MEMOIRS PART 17 - FLYING SCHOOL

On January 27, 1942, I began my journey to Craig Field, Alabama. I was permitted to drive my car, and if there were any restrictions at that time on gasoline usage, I don't remember them. Later there were restrictions on both gasoline and tires. I always had the highest usage permit, because I was required to use my car to commute to my various stations.

I drove from Stockton CA to Grantsville, arriving there about January 29. My parents were in the process of moving their house from Cooley's Lane to its present location on Main Street, and they were living in some cabins in what was then called a trailer court next door to the new location. I stayed with them for a day or two. A fellow officer from California named Mark Steyart came by bus and met me in Grantsville. He was ordered to Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, which is about 40 miles east of Selma. He was a fine, upstanding young man, and one of the only four of my wartime associates that I saw after the war.

Mark and I then drove to Alabama, heading south to Route 66. The trip must have been routine, because I only remember two things about it. First, when we crossed the Continental Divide in New Mexico, we got out and took some pictures. Second, when we crossed the Mississippi River in Louisiana, I was astonished by the river's width.

I don't recall dropping Mark off in Montgomery, nor do I recall my arrival at Craig Field, which at that time was an advanced training facility for British pilots, who trained in AT-6s. I was given a few days' training on what was expected of me and what my duties were, then I was assigned 5 student pilots. One of them had a Cockney accent which I had great difficulty understanding, frequently requiring an interpreter. I have reviewed my flight records and find that my first flight at Craig was on Feb 8, 1942; my last was on March 12. I flew 87 hours during that period, almost all of it with students. I guess they all graduated, but I don't recall any details.

On March 12, 1942, I was transferred to Spence Field, near Dothan, AL. This was also an advanced training school, but the students were Americans. My first flight at Spence was on March 18, and my last on May 17. This was the full two months of training allotted to American student pilots. I can't remember anything about the flights or other training, and I only have a vague recollection of the housing, but I am sure that at both Spence and Craig, I lived in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ).


On May 18, I received orders to proceed to the Tuskegee Army Flying School (TAFS). It didn't have a field name art that time, and it was located near Tuskegee, AL. I reported to Tuskegee on May 19. The proper procedure was to go to the base commander's office and report in. I went to the base headquarters, was ushered in to the base commander's office, saluted smartly, and said "Lieutenant Wrathall reporting for duty."

The colonel was a regular Army officer of the old school who seemed a little taken aback by my actions. He told me to be at ease, and to take a seat. Then he looked at my name again, and said "Lieutenant, are you any relation to Colonel James Spry?" When I answered that Spry was my father's first cousin, the commander, whose name was Frederick von Kimball, said that he had attended West Point with Jim Spry. (In passing, I will add that I saw Major General Spry at a Wrathall reunion in the mid-50s, where he told me that "Freddie" had spoken highly of me.)

The TAFS was the Army's answer to the demands of many politicians, most notably Eleanor Roosevelt, that Negroes be given more of a chance to participate in the war effort, and the activities of the Army in general. Prior to the organization of TAFS, there were no black pilots in either the Army or the Navy. This didn't mean that segregation was ended. Under Col. von Kimball, all the officers were white, and all the cadets and enlisted men (except for a few master sergeants) were black. There were "white" and "colored" toilets, drinking fountains, and mess halls; white personnel were not allowed to live on base.

Much of this changed when Col. von Kimball was "kicked upstairs" and Lt. Col. Noel Parrish became base commander. All of the segregation on the base disappeared, and more black officers appeared, but white officers were never allowed to live on base. Thus, my second activity at Tuskegee was to find a place to live.

The base adjutant, who was the C.O.'s secretary, gave me a list of possible living quarters in the two nearest towns, Tuskegee and Auburn. I went first to Tuskegee, where I stopped at a large brick two-story house about 5,000 square feet of living area. It had 5 large bedrooms upstairs, along with one bathroom containing a tub, sink, and toilet. All the bedrooms had fireplaces, not used because steam heat had been installed. There was a bronze plaque out front attesting to the fact that the house had been built in 1840. I immediately took the room offered to me, which was in front facing the street.

The house was owned by Grover Cleveland Thompson, whose name was an indication of his age, and the landlady (his wife ) was Annie Lee (neé) Foy. Their elder son and his wife lived on the first floor with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. Their younger son was a pilot who had been killed at Pearl Harbor. Annie Lee told me proudly, many times, that she was descended from the Savannah Foys. After a few weeks I learned that Grover was the town undertaker.

Tuskegee was a typical Southern town. It was small the time, with a population of about 1000-2000. and was totally segregated. The town had a central square with a statue of a Civil War hero in the center, and all the town's businesses were in the buildings surrounding the square. The Thompsons' house was on a side street about 1/4 block from the square.

As everyone knows, Tuskegee is the home of the Tuskegee Institute, so I don't need to go into any details about it. Most of the cadets at the air base were graduates or students of the institute.

On May 22, 1942, I took my first flight at Tuskegee, and after the base operations officer had checked me out, I was assigned 5 cadets and began my work as an advanced instructor. The airplane we trained in was the AT-6.

The cadets had all completed primary and basic training and were judged competent to begin flying AT-6s. In general the new things they had to learn were:\
1. taking off and landing
2. flying in formation
3. night flying, takeoffs, landings
4. gunnery
During the 8-week training period we spent 6 weeks on takeoffs and landings, and formation flying, one week on night flying and one week on gunnery.

Everything took place at Tuskegee except the gunnery training, which was at Eglin Field in the Florida Panhandle. Eglin was the gunnery training field for all the training bases in the Southeastern States. Eglin had all the facilities for ground targets, and the Gulf of Mexico was used for aerial targets. Each training base got one week in eight, and there were enough of them to keep Eglin busy all the time.



After my first flight on May 22, I flew on training flights with each of my cadets every day for the rest of the month except the 25th and the 31st. In addition to flight training, the cadets had ground school, in which they spent most of their time until they soloed.

Ground School consisted of many things that I have forgotten but the things I remember were aeronautics, aircraft maintenance, air corps tactics, and gunnery.

Gunnery was my favorite course, so at least twice a week I took my cadets to the skeet range. The theory was that the cadets could learn from becoming adept at skeet-shooting how important it was to "lead" a fast-moving target such as an enemy airplane or troop-train. I loved every minute we spent at the skeet range, and shot so often that after a while, I rarely missed a "clay pigeon".

Another training aid in gunnery was a small car built like a link trainer, which is a ground device used to simulate flying conditions. The car operated on a narrow-gauge railroad track and had a BB gun mounted on the front. The car had a control column and two pedals, and it could be turned and tipped when it was in motion. The cadets shot the BB gun at targets moving on another track, but the car kept breaking down, so we quit using it.

The first night-flying lessons came about a month into the training period, not a full week as I indicated earlier, but rather 6 nights in each period. The night-training flights took place once or twice a week during the last half of the course. By then the cadets were quite competent sand all I really had to do was sit in the back seat of the AT-6 as an observer. I don't recall any accidents or even close calls.

Next came gunnery, so I and 3 other instructors and all our cadets flew from Tuskegee to Eglin, two to each AT-6, in a squadron of 10 or 12 planes. Everything went well and we returned to our home base without incident.

The cadets I was instructing would upon graduation be assigned to the 99th Pursuit Squadron, which used P-40s for its operational flights. For this reason, it was incumbent on me to learn to fly the P-40 and to be reasonably well-acquainted with it. The P-40, along with other Pursuit (later called fighter) planes in the air corps were what was termed "single seaters". Unlike all the training planes, which carried two people (one instructor and one cadet), the pursuit planes had room for only one person in the cockpit.

Thus, the cadet learned partly by example, and until he soloed, he always had the instructor with him to keep him out of trouble. This was not so in the case of pursuit planes, since the first flight of the cadet was solo.

The procedure for qualifying the trainee, whether cadet or experienced pilot, to fly the P-40 for the first time was for him to receive oral and written instructions prior to his first solo flight. A pilot experienced in flying the pursuit plane.would instruct the trainee on their flying characteristics, their cockpit layout, the function of all the controls , and other factors. Once this was done, and the instructor was satisfied, the trainee simply got in the cockpit, buckled his safety belt, started the engine, taxied out, and took off.

In my case, the ground instruction took about 30 minutes. I did this first on June 19, 1942 and again on June 24. Each time I flew for about an hour, and although my record shows only one landing each time, I'm sure I made many "touch-and-go" landings. My flight records were a then adjusted to indicate I was qualified to fly the P-40.

During the my service in the air corps and while I was in Tuskegee, I qualified for and flew all of the pursuit planes that the Air Corps had at the.time. That included the P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, P-51, which all had inline liquid cooled engines except the P-47, which had a huge radial air-cooled engine. The P-40,47, and 51 all had conventional landing gear: two wheels in front and one in the rear. The P-38 and 39 had tricycle landing gear, with a nose wheel in front. All the Pursuit planes had a single engine except the P-38, which had two.

I also flew many other twin-engine planes, including the C-47, which civilians called the DC-3. These twin-engine planes all had room for a copilot, and some had room for passengers. I never flew a four-engine plane such as the B-17 or the B-24, nor do I remember even riding in one as a passenger.

The training schedule described above continued for several months. Since the war effort was accelerating, each new class of cadets was larger than the last; by September 1942, there were 30 cadets to a class and 6 instructors in all. I was promoted to first lieutenant in September, and was put in effective charge of three other instructors. This didn't mean I stopped being an instructor myself, because I still had cadets to teach, but only three as I recall.



The rest of the time I spent helping my three instructors and checking the progress their cadets. This continued until April of 1943, when I was promoted to Captain. and given the title of "Director of Gunnery". I was then relieved of instructor duties; instead I supervised gunnery training for all the cadets on the base. Because of my interest in guns, I had already been the nominal director of gunnery for several months. In my file dated Feb 27 1943 is a letter of commendation signed by the base commander Col Parrish. It says that "the Tuskegee Army Flying School completed their Gunnery Training with a higher average than any other school." Unfortunately, we were never first again, but we were always in the top 4 of the 8 schools involved.

After April 1943 I didn't have any duties on base that required my presence all the time, so I spent some of the time ferrying pursuit planes from bases where they weren't being used to other bases where they were needed. The longest and most memorable flight of this kind was in March of 1944, when I flew a P-39 from Bangor, Maine to Victorville, CA. It took me 5 days to get there; each night I stopped at air corps bases along the way.

Also at this time, as part of the Air corps practice of sending pilots on long-distance flights as navigational training, I was permitted to fly an AT-6 from Tuskegee to Salt Lake City and back. I spent a few days with my family, and took Mother for a short flight over Tooele Valley, which she said she enjoyed very much. In Oct 1944 I was promoted to Major, and on Dec 2 I was transferred to the Richmond VA Army Airfield for combat training in P-47s.