more of a gesture of annoyance than anything military. I began to have grave doubts about my immediate future.
“Just how in hell did you get into this outfit, Major, uh, what’s your name, Olds? Major Olds?”
The word “hell” was pronounced “hail,” but beyond that the Texas drawl wasn’t immediately apparent. I guess that the time the man had spent in China and Burma must have softened him a bit. I knew his reputation. What fighter pilot didn’t? He was a top ace and was fighting the Japs before Pearl Harbor with the AVG “Flying Tigers” under Claire Chennault. He was right there with the Battle of Britain fighter pilots in my list of heroes during my first year at West Point.
“Sir, I used every bit of pull I could muster.”
That told him his own personnel people hadn’t screwed up, but it gave him a point to ponder. Pull? With whom? Fortunately he didn’t ask or I would have had to confess it had been only a friendly lieutenant colonel in the Pentagon. He could have brushed me off easily with that knowledge.
His chair squeaked as he leaned back and fixed me with a pair of hard blue eyes. “Damn it, Olds, I got more majors running around here than the law allows, all of ’em trying to cram into that P-80, standin’ on top of each other, gettin’ under my feet, in my way, don’t know what in hell I’m gonna do with y’all.”
The words weren’t threatening, just factual. And they came out in that distinctive Texas drawl. I decided that Tex, as he was referred to by one and all behind his back, was not a bad guy; he simply had a problem on his hands, and I was part of it. My mind raced as I waited for him to finish his assessment. The competition was going to be fierce, and I had to make some kind of positive move before the group personnel shop got into the act.
Colonel Hill sighed and told me, “Go on down to group ops. See if they can find something useful for you to do while my personnel guy sorts th
e problem. He’ll let you know.”
I was dismissed with a not unfriendly wave of the hand. Well, it was better than nothing. Now, to make myself useful but as unobtrusive as possible. For God’s sake, don’t screw up, Robin. That’s all anyone would need to send me packing.
I went down the hall and walked into what I took to be group operations. A lieutenant colonel sat behind a GI desk reading the paper. He scarcely looked up when I saluted. “We don’t do that indoors, Major,” he said. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Major Olds, sir, and I have a job in this office.” That got his attention.
“And just who said so, Major?”
“Colonel Hill, sir.”
Now the lieutenant colonel sat up. “That so? Well I guess you better find something to do. Take that empty desk over there. The guy who had it left yesterday. The lady there is Phyllis and she runs this shop. We do what she tells us and we fix our own coffee. Don’t get on her wrong side or you’ll find yourself in deep kimchi.”
That expression identified the colonel as a Pacific war vet, most likely China-Burma. Not good, I thought, me coming from the ETO. There must be a majority of people from the Pacific in the outfit with pecking order already established, and all of them fighting to secure some kind of permanence in this pioneering jet unit.
The lieutenant colonel picked up his paper. Obviously, I was not someone of particular interest to him, so I went over to the assigned desk and sat down. Its gray surface was sticky with what must have been several years’ worth of spilled coffee. Only two of the steel drawers had handles. When I opened the center drawer, it came all the way off its rails, and at least a basketful of trash cascaded to the floor. Phyllis’s small smile and the colonel’s chuckle told me I had been had, but that was all right. I laughed with them and cleaned up the mess.
“Well, I’ve got a lot to do,” I said as I stood up after a while and walked out the door. “Save all my calls, please, Phyllis.” She grinned and I felt I had broken a little ice.
What I had to do now was to find out where to store my flight gear and how to go about getting checked out in the jet, the P-80 “Shooting Star.” Who would ever call it that? I walked over to a squadron operations lean-to in the hangar on the south end of the flight line. It was the home of the famous Hat-in-the-Ring 94th Squadron, Eddie Rickenbacker’s outfit in World War I. A major was posting some names with a grease pencil on a scheduling board. He seemed to be the only one around who had a job, and I introduced myself.
“Hi, I’m Major Olds, group ops,” I said in my most casual yet authoritative voice. “Came over to meet you guys and get checked out in the bird before getting stuck in the rat race.”
The major looked at me with open hostility. It was very apparent the fight for survival started right here and my presence was a direct threat. As the new guy on the block, I was low man on the totem pole and would have to fight my way up.
“Well, I don’t know about that. You’ll have to get in line,” he said as he tried to mount a smile, but failed. He hadn’t figured out our relative status: where I fit in the pecking order, whose friend I was, what my date of rank might be, all very important stuff in this scramble for position.
“That’s understandable,” I replied pleasantly. “Put me down on your list, please, and give me a call when you have an opening.”
That got his attention, all right. I figured I’d handle the situation as best as I could, if and when he made that call. I knew he’d contact somebody, trying to sort me out, but in the meantime, since no one here really knew me, I guessed I had gained some breathing space.
I went back to the chute shop, where I had already stowed my flight gear, put on my G suit, grabbed my helmet and a parachute, and wandered out onto the flight line. A staff sergeant was buttoning up one of the jets and I made for him just as though I had every reason to be there. The P-80 was absolutely beautiful: polished aluminum, smooth, different, big air scoops on each side of the fuselage, a small bubble canopy, a streamlined nose with four .50 caliber gun ports just visible, tricycle landing gear, and a big tailpipe sticking out the rear. I wondered what went on between the scoops and that tailpipe, but didn’t want to display my ignorance to the crew chief.
“Morning, Sarge. That bird in commission?”
He looked at me kinda hard, but said deferentially enough, “Yes, sir. Uh, you new here, Major?”
“Been here awhile,” I answered casually. Yep, almost all day now. “I haven’t got much time in the 80 yet and I’d appreciate your help with the switches. I don’t want to screw up the start procedure.”
The sergeant was only too happy to oblige. I later found out I had said absolutely the right thing, because if a pilot did screw up the start, he usually ran the tailpipe temperature way up over the red line. That meant hours for the crew chief along with the hangar crew installing a new engine, a job none of them wanted to do.
I went up the ladder hanging from the left cockpit rail, climbed in, and wriggled my parachute into the seat. The sergeant stood on the ladder and helped me strap in. He then ran through the switches and gauges for me. The major differences seemed to be a thing called the I-16 pump and the large instrument that was calibrated in percent rather than rpm. There was also a large temperature gauge with a big red line somewhere around the 600 mark. There were two fuel gauges, one dial and one counter. I didn’t want to display my ignorance, so I didn’t ask about any of the strange equipment, hoping the crew chief would get to it all in his review. Most everything else was familiar: flap and gear handle, flight instruments, radio, throttle—pretty simple compared to the old P-38, I thought.
Sarge was good and his instructions were clear. He paid particular attention to that I-16 pump and I listened hard. As he explained it, hitting the start switch, advancing the throttle just the right amount out of cutoff, and flipping on that I-16 fuel pump were the critical actions. Too much throttle, early or late with the I-16, or leaving it on too long, and the engine would be flooded with kerosene, resulting in a blast of flame out the tailpipe and an impressive internal fire in the burner cans. With his guidance I got the hang of it, and we started the engine without trouble. Then he climbed down the ladder, pulled the chocks, and motioned me forward. A little throttle and I started rolling. Luckily, I had plenty of turning room, since steering was purely by the brakes, and you had to have some momentum to keep the nose gear from cocking sideways. The P-38 had the same problem, so I had no trouble and taxied out to the runway. The tower was cooperative. No one tried to stop me and I reached the takeoff position without a military police escort.
Naturally, I hadn’t a clue about nose rotation speed on takeoff, to say nothing of flight characteristics or approach speed. I wasn’t about to push the bird to its limits on this first ride anyhow, so away I went. The aircraft felt as if it could have flown itself. I applied a little back-pressure when the stick felt light, the nose rotated slightly, we skipped once, and lifted off the runway as smooth as silk. Good airspeed, raise the gear, milk up the flaps, a noticeable trim change, swift acceleration, an impressive climb out; we were off and flying.
It was a thing of joy. Effortless, three-dimensional maneuverability, light controls, honest stall characteristics, great cruise speed, impressive redline top speed, effective speed brakes (which were something new to me), and super visibility all around. I fell in love. The few snags seemed to be trivial. I quickly learned to keep one eye on the tailpipe temperature gauge and the engine percent gauge. Both were finicky. The engine speed, indicated by percent of rpm, increased as we climbed. I had to keep retarding the throttle to keep things in limits. That was no big deal, but something to remember. It took a while to find any kind of navigation gear. When I did, I realized the location of the radio range receiver meant I had to tune it by feel, and since I couldn’t see the dial when I could reach the control knob, I knew that wouldn’t work. OK, the Mustang didn’t have much nav gear either, so what else?
I didn’t want to re
turn to base so soon, but the P-80 drank fuel like a thirsty elephant and it was time to head back to the field. Initial approach, overhead break, left downwind, boards down, gear and flaps down, turn to final, hold the airspeed at 125, throttle to idle short of the runway, and the bird settled down gently with scarcely a jolt.
The crew chief seemed somewhat agitated when I climbed down the ladder and complimented him on a good bird.
“Some major came out here and wanted to know who was flying 127. I told him I didn’t know. What IS your name, Major?” he demanded.
“The name is Olds.” I grinned at him. “No heat, Sarge. I’ll straighten things out. I hope I get to fly your bird often, and I thank you for all your help.” With that I went back into squadron ops and asked the major where he wanted me to post my flight time.
“What bird did you fly?”
“127.”
“Hell, that 80 doesn’t even belong to the 94th!”
“No sweat, Major. I’m from group and will be flying with your squadron often. Who wants my Form Five?” Might as well be aggressive, I thought. The major accepted things as they seemed to be and no one ever asked any embarrassing questions.
Later I was thankful nothing went wrong on that first flight. But then, we didn’t much care about the niceties of emergency procedures in those immediate postwar days, nor did we pay much attention to a lot of bothersome flight regulations either. Life at March Field was going to be interesting.
Fighter Pilot Page 20