By Don
My childhood through age 12 was so full of adventures that I didn’t really notice girls. Joining the Boy Scouts at age 12 further expanded my outdoor life and by age 14, I was a Life Scout and thought about working towards being an Eagle Scout. But there was not enough time to do it all. By age 14 I was very aware of girls but did not know what to do with them.
A psychologist would have said that my testosterone had yet to kick in, while some of the older guys began acting like theirs were out of control. What to do? It was sometimes very confusing. I did not realize that the guys I knew were “changing.” Mind you, I knew of no parents of that era that ever “had the talk” with their sons. Certainly not my parents. Sex education was boys conversations, talking among themselves in what I thought were crude terms that made me interested and uncomfortable. The times were different then, the culture different. TV was not around nor was Marilyn Monroe or centerfolds.
Those conversations made me feel like they knew everything about girls while I felt like a dunce, which was a shattering blow to my otherwise high level of self confidence...for my age anyway. Later on, in retrospect, I realized that late puberty was damaging to the ego if not cruel and that it was typical for teenage males to be braggarts if not liars when it came to girls.
At the time I reasoned that girls did not play any of the boy sports, did not fish, go on bike trips or hike and camp. Some of them even smoked which became another level of teenage macho posturing. I became so aware of how phony some of the boys looked while smoking, I became disdainful of anyone that smoked, especially girls. Maybe if I had taken up smoking I would have been like the “Marlboro Man.”
While I had many enjoyable days “socializing” with groups of boys and girls, especially at the Jersey Shore, I plodded along, content with who I was, whatever that was. I did not date in high school. I certainly was not a nerd, played all sports but not really well enough to be on a team.
I did date a little at Clemson and found that southern girls were also nice and were especially curious about “Yankees.” Sometimes too curious. Even after rising above their accent, I could see that it was not a good fit and let it go. Then a friend was designated as a cadet date for someone that later became Miss America. I envied him. Doug became known as Mr. America. I later went out with a friend of Miss America to be but alas, I struck out. Back to saving lunch money for flying lessons in the Piper J-5 at Anderson, South Carolina.
Another friend fixed me up with a girl from North Carolina. Another zilch. Still another date in Atlanta with a girl from Agnes Scott which was a disaster, or so I thought. Then she wrote me a letter at Clemson but I never made it back to Atlanta. I then became a Clemson graduate but unlike Dustin Hoffman in the movie “The Graduate.” Where was Ann Bancroft when you needed her?
Now it was on to the next big thing…Naval Officer School at Newport, RI. Other than almost flunking out and being saved by a visit by my friends the Demmers who drove there through a snowstorm after I had told them I was about to flunk out. Newport ladies back then are best described as life imitating art. Art being the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Yes, Richard Gere got a girl and I went to Navy Pensacola for flight training.
Pre-flight training was initially tough for me physically. The obstacle courses and all that. In class I was competing with real college grads from around the US. I struggled academically but was accomplished in all things military due to the Clemson Cadet Corps experience. I did surprisingly well in something called speed reading. For some reason I was the third fastest reader in the program records. Must have been all my years reading every book I could find. In 1942, my mother bought me a book. That was a big deal for our family in a lot of ways. It was about a pilot and two crew members that went down in the Pacific and spent 32 days in a small raft and survived. Strangely enough, the title was “The Raft.” I was hooked.
I still remember the first line in my first very own book. “Captain Bligh would indeed have fancied Dixon.”...In 1942 there were no books in our house except an old Bible. My mother saw me reading excerpts from The Raft in the Sunday paper. She went to Newark and bought the book which was a bigger deal than I realized at the time. That started me into books, school libraries and public libraries. But I digress...on to the next big thing -- Whiting Field and actual flight training.
SNJ-5 WB from Whiting Field
I soloed the yellow trainer called the SNJ and what an ego trip that was. The experience with the little plane at Clemson helped but I could do anything they asked me to do in that SNJ. Maybe it was my enormous confidence in general, maybe it was the end of the longest puberty on the planet, but my ego knew no bounds. How could anyone resist me? I was becoming a Naval Aviator. I dated a little at various Florida bases and some at advanced training at Kingsville, TX where I trained in jet fighters which stretched new boundaries in all areas, flying and women.
Any woman that saw me in a flight helmet, boots, sun glasses and G-suit was bound to melt at my will. Sure they would. Home, on leave, I dated a school teacher from West Orange and a nurse from New York and a few others. I found the New Jersey girls much better than the Floridians or the Texans, especially the Texans. Was I becoming an egotistical snob or just trying too hard to make up for lost time? But this was not a time for any analytical thinking…the next big thing was here. Flight training was over. I had my wings.
F3D Skynight (DRUT), flew at RAG Key West
My Navy orders took me to Key West to learn ground control radar interception flying the ugly F-3D or DRUT. Do not spell it backwards. It did not have an ejection seat. You unhooked your gear and straps, moved a hatch and slid down a chute into a mattress on the hangar deck. In practice, none of us got out in less than a minute.
Later, I was diverted from the Key West Naval Air Station due to thunderstorms. The LCDR leading our flight of two lost his radio so ENS Lidke led him north to MacDill AFB at Tampa as directed, which created a problem. MacDill was a SAC base and it was restricted to flights with prior landing permission. The LCDR was low on fuel so I had to ignore the tower repeatedly telling me (us) that we could not land. Instead I declared an emergency and flew a precautionary flame out approach with the LCDR on my wing and landed anyway.
The vehicle that met us had machine guns pointed at us and we were “taken” to the aerodrome Commanding Officer under guard as unauthorized arrivals. We went into his office and there on his desk was his name plate: Col. Paul W. Tibbets. My God, he was THE Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He was most gracious, sent his secretary to get us coffee, arranged for a new radio for the LCDR’s A/C and for a fuel truck, and apologized for the necessary security. We spent the night and flew to Key West NAS the next morning with our story.
Now for my first fighter squadron and RAG, or replacement Air Group VF-21. The Mach Busters flew the F-ll which had been the A/C of the Blue Angels. Thank you Butch Voris. Weeks later, after more training in a F-9F swept wing jet, the time came for my f hop in the F-ll. It had only one seat. That day came but three of us newbies or “jet nuggets” were called into the CO’s office.
We were told that Navy budget cuts required some pilots to be cut from the jet pipeline and we were to report to a Norfolk office for further orders. I was living with four other pilots at 112 and a half 58th street, on Virginia Beach. The house was between a house full of Seal team types and a house full of airline stewards. We went to Norfolk to check the available billets. I took a chance on the big four engined P-6M jet seaplane being tested at Martin Aviation.
P5M
I was sent to Bermuda for seaplane experience to prime me for the P-6M. There I was to fly a twin-engined big gull wing P-5M propeller A/C. The P-5M was known as two prop fighters glued to a dempster dumpster. I felt this choice was the pick of the litter but I was crushed and angry. One of the other guys broke down in tears of disappointment. I said screw it, or words to that effect..at least I’m not being sent to Maug Maug. That’s Guam spelled backwards. A few months later when I was learning about seaplanes at BDA, a P-6M blew up on a test flight and the program was canceled. So I got to fly at 200 knots instead of 500 knots for three years at BDA...Epitome of a bummer. But stay tuned. There were girls at BDA and after a year or so...Doris and friend came to the island on vacation…Grandpaw