MEMOIRS PART 18 - COMBAT TRAINING

On December 6, 1944, I left Tuskegee and was given three days to get to the Richmond Army Air Base, located near Richmond VA. By that time I had another car, a 1941 Mercury. I drove to Richmond and must have arrived on time , since I don't have any records to indicate otherwise. The only thing I remember about the trip is that I passed through a little town in Georgia named Grantville (no "s") and sent a postcard home.

I only have a vague recollection of my stay in Richmond.. It was a ground school mostly, because I don't remember flying there at all. I had lots of spare time, and I drove around Virginia some, but I don't remember much about it. I do recall that it snowed while I was there, which surprised me somewhat because I had always thought of Richmond as a Southern city.

I stayed at the Richmond Army Air Base about a month, and then in early January of 1945 was transferred to the Suffolk Army Air Base, which was near West Hampton Beach on the northeastern tip of Long Island. I stayed at Suffolk for two months, and it was the coldest two months I ever spent outside of Grantsville. I was in a barracks room with 5 or 6 other officers. We had a pot-bellied coal stove to keep us warm, and sometimes the stove was red-hot.

At Suffolk AAB we spent most of our time in the air, in P-47s. We practiced formation flying, gunnery, and of course landings and takeoffs. There may have been some night-flying, but i don't recall it. The gunnery was the most interesting part of the practice. The P-47 had two 50-caliber machine guns mounted in each wing outside the arc of the single propeller. There was also a movie camera mounted in front of the pilot that was triggered by the guns, so that the instructors could criticize or praise the trainee pilot's performance.

For almost all of the target shooting flights, only two of the four guns were loaded. This saved a good deal of ammunition, but on a few of the flights all four of the guns were loaded. This I understood was to familiarize us with the effect the recoil had on the plane. It was hardly noticeable.

I had every weekend off during my two months at Suffolk, so I nearly always took the train into New York City. I think I saw every possible landmark there at the time.




In early March I was transferred back to Richmond to prepare for shipment overseas. At that time I didn't know where I would be sent, but by the time I got to Richmond on about March 10, 1945, the word was out that we were going to Europe. I sold my car, sent all my clothes and papers home, because the future was a little uncertain.

On March 15, I was transferred to Camp Kilmer NJ. and a few days after arriving there, I boarded a troop ship bound for England.