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4

In the Army Now

In September 1951, I got a call from my parents telling me that a draft notice had arrived in the mail. Right away, I went to Ralph Savoy with the news and he said that he would take care of it. He petitioned General Hershey, the head of the Selective Service, but my request for deferment was refused. I then had a choice: I could be drafted into the Army and serve for two years or I could choose to enlist in the Air Force and serve five years. I could not imagine doing anything but flying in the military so I chose the Air Force. I still wonder whether I made a mistake because many of my friends decided to take the draft and they ended up serving in Alaska at Fairbanks, home every night and out in two years.

I received a military leave of absence from Pan American. When I went to work for Pan Am, I had taken a six-month leave of absence from Wien Airlines with the thought that I would get some good experience for a short time and would probably come back to Wien a better pilot. Because I was drafted short of my six months with Pan Am, I received a military leave of absence from Wien Airlines as well as Pan Am. It was comforting to know that when I was released from the Air Force, I could take my pick of which airline to return to and keep my original hiring date.

I enlisted in the Air Force at Ladd Field along with Dave Vincent, a friend from Fairbanks. I immediately applied for pilot training in the cadet program but found out that because I had not completed my sophomore year of college, I did not meet the requirements. I actually did have two years of college because of the extra quarter I had at the University of Washington, but because I did not get any credit for the semester I almost completed at the University of Alaska, I came up short. I was devastated. I felt that I should have stayed at the University of Alaska for the two weeks left to complete the semester, even if it cost me some seniority with Pan Am.

That began my ongoing attempt to somehow qualify for cadet training. With my parents’ help, we requested assistance from Bob Bartlett, our representative in Congress from the Territory of Alaska. He contacted General Twining, the commander of the Alaskan Air Command, to see if he could help. We also submitted many letters of recommendation, along with my flying experience and ratings. We were hoping that my flying background would qualify for the missing two weeks of college. I actually had more than two years of college but because I quit before the end of the semester, none of that semester counted. General Twining agreed and set things in motion for the Air Force to accept my qualifications for the program.

Normally new enlistees would come to Ladd Field right out of Air Force basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi. The personnel at Ladd Field decided that rather than sending me and Dave to Mississippi, they would send us to infantry basic training at Fort Richardson, near Anchorage. The next class was to begin in two weeks so Dave and I were put to work at Ladd Field, doing KP, peeling potatoes, cleaning toilets, and painting rooms. I remember looking out the latrine window and seeing a Pan American DC-4 landing. It had been only about three weeks since I had been flying DC-4s. I wondered, Where did I go wrong to end up here in this latrine?

When the next infantry basic training class started, Dave and I found ourselves at Fort Richardson. I was determined to do the best that I possibly could. I ended up having the highest rifle score that the training detachment had ever had. I guess I had an advantage because in college I had joined the rifle club at the University of Alaska where I learned how to shoot. I was soldier of the week three out of four times that grading took place.

As glad as I was to be in Alaska, I sometimes wished that they had sent me to Biloxi because I was cold all the time. When I was lying on the freezing ground learning how to shoot an M1 rifle, my thoughts often drifted off to lying on the beach near the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. You might call it shock cooling.

After completing infantry basic training Dave and I were sent back to Ladd Field. When we got there, it became apparent that we didn’t have any clear assignment there—I don’t know why—so they said we could go off base after checking in every morning. If they could not find anything for us to do, we were released but we remained on standby and were supposed to stay fairly close to the base. One morning I left the base and reported for duty at Wien Airlines. They sent me on a flight to Fort Yukon and as I was landing there, Dave Vincent called on our HF frequency, 5652.5 KC from his dad’s aeronautical radio station. He said that the base had called and that we were to report immediately. Oh boy, I thought. I’m in big trouble. When I returned to Ladd Field, I was restricted to the base for two weeks. All I did during that time was lie on a cot all day long, getting up only to go to meals. All I could think about was how short of pilots Pan Am and Wien Airlines were. Eventually I was assigned to the mail room sorting mail into mailboxes, which only resulted in a lot of sinus problems from mail dust.

I almost got in trouble again a couple of months later when I was at the airport and one of the Wien pilots, Dave Bronaugh, asked me if I would like to take his flight to Eagle in a Cessna 195, which would require me to remain in Eagle overnight due to darkness. He did not want to be gone overnight but I was always eager to fly so I took a chance on being AWOL again. The only hitch was that I was scheduled for guard duty at eight o’clock the next morning.

Figuring I could get back in time, I took the trip. When I arrived at Eagle, I drained the oil and put the wing and engine covers on for the night, which was standard procedure for cold weather. I placed the oil can by the stove in the log cabin where I stayed because it was important to have warm oil the next morning.

It was still dark when I got up at 4:00 A.M. and I headed for the airport with the warm can of oil. I lit a fire pot and placed it inside the motor cover with the oil can alongside. I stood by the plane, patiently waiting for the engine to be warm enough to start and to make sure the wind did not blow the engine cover into the flame. I knew about several airplanes that had burned because the pilot went to the roadhouse for a cup of coffee while waiting for the engine to get warm. It ended up taking me much longer to heat the engine than I had anticipated and I barely made it back to the base in time for guard duty.

From First Lieutenant Wilbur F. Price, the commander of the training detachment at Fort Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska. I had tried to excel in Army basic training and apparently my efforts caught Price’s attention. When he asked me what my goals were, I explained that I was trying to gain admission into Air Force pilot training, and he wrote this letter of recommendation for me.

The one bright spot in my time at Ladd was the Link Trainer operation on the base. When I found out about it, I paid a visit to the sergeant in charge. He was delighted to hear that I had a Link instructors rating and arranged for me to transfer to his department. At last I was doing something that I was trained for. The rated pilots on the base were required to fly the Link a certain amount of time each month if they wanted to get flight pay. I was a little nervous when I had my first bird colonel in the trainer, intimidated by the many ribbons on his uniform but I worked hard to do my job well.

I was surprised how incompetent some of these pilots were but I guess their desk jobs interfered with flying activities. It seemed to me that the Air Force did not have career professional pilots. About the time that they became very qualified pilots, they were either released from the service because their time was up or, if they wanted to be career officers, they were required to put flying aside and take on management duties. I believe the accident rate per flight hour of Air Force pilots was probably much higher than that of commercial airline pilots. I think that eventually the Air Force began to realize the importance of keeping pilots in a high state of currency and they let experienced pilots fly the airplanes and management-trained officers run the Air Force, especially in the Strategic Air Command and the fighter squadrons.

I HAD BEEN IN THE AIR FORCE FOR about a year when the requirements for cadets were reduced to a high school education. I was soon accepted into the cadet program and received orders to report to Marana Air Base, near Tucson, Arizona, in August 1952. The Air Force primary pilot training bases were actually civilian contract bases manned with civilian instructors and personnel; however, there were Air Force pilots on duty to administer check rides during the courses. A friend and I drove my 1948 Plymouth from Seattle to Marana. We arrived at the base about the time that the morning period airplanes were all returning. The traffic pattern had three arrival levels to fly and the sky was filled with noisy T-6s. It was very impressive and I will never forget that sight and sound.

The T-6 was called an AT-6 during World War II because it was used as an advanced trainer at that time. Primary flight training had utilized smaller, less complicated trainers, such as the Boeing Stearman, Fairchild PT-19, or the Ryan PT-22. Then basic training was usually in the Vultee BT-13, followed by advanced training in the AT-6. During the Korean War, the Training Command decided to just start with the advanced trainer for primary training. I was impressed that pilot applicants were able to solo the T-6 after as few as twenty hours, even if they had never flown in an airplane before. I had a big advantage.

During the initial paperwork process, a question on a form asked if I had any previous flight time. I put down yes and described, as requested, the type of experience and hours that I had accrued. That was a mistake. Word got around and the upper class cadets had a field day with me. Often, as we marched to the cafeteria, the upperclassmen would wait for me. Pulling me aside, they would proceed with the hazing. “So, Wien, you think you know how to fly, do you? Well, let’s see if you know how to fly a traffic pattern.” They directed me to make engine noises and run a flight pattern with arms extended while yelling out the appropriate checklists.

I seemed to be the one that flew the most traffic patterns but all the lower-class cadets would be asked questions from time to time and we had to memorize the required answers. If we were asked, “What time is it?” we replied:

“Sir, I am greatly embarrassed and deeply humiliated that due to circumstances over which I have no control, the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of my chronometer are in such inaccord with the great sidereal movement by which time is commonly reckoned that I cannot with any degree of accuracy state the exact time. However, without fear of being too far wrong, I will say that it is x minutes and x seconds and x ticks past the hour.” Another question might be: “What is the definition of a duck?” “Sir, one of its legs is both the same.”

Or, “What is the definition of leather?” “If the fresh skin of an animal, clean and divested of all hair, fat, and other extraneous matter be submerged in a dilute solution of tannic acid, a chemical combination ensues. The gelatinous tissue of the skin is converted into a non-putrescible substance impervious to and insoluble in water. This, sir, is leather.”

When eating a meal, if we needed to get a drink of water we marched to the water container and said, “Sir, aviation cadet Wien, Noel Merrill, reports to Colonel Temprite for a drink of water, sir.”

When unable to answer a question asked by an upperclassman, the response would be, “Sir, not being informed to the highest degree of accuracy I hesitate to articulate for fear I might deviate from the true course of rectitude; in short, sir, I am a very dumb fourth classman, sir, and I do not know, sir.”

My eighth grade teacher had required that all her students learn a different poem every week and recite it to the class. I think that experience was a big help in memorizing these useless phrases.

SINCE I HAD PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, THEY ASSIGNED OUR assistant operations officer to take me on and prepare me for a military check ride, which was required to solo in less than twenty hours. They wanted as many pilots as possible to qualify to solo so they could put more planes in the air and get more utilization sooner.

When flying began, my total flight time was already about 1,500 hours. A couple of the instructors in our class had less time than that. I was assigned to a great instructor, Chuck Wilson. He taught me acrobatics that were not in the curriculum, such as how to do a loop on top of an Immelmann or how to do three slow rolls in succession without the engine quitting. Chuck was a great pilot and taught me a lot about precision and accuracy.

My operations officer for this training was George Truman. I recognized his name from hearing about an around-the-world flight that he and Clifford Evans had made in two Piper Super Cruisers a few years earlier. Truman was qualified in the T-6 but not very well versed in the curriculum since he was not one of the regular instructors. I remember he tried to show me a snap roll and I happened to be looking at the airspeed indicator when he yanked the stick back. At 160 mph the G force was quite high before it finally snapped. Fortunately the wings stayed on.