It was near the end of February and
everyone was anxious to begin flying after two months. These were the
best fighter planes in the war and thousands of them had been built.
Until this time there had been no fighters with long enough range to
escort the bombers deep into Germany and our effort was taking a real
beating from the German fighters. On February third I flew the P-51
for the first time and it was a thrill. It had so much more power than
anything we had flown before and was a pleasure to fly. In it you
truly felt part of the plane. That was what they called a "Pilot's
Plane". For several days we just took the planes up to get their feel.
On clear days you could see France and Belgium across the Channel but
in general we flew near the base. Some pilots wore crazy and one even
slipped across the Channel and shot all his ammunition at a train.
This aggressive type of pilot usually proved to be the best in combat,
so he was only reprimanded and grounded for three days. Due to the
English weather, we were probably al1 grounded anyway.
We had a softball diamond for use when we were not flying. You had to
watch it all the time because some one would fly across the field just
above the ground when they could. They were so low that you would be
forced down into the dirt. All fighter pilots were a little crazy, but
mostly the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Several times I went up to
33,000 feet which was the highest the plane would go before the
controls got sluggish due to the thin air.
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