The Boxcar Blues

by Jeff Egerton

  Because it was his plane that had been lost, Hank wasn’t as impressed as everyone else. Several of the local pilots took up a collection to have the Vega salvaged and repaired, but still, their notoriety notwithstanding, Hank fired Catwalk and Curly.

  When they inquired about jobs with other outfits, everyone said they didn’t need anyone right now. Catwalk and Curly knew this wasn’t true, but couldn’t press the issue.

  They were in a bar when another pilot explained it to them, “What you guys did was remarkable, even heroic, but you took a plane without the owner’s permission. It turned out good this time, but you didn’t show good judgment. People don’t want you working for them.”

  Catwalk and Curly decided to go fishing and consider their future, which would probably not be in Alaska. Even though Catwalk liked the people here and the way he was treated, he wouldn’t mind returning to the states. He’d never gotten used to the weather in Alaska. Being from Mississippi, and having spent the last few years in the southwest, he was tired of the cold. He’d also been thinking about Curly’s comments on joining the military.

  He wanted to enlist in the military for several reasons: As an American, he wanted to serve his country, and he’d like to do it as a pilot. Also, he’d like to show the bigoted military men he could fly as well as anyone, better than most. And, there was nowhere else to go.

  There was one person who could give him counsel on his dilemma, so he dialed the farm in Vaughn. Barney’s voice sounded good when he said, “I read about you guys in the paper. It said you lost a plane but saved two kids.”

  “That’s true but we still got fired. I called because I’m thinking about going into the military. What have you heard about them allowing blacks to become pilots?”

  “I just finished reading about General Hap Arnold. He assured Congress that the Air Corps could enroll black trainees in basic and advanced courses. But I don’t know how much stock to put in that because Arnold has been critical of blacks since World War I. Those generals have a history of saying one thing to the press and then doing something else.”

  Barney paused, then said, “I tell you, son, it doesn’t sounds like anyone is making any progress against the bull-headed military, but next year is an election year. Roosevelt wants to get re-elected and he needs the black vote. Also, the first lady is supportive of blacks in the military. I think you’ll see black pilots in the Air Corps, but not right away.”

  “That’s good to hear and I agree with you, it’s got to happen, but the question is when.”

  “Are you serious about leaving Alaska?”

  “Probably. All the people up here have been real nice, but we wrecked a Vega on that flight to Kodiak. The guy fired us and now no one else will hire us. Curly is thinking about going into the military, and I’ve had my fill of this weather.”

  “If you decide to leave Alaska, you’ve always got a home here. Why don’t you spend some time down here while you make up your mind on what you’re going to do.”

  This suggestion sounded good to Catwalk. He had fond memories of the farm and couldn’t think of a place he’d rather be right now. He said, “I think I’ll do that.”

  “Come anytime, the door is always open.”

  Catwalk and Curly spent four days fishing and exploring parts of Alaska they’d never seen. As much as they enjoyed their leisure time, the two out of work pilots knew it was time to move on. Early on a Wednesday morning they loaded up the Jenny and flew south. Curly thought it was time for him to finally meet his son, so he was going to fly as far as Albuquerque, where they’d part ways and Catwalk, who was glad to get out of the cold weather, would continue to Vaughn.

  Three days later, on the airport ramp, they bid each other goodbye. Catwalk shook Curly’s hand and said, “Good luck, man. Maybe I’ll see you at thirty thousand feet one day.”

  “I hope so, Cat. They gotta let you join up because I know you’re a better pilot than most of the guys flying now.”

  “Go get ‘em, tiger.

  Catwalk then flew to Vaughn, determined to find a way to enter military service. When he landed at the farm, he found out Barney had been busy, using every available resource to help Cat realize his aspirations of becoming a military pilot. In an effort to learn as much as they could about the integration of the military services, his secretaries had been making phone calls to local congressmen and politicians in Washington, D.C.

  After he and Barney talked over the airline, which was losing passengers and money at an alarming rate, Barney told him he’d uncovered something that Catwalk might be interested in.

  “Son, I don’t know if I’m doing you a favor or not, by telling you about this military outfit for black fliers. From everything I’ve learned, this outfit is set-up to fail, and expected to fail. If by God’s will and a little luck, it does succeed, you want to be a part of it.

  “It doesn’t hurt to talk about it.”

  “Last year Congress passed a law that authorized private training of military pilots by civilian flight schools, but the law doesn’t apply to blacks or black schools. The Army Air Corps, however, submitted a plan for an experiment. They’re going to form an all black fighter squadron. The black cadets will be trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field.”

  “Why do you say it’s expected to fail?”

  ”This is a typical government program conceived for all the wrong reasons. Some people say Roosevelt backed it because it’ll help him get re-elected. Others claim that the high and mighty white generals want to see it fail so it’ll put to rest the question of segregation in the armed forces. See, no one has the guts to come out and say that this is the beginning of integration in the military. Everyone is conveniently avoiding the tough issue, and this program will get the same kind of support; half-hearted tokenism by officers that don’t have the guts to stand up for their principles.”

  “Are you against the program?”

  “Not at all. I think the concept is outstanding, but I know how badly it will be administered and that makes me sick.”

  “Maybe this program needs some people who aren’t afraid to stand up and be counted. People who don’t run from the hard issues.”

  “Oh, I agree, Cat. That’s exactly what it needs.”

  “Any idea what kind of equipment they’re flying?”

  “P-40s. Twelve hundred horsepower, three hundred knots and a ceiling of thirty-two thousand feet. Carries a five hundred pound bomb and six, fifty caliber machine guns. They’re a little underpowered and have poor armor plating, but there’s a bunch of them available.”

  “Well, I’d like to get my hands on one and I don’t have anything else lined up.”

  “Are you saying you’ve already decided to join this group?”

  “As soon as I can find out where to sign up. I’m going to stop and see my family on the way to Tuskegee.”

  “It ain’t gonna be any bed of roses.”

  “War never is.”

  Catwalk wrote his Mother about his decision to join the military. He realized she wouldn’t be happy about it, but he thought she’d support him, even if it was begrudgingly. When he arrived at home, he found out this was the case.

  “Luke, I’m so proud of what you’ve done, and I love this house so much that I can’t find it within me to question your decision. I’d smile a lot more though, if you’d let someone else fight this war.”

  “Save that smile for when I get back.”

  “I will, son.”

  Catwalk spent three days at home, working on the new house and fishing with his brothers. When the time came to board the bus for Tuskegee, he was as nervous as he’d been when he took his private pilot check ride. He realized, however, this was a four year check ride and unlike flying with a check pilot, those four years will be filled with racially motivated problems and attacks on his character, while fighting a war. Still, nothing could have kept him from getting on that bus.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  When Catwalk arrived at Tuskegee, the A
rmy airfield and barracks were not completed. Their first barracks were overcrowded tents. Water was trucked in and the mess hall was outside, regardless of the weather.

  The commanding officer at the Institute was Major James “Straight Arrow” Elliot. A veteran of World War I, Elliot had been in pursuit aviation for years. The word among the troops was, although Elliot was white, he was a supporter of black aviation training. Catwalk found this to be true. Elliot was just there to do a job and color was not an issue.

  Unfortunately, Elliot didn’t stay long. His replacement was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Kendall, who was not a supporter of black aviation training. For him, color was an issue.

  One night Catwalk and several other men talked outside their tent with a cadet who was about to graduate. The cadet said, “The instructors are strict, but they’re fair. Before you go up, they’ll tell you what you’re going to do on that flight and that’s all he’ll grade you on. As soon as you land, he’ll give you a slip with your grade. If you get so many errors, you get a pink slip. Three pink slips and you’re out.”

  A cadet asked, “What if we make a bad landing, or other mistake on something that’s not in our routine?”

  “The instructors know you’re going to make mistakes, so they’ll overlook some mistakes. They’re not there to wash you out. They’re there to make good aviation cadets out of you.”

  After a four week classroom and indoctrination period, Catwalk marched out to the flight line one morning with his class. His instructor, a tall white Captain called out, “Aviation Cadet Jackson, follow me to the plane.”

  They walked to a row of PT-17 biplanes, a training plane not much different, but more powerful than the Jenny. The instructor said, “Cadet Jackson, we’re climbing to ten thousand feet today. Then we’re going to do loops, slow rolls and immelmen turns. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Once they were taxiing, the instructor came on the intercom and said, “Cadet Jackson, I understand that you were once the president of Rocky Mountain Airways.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “Have you given any thought to being an instructor at the Institute?”

  “No, sir. I’d prefer to go to Europe to fight the Germans.”

  The instructor laughed. “Cadet Jackson, the Army Air Corps wasn’t formed to satisfy your desires. Every man here want to go fight the Germans, but if we let them, who is going to teach the new men?”

  “That’s a good point, sir.”

  “We’ll talk more, Jackson.”

  Catwalk’s barnstorming experience came back to him quickly and he went though his routine with no errors and no problems. On the flight back to the base, the instructor said, “That wasn’t bad, Jackson. I think you’d make a good instructor.”

  On the ground he was given his grading slip, which read no errors. While he waited for the rest of his class to finish, he thought about being stuck at Tuskegee as an instructor. He was flattered that a white instructor thought him good enough, when most of the instructors had forty or fifty combat missions under their belt. To be considered for this job without any actual combat experience was a compliment, but he couldn’t envision spending a whole tour of duty at Tuskegee.

  Catwalk found the flying enjoyable, but not challenging. After each day’s flight was over, however, the military routine was as ridiculous as he’d expected. Cadets were grouped into advanced or lower preflight groups, with the lower cadets being addressed as “dummies.” The advanced cadet slept on the bottom bunk and if he wanted a glass of water during the night, he kicked the upper bunk and the lower cadet jumped out of bed and fetched his water.

  On the second morning, a light came on at two thirty in the morning. An advanced cadet entered the tent in his flight gear and said, “What are you guys doing in here sleeping? I’m up there lost and I can’t find my way home, and you guys are down here sleeping. Every dummy hit the floor!”

  If someone didn’t get up, the cadet and their mattress were pulled onto the floor and told. “Go sit on that red stool, Dummy.” But, there was no stool, only a pole. The dummy had to prop himself against the pole in a sitting position. The advanced cadet said, “Mister, what are you doing, sitting in that position? Are you comfortable?”

  Of course if the cadet answered, yes, they were left there until they collapsed. If they answered, no, they were ridiculed for sitting in an uncomfortable position. Catwalk suffered the hazing and bracing with the other cadets, but he noticed, it wasn’t racially motivated and it was done to everyone equally. This and the understanding that it was part of the military routine made the treatment bearable, although some cadets found it to be too much and dropped out of training.

  Catwalk focused on his flight training so he wouldn’t dwell on the events surrounding him. Tuskegee was often described as “A hell hole of racism.” The people in town didn’t want the black cadets there and often held town meetings trying to find ways to get rid of the base. Although, the microcosm of cadets and instructors were intent on making fighter pilots out of the cadets, very few other people including most of the military brass, supported the program.

  On Kendall’s orders no blacks were allowed to visit or join the officer’s club. Promotions to blacks were non-existent and when black officers protested the “Colored” and “White” signs on the toilets, they were told, “They were going to take these signs and like them.”

  Fortunately, help was on the horizon. In 1941 Colonel Noel F. Parrish joined the squadron as director of flight training. Parrish, a keen student of the human mind, eventually replaced Kendall as the base commander and had all “colored” and “white” signs removed. He also arranged for black entertainers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway and Lena Horne to be brought in for dances and celebrity visits. Once the cadets saw that they had someone who treated them like human beings moral improved at once.

  On the morning of December 7, 1941, Catwalk was out running when he heard the news from another cadet. “Hey, Jackson, the Japs just bomber Pearl Harbor!” Stunned, Catwalk ran to the mess tent where they had a radio. He found it jammed with cadets eager to hear the news.

  “At seven fifty-five this morning the peaceful calm of a Hawaiian Sunday morning was riddled with the sound of Japanese Zeros and bombs exploding in Pearl Harbor. The toll from the raid cannot be determined, but several battle ships in the harbor have been sunk and most aircraft on the island are in flames or shot up beyond repair.”

  Catwalk left the mess tent with another cadet. He said, “Now, for the first time since I got here, I feel like I’m in a war.”

  “It’s more than just a war. We got the Germans in Europe and the Japs in the Pacific. We’re going to be fighting this one for a while.”

  Catwalk’s class graduated on April 18, 1942. He then went to Mabry Field in Tallahassee for advanced gunnery training and back to Tuskegee to await orders. His orders came two weeks later, although their destination was not revealed. They boarded a bus for a ride to the Norfolk Navy Base, where they’d crowd onto the USS Mariposa for destinations unknown.

  It was on the bus that Catwalk got the surprise of his life. As it was pulling out of Tuskegee the bus stopped at a red light. Most of the men on board were nervously jabbering, trying to guess their destination. Catwalk was looking out the window, thinking about his family; he didn’t know how long it would be before he saw them again.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a young lady walking down the street. She looked exactly like Sam. He watched her; she had the same proud posture that Sam had, head held high, walking with confidence. Catwalk felt a tightening in his throat and his heart beat increase. Then, he remembered that Sam had told him that she had a twin sister who’d moved to Alabama. Could it be? Was he looking at the single living relative of the only woman he’d ever loved.

  By now the rest of the GIs noticed Catwalk’s interest and the good-natured taunting began. “Take a good look, Jackson. You won’t see any of them for a long time.”r />
  “She’ll be old by the time you get back.”

  “Don’t ya’ wish you could take her with?”

  Ignoring their catcalls, he watched the woman. When the bus pulled away and she turned and looked directly at him, as if she knew she was being watched. He saw a smile and her eyes, her nose, all her facial features were identical to Sam’s; he felt like he was seeing a ghost. He almost yelled at the driver to stop, but realized the futility.

  When she was out of sight, he tried to remember if Sam had mentioned where her sister lived, but couldn’t recall a specific town. The guy next to him said, “Jackson, You O.K.? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Yeah, I’m O.K. That woman reminded me of someone, that’s all.”

  For the entire voyage across the Atlantic, Catwalk thought about that woman. He didn’t know how long he’d be overseas, or if he’d ever return, but when he did he was coming back to Tuskegee to look for that woman. He had to know.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  When Catwalk and the rest of the 99th arrived at Oued N’ja, Morocco, they found their living conditions hadn’t improved. They lived in tents with an outside mess and the airstrip, which hadn’t been well maintained, was dirt. In dry weather the dust flew so much that visibility was measured in feet. In wet weather the airstrip and their entire living areas were mud.

  Luckily, they brought with them 27 brand new Curtiss P-40 Warhawks and the new aircraft raised everyone’s spirits. Shortly after their arrival, two instructors with recent combat experience joined the group and proved to be helpful in preparing the pilots for actual combat. To test their skills, they often engaged in practice dog fights with a nearby fighter bomber group. After one training flight Catwalk told a fellow pilot, “I remember how impressed I was the first time I flew the Jenny and the first time I flew the Boeing Model 80. But flying the P-40 is an experience all its own and I’ll never forget it.”

  After a month of shaking down the new aircraft and honing their aerial skills, the group moved to Fardjouna, near Tunis. Catwalk’s first mission was to bomb gun positions on Pantelleria Island, which proved to be uneventful because the only opposition was light flak. Still, he agreed with most of his fellow pilots that it felt good to be flying in defense of his country.