Baa Baa Black Sheep

The harrowing times of World War II may have dimmed in the memories of some, but my participation was such that I will never forget it. The exploits of the legendary Flying Tigers and Black Sheep Squadron were truly unforgettable, to some unbelievable, to many thrilling and crucial. I wrote
Baa Baa Black Sheep
many years ago when the events of World War II were much closer to many of us. Now, nearly twenty years later, it’s gratifying to see both a rekindling of interest in the drama of those times and in my personal saga. During World War II, I was known as the “bad boy hero of the marine corps.” But I’ve never regretted earning that distinction because those were times that demanded “bad boys”—men willing to assert their individuality, to take risks, bend rules. And in that regard, times have not really changed.

Baa Baa Black Sheep
is an account of a time for which many feel great nostalgia. But for me it goes beyond that. For me they will always be days of deep personal memory.

Two years ago I got back into flying after an absence of thirteen years. Everyone was very helpful, and many friends put aside their own work to help me get started once again as a pilot.

The flight surgeon who gave me the necessary physical was most obliging, although he didn’t know me from a hot rock. A pilot who runs a ground school tutored me for a week, so I was able to pass a written test for an instrument rating, and another pilot who owns a flying school let me fly a few hours for practically nothing. Then I passed a blind-flying check. A local aircraft distributor even paid me a few dollars while I was busy getting some up-to-date flying hours for my ratings.

Two months from the day I discovered I could pass a second-class airman’s physical examination, I was all set to go. Multiengine planes, commercial and instrument, were on my flight certificate.

The amazing thing about it all is that the rust wore off in no time at all, as though I had never been away from flying. Getting accustomed to instruments I had never used before didn’t give me the slightest bit of trouble. But this is understandable, because, after all, for ten years or more flying was one of the few things to hold my interest for any length of time.

In the beginning I was uneasy about the conversation with the control towers and CAA Communications. But this ironed itself out soon, and they gave all the cooperation I needed when I called and told them that I was a “new boy.”

At my age it was difficult to get a flying job with an airline, even if you had a good record, but fortunately, I soon
found a flying job. An air-freight company in Burbank permitted me to use their executive five-passenger plane for charter. The airline didn’t pay my salary; I was given a commission of part of the charter business I sold. In return for this privilege I piloted for the company officials and their guests at times free of charge. This was okay with me, because it was wonderful to fly again. I was chartered by business people, motion-picture actors, or just about anyone who wanted to go anywhere and was willing to pay sixty dollars per hour.

The airline hangar at the Lockheed Air Terminal is only a matter of five minutes or so from our three-bedroom house, almost in the center of the San Fernando Valley. The direction of the prevailing take-off pattern from Lockheed takes planes directly over us day and night. When friends drop in from other parts of the city, they can’t seem to understand how we put up with the racket. They probably don’t stop to think that this particular noise is music to me. The take-offs are no bother to anyone in our house, not even our basset hound, Alvin, who has very sensitive ears. But far more important than not being bothered is that I feel close to all those flight crews as they go over.

My flying job led to a sales engineering position with Coast Pro-Seal, a manufacturer of aircraft sealants that supplies the aviation industry all over the country. My flying is limited to weekends and business trips. But whether I fly or do other things, I seem to run across many people I have flown with in the past. Many of the things we joke about today were at one time very serious matters indeed. We do not forget they made the difference between life or death, nor do we forget the hardships and the mental anguish we went through.

At least once each year, sometimes more often, a group of around twenty of us meet here in the valley for dinner. Some are pilots. Others are ex-pilots. And some are men who had a knack for keeping aircraft flying. Most of these people are in their early forties now.

There has always been a great deal of talk about these men since they first became acquainted, but there are very few people who know how they got together in the first place. Few know them by anything but a legendary name—the Flying Tigers.

The name Flying Tigers was unknown to us when we were quartered in an obscure hotel in downtown San Francisco, waiting for a Dutch motorboat that would transport us to the Orient to join the AVG, the American Volunteer Group. The word “volunteer” reminded me of the Marine Corps sergeant who said: “Never volunteer and you will stay out of trouble.”

I had answered: “Don’t worry, Sarge. I understand, and I’ll never forget your advice.” Yet, here I was, not only a volunteer, but a member of a volunteer group.

Europe was already embroiled in war, but apparently the United States was in no immediate danger. We knew very little about Franklin Roosevelt’s dealings with the rest of the world—and we were not supposed to know, because it was only September 1941. We did know we were to be paid in good old United States dollars, the money to be deposited in a New York bank for us at the end of each month while we were in China. Of course China would owe the American taxpayers for this money, but meanwhile the National Government could play big shot.