After we were all checked out, we practiced takeoffs and landings and
flew cross country in formation. I flew about 20 hours the two weeks
we were in Tonapah. After our confidence grew we started doing things
like flying real low down the straight section of the highway trying
to chase the Greyhound buses off the road. The airplane numbers were
on one side of the plane only so we had to keep that side away from
the road so we wouldn't be identified. On July 5 we went by train
back to Hamilton Field in California.
The rest of July and all of August we flew P-39's from Hamilton
Field. From here we made cross country flights to Reno, Nevada,
Oroville, California and Sacramento, California. We also started
gunnery practice here. The P-39 had a 30mm cannon that fired through
the nose of the propeller and the targets were along the shore of San
Francisco Bay. We would dive down at the target and shoot the cannon.
We also had practice at aerial gunnery. One of the planes was used as
a tow ship and towed a cloth target about four feet wide and twenty
feet long on a cable behind the plane. The tow ship would fly up and
down the coast while the other planes would fly toward the target at
45 degree angles and shoot the 50 caliber machine guns which were
mounted in the wings. Each pilot had different colored chalk on the
bullets and they would thus leave a colored hole in the target when
you hit it.
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