The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-11-10
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me some fundamentals, like taxying
faster and faster until the ship was
almost ready to take off. I went to
Chandler Field in Atlanta and took
several lessons with the instructors
there in Eagles and Jennys, until
one day l trusted myself to take
off from the racetrack of my home
town fairgrounds. I still don't see
how / got by with the flight, be-
cause l knew nothing about CO.
ordination of controls or the tech
nique of flying-though no one
seemed to know much about them in
those days. But the ship was a
pretty safe old crate, the wing skids
saved me from digging a wingtip in
on the forthcoming ground-loops,
and I got away with murder.
All of this ended very suddenly.
The street-car conductor instructor
of mine came back to land one
night and hooked the Jenny's right
wing on the guy-wire of smoke
stack. That was the last Of him and
| the last of my Jenny, because they
both burned.
AS the years went on I moved up
in the Boy Scouts until at seventeen,
in 1925, was one Of the highest in
the country, and had more merit
badges than any other Scout in the
South. With all of them, however,
my schooling had suffered, for to
me flying and athletics came before
books and such. I sometimes think
the only way ever completed high
school was for my patient mother
and father to promise to let me
work my way to Europe on freight
ers in the summer only when I
could pass studies like Spanish and
English. / don't think, though, that
my parents knew I had resolved to
60 to West Point. For after talking
to men in the Air Corps ! had dis
covered that if boy went to the
Training center at Brooks Field,
near San Antonio, as Flying Ca
| Diet, his future was rather indefinite.
The Government would train you to
fly, give you the best course in the
world. Then they would order you
to active duty as a Reserve Officer
| for about a year. After that, due
to economy programs, it might all
be over.
Wanting to fly for the rest of my
life, had charted my course. I
resolved to 60 to the Military Acad-
envy and become regular army
officer first; then to be ordered to
the Air Corps Training Center as
student officer. After completing the
! flying course, I would have life
time in front of me as pilot in the
Regular Army.
The greatest fight I had was to
get into the Military Academy, for
appointments were scarce in the
South. wrote all the Senators and
Congressman in Georgia, but found
they had promised their quotas long
before. ALI such refusals merely
made me more determined to win
the opportunity. I wrote not only
my own State political leaders but
those of other States. Finally, the
Congressman of my Georgia dis
trict-at the earnest plea of home
town friends who knew Of my Boy
Scout record-gave me second alter
i nate. This proved of little value;
the principal won out by merely
presenting his high-school credits
and passing the physical examines
ton. The next year was given
q first alternate from a Senator but
again the principal won.
Hope of entering the Academy
seemed to wane, for / was approach
ing maximum age limit for appli-
cants. The same year I tried q
competitive examination with the
National Guard, but failed the alge-
bra subject. This failure at least
proved to me that though my studies
in high school may have been
passed, I had learned very little.
My stock in myself was at a low
ebb, there in 1926, when the high
school principal did me the greatest
favor in the world by his remark:
'Well, you really didn't expect to
60 to West Point, did your" And
the smile that accompanied the slur
made me swear that by all that was
high and holy would get there.
The things that followed were
chronologically peculiar for any boy.
I'll bet I'm one of the few in this
world who was graduated from high
school, attended two colleges, and
then returned to high school to real
ly get the foundation I had missed.
I know I had at last learned that
what one Of the old professors said
was right: ''Not for school, but for
life, we learn"
Returning to my old high school,
! chose my own courses and SUBJ
jected myself to several periods Of
mathematics, history, and English
every day. The professors, who re-
membered me as seldom opening q
book, glanced at one another as
though they thought they had psy-
chopathic case on their hands. But
I acoIiired Sorne of the knnwladoa I