Area cadet soars during Army Air Corps training

(Just a few days ago, we commemorated the 65th anniversary of D-Day. My mind turned to my Army days and especially the time overseas in the Third Army Division. I thought about writing something about my basic training and time in the service. I did, and the training part went like this: I was issued a piece (rifle), a pack any self-respecting mule would decline to carry, a poncho, a gas mask that just happened to fall overboard on the way to Europe, a shovel I hated during basic training and loved during combat, a first aid kit, and a few other incidental things. I was, and still am at heart, a dogface, and in the infantry we walked, and walked, and walked, ad infinitum. That’s it — that is all I came up with — but I wanted more than a one paragraph article. I then thought of a man that, to me, epitomizes the “Greatest Generation.” His name is Frank Evans and he shared with me his experience in the military. Here, in his own words with some editing due to space limitations, is his story.)   

“My primary flight training began in July 1941, at a field at Tulare, Calf., operated by “Tex” Rankin, a former barnstorming pilot. He had a contract with the Army Air Corps to train aviation cadets. The instructors were civilians under the supervision of an Army Air Corps flight officer. Each instructor had a given number of cadets assigned to him.

“Every cadet stayed with the same instructor throughout primary training. The only exception was when an instructor felt the trainee was not making satisfactory progress. In that case, the trainee was assigned to a military check pilot for what was called the “Maytag” ride. The name came from the Maytag washer — to wash them out.

“All cadets were supposed to have had their solo flight by the time he had approximately 10 hours of instruction, but my first instructor would not give me my solo flight. He stated he thought I would never learn to fly. I guess we had a personality conflict, and each time I went up with him I would be more and more uptight and then perform poorly.

“On my Maytag ride, an Army lieutenant check pilot went with me. After about 30 minutes of flying and maneuvering, as he requested, we were near an auxiliary landing strip when he said, “Land here.” After landing, he climbed out of the plane and said, “Make three landings and then stop and pick me up, which I did successfully. This of course constituted my solo flight. Thereafter I was assigned to another instructor and I finished primary training as expected.

“I moved on to the next level of basic training and was introduced to BT-13 aircraft and I was the first cadet of our class to solo in those trainers, proving my first instructor wrong.

“One interesting incident during primary training occurred on a day when I was scheduled for solo flying. One of the Air Corps pilot officers asked if it would be OK with me if he rode along (the policy was that this was not allowed). After flying for a while, he said to me, “Would you like to attempt a simulated forced landing?” I agreed to try it. This meant that I was to keep my head bowed and not look out until he cut the throttle on the engine about 3000 feet above the ground. I would then look around for a likely looking area in which to land the plane without power. I would pretend to land, and then apply power to climb again. I picked out a field but when we got down for a landing approach, I  discovered that the “field” was a crop of hops with their stakes underneath.

“The officer said, “Let’s go back up to altitude and I will show you how to do this properly.” This we did and he picked out a good pasture, skimmed the field, but when he applied power to climb, he was a bit too late. The plane was so low to the ground that the tail wheel caught in the wire of the far side border fence and pulled us down to a screeching halt. We stopped about six feet from the bank of a dry wash. The depth of the wash was probably 10 to 12 feet. He was very embarrassed and said for me to stay with the plane while he went to the nearest farm where he could phone to the base to get transportation. I never did learn what, if any, reprimands he received because of this incident.

“Basic Training was at a field near Taft, Calif., 30 miles or so west of Bakersfield. On weekends, we would go to Bakersfield to see movies or whatever, as Taft was a very small town.

“I was sitting in the lobby of a motel in Bakersfield on Sunday morning on Dec. 7, 1941. I was reading the Sunday paper and a military policeman arrived at the door to tell us about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and that we were to immediately return to the base at Taft. For the next few days there was, of course, a great deal of speculation and rumor as to how our assignments might be changed. However, there was no change and we continued basic training and then moved on to Advanced, which was at Mather Field near Sacramento, flying AT-6 planes.

We graduated from Advanced training in February, Class 42-B, and I was sent to Boise, a newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant. Jane Pier and I were married there on March 29, 1942. It was in Boise that I first saw a B-17. About a month later, we were sent to Tucson for intensive training in B-17s, and we remained there until July, when I had orders to join the 301st Bomb Group at Westover Field, Massachusetts.

(The BT-13 Valiant was a trainer aircraft built for the U.S. Air Corps. The T-6 Texan was used to train fighter pilots and was a single-engine advanced aircraft. The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft.)