We started to fly more formation flights of two or three planes and another plane would try to "attack" us from out of the sun or from the clouds like an enemy would. This taught us to keep our heads turning all the time to keep track of the sky all the way around us. We would take evasive action to try to keep the enemy ship from getting behind us. We also did a lot of formation flying close to the ground which trained you to stay close together in formation. In the tomato and vegetable farms in the Sacramento valley the pickers would be out in the fields with crates stacked about six feet tall and we would fly down so low that we blew the empty crates over. I imagine we were cussed a lot! A couple of times someone would come back and land with telephone wire or fencing caught on the underside of the plane. I loved to do acrobatics and when I was up alone, I would do rolls and snaprolls and all the fun stuff.
We were on duty two days and had the next one off so we had plenty of free time and spent a lot of it in San Francisco. We found a rent-a-car place and started renting a car by the day. Instead of taking it back we would just pass it on to someone else. Sometimes we would keep it for two weeks and when it went back we would all chip in to pay the bill. One time we had a big Packard Clipper which didn't have any reverse so you had to drive it, park it, and keep it in places that you could get out of without using reverse Sometimes that was real ticklish in the city. I had this big black car when I had the first date with Lettie. I would get her home anytime between 1:00 and 3:00 am then wait outside in the car until she came out in the morning to go to work so I could give her a ride. I got used to staying up all night every third night. The other fellows were all finding dates so I had started looking one day and found her working in the candy section of a department store. I liked San Francisco and servicemen were welcome anywhere so I spent a lot of time in the best hotels and restaurants. We also found many "steak houses" in California and would eat in them frequently. They were small places with a couple of tables and a bar or counter with stools. All the menu consisted of was steak, salad, rolls and coffee but it was always good. I rode the cable cars a lot and helped them turn the cars around at the bottom of the hill. I found that all the head turning and watching while flying really sharpened your driving ability in a car. You saw all the traffic at once and could go through it quickly. We used to drive 60 mph across the Golden Gate Bridge when the fog was so bad all you could see was the white line in the center of the road. 0n my first date with Lettie we doubled with another couple. The fellow, Wes Hottdorf, flew with me and had been a member of the Chicago Mafia. He ended up flying P-38s in a different group in England.
On August 28 we went to another field in Santa Rosa, California and flew about the same type of training as we had been doing. We were still close enough to San Francisco to get up there often. At the time we were also still getting experience with the link Trainer. At this field we had a BT-13 and an AT-6 which we had flown in flying school. We could fly them anytime we wanted to and they were also used if the flight leader wanted to check on our flying skill as they were two seaters. Remember Pete Lenzi who had hitchhiked to California and Joined the Marines? He had been wounded over the Pacific and was recuperating in the Oak Knoll Hospital in California. When he was able to get out of the hospital for a day I had him come up from San Diego and I met him in San Francisco where we spent the day together. In the evening I took him out to the field and took him up in a BT-13. I gave him a wild ride with lots of acrobatics: loops, rolls and spins. I dove down almost to the ground then pulled up so that he disappeared down in the back seat out of sight. He really enjoyed the ride and still remembered it the last time I saw him.
We now started to fly a lot of formation with the planes in a V. It was not until later in the War that a formation of four planes was used. We flew formation at high altitude, low to the ground and cross country. Neil Ullo and Lloyd Bruce were now my closest friends and were in my flight. Neil was sent to a special gunnery school in Arizona for two weeks and when he came back he had to teach what he had 1earned to all the rest of us. Later I will tell how much this extra gunnery training helped him.
By this time we had developed our skill to the point where we got the fighter pilot attitude which was years later described as the 'Right Stuff'. We wore the silk scarf, sunglasses and rakish hat with a leather Jacket. In San Francisco I bought a pair of lumberjack boots that I was still wearing when I was in prison camp. We began to fly more aggressively as we knew the airplane better. The gunnery range was along an uninhabited portion of the California coast and we would fly down close to the rocks along the shore to scare the seals off the rocks. Some of the guys flew under the Golden Gate Bridge, but I never tried that. Out guy flew down into a football stadium during a game and he was reported and grounded for three days. He forgot to keep the side of the plane with the identification numbers away from the spectators. We were now flying two and three hours a day and a little at night. Landing a plane at night is a lot different than in the daytime. Altogether I flew about 155 hours in the P-39 and another 10 hours in the basic trainer while I was in California.
On September 22, 1943 I was granted a leave and prepared to go home. This was the second and last leave that I had during my three and a half years in the service. Four of my friends who lived in the East bought an old car for $75 and they drove it non-stop all the way to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They sold it for junk and took the train back to California. There wasn't room enough for me to go-with them so another fellow and I took a bus to Sacramento, where there was a bomber base, and tried to hitch a ride east on an Army plane. There was a B-24 Bomber flying to Omaha, Nebraska and we could ride it if we had parachutes. We tried everywhere to borrow a parachute and at the last minute I talked a captain into letting me take his (after a couple of hours of pleading with him). I agreed to return it immediately upon returning to California. We got on the plane and had to stay in the bomb bay section. The door on the side of the plane was about six feet by six feet and was open as the doors were missing. After we took off the cold air was terrible as it was night and the opening was right by us. We found a l2xl2 canvas and tried to fasten it over the opening and it blew right out over the city of Sacramento so somebody got a good canvas. We took all of the clothes we had with us and put them on, laid down in the bomb bay and nearly froze to death on the way to Omaha. If the bomb bay doors had opened it would have been the end of us as we were using the parachutes as pillows! When we got to Omaha, I left the other guys and took a train to Rochester. Somewhere in the past I had met an old sergeant who had given me some good advice about train travel. He said to buy a coach ticket and get on a first class car. By the time they came around to collect tickets the coach cars were so crowded they couldn't make you move. This always worked for me and I saved a lot of money.
Besides my luggage I had to carry that heavy bulky parachute all the way across the country and all the way back.( When I got back to base I put it on a P-39 and flew it back to the captain in Sacramento.) I arrived in Rochester in the middle of the night and took a taxi to Pittsford where I stood on the corner to thumb a ride. About 1:30 in the morning an old black man and woman in an old Model A Ford gave me a ride. They were so old I think they were scared of me but they were surely nice to give me a ride at that time of night and we had a good visit along the way. They let me out in Canandaigua and I walked home. I made it faster than a train ride even though I used a lot of different means of travel to get home that leave.
After my stay at home I took the train from Rochester to San Francisco and it was a trip that I'll never forgot. There was a girl with three kids under the age of 5 and she was traveling from Boston to San Diego to be with her husband, a sergeant stationed in California. We had a Pullman car and their berth was opposite mine. The kids spent most of the time crying or running in the aisle. There was a sailor sitting with me and we tried to help entertain them as best we could. After three days and nights with all that noise you can bet I was glad to arrive in California!
I took a taxi out to the base at Santa Rosa and the whole camp had. disappeared. The barracks were empty and all my gear was gone. It was real spooky and I didn't know if they'd gone overseas or what. I hunted around and found a caretaker who told me they had moved to Oakland, across the Bay from San Francisco. I called a taxi again and made it to Oakland just before my leave was up. While I had been gone, two of the guys had had to bail out of their P-39s due to engine trouble. Al Johnson was one of them and he landed in a lake. The next time I flew I spent the whole time listening to the engine for fear that it would quit. I kept hearing things that weren't there, but those planes were all old and anything could happen to them.
The lst weeks of our training here at Oakland were formation, gunnery, dive bombing, and simulated aerial attacks. We began to lose some of the pilots now. One took off over the Bay and the plane exploded. We figured there was gasoline in the cockpit and he must have lit a cigarette as he was always doing that (against regulations). When we flew low formation and came to any body of water, I always went up a lot higher than the rest and then dropped down again into formation. I wanted to make sure that I could glide to land if the engine quit. I hated water as I didn't know how to swim. Some of us had cameras and would fly close to each other and take pictures. I took a lot of pictures when I first entered the Army and don't know why I didn't take any all through my flying. I did take a lot while in England. Oakland was just across the bay from San Francisco and I used to take the "A" train across the bridge to see Lettie. This was the "A" train that the song was written about and it was the best way to get to San Francisco in a hurry.