The Biography of a Rabbit

by Roy Benson

While flying formation with these planes we would practice crossovers. The middle plane was a leader with a plane on either side and slightly behind. When crossing over the plane on the left would go under and the one on the right would go over when the leader gave the signal. It was Just changing positions. At this time it was early in the war and it was after learning more from combat experience that a flight was changed to four planes. One day I was flying the lead plane and I called for a crossover. The next thing I know the two planes came up right in front of me with pieces flying off in all directions. They had both gone under me and one had come up under the other and stuck right together. They fell together in a spiral and crashed to the ground in an open field. The pilot of the lower plant was probably killed instantly. His name was Cassadont and he was a real handsome dark skinned, dark haired man of Mexican descent I believe.

The pilot in the top plane was Hershberqer and after they crashed I flew down close and saw him crawl out of the wreckage and give himself a shot of morphine from the emergency kit. He had a broken back, but survived to join us by the time we were in England. I gained altitude and wiggled my wings to get the attention of anyone in the area. I saw a car heading for the scene so I gained more altitude and circled the area while calling "Mayday" on the radio. I finally got through to the emergency channel in San Francisco and gave them the location. Then I returned to base. I was lucky because it could have just as well been me in one of those planes.

In November of 1943 four of us went to Nebraska to pick up four P-39s from an abandoned air base in northern Nebraska up near the South Dakota border. Our flight was chosen and our leader was Thomas J. Tilson (called TJ), Lloyd Bruce, Neil Ullo and myself. the four of us were to stay together all through combat. 'TJ' was a nice looking blond from Teaneck, New Jersey and was what we called a " big time operator" in those days. He had girls where ever he went. His ambition was to dance in all the big ballrooms in the U.S and England. I think he eventually made all of them. Bruce was from Kirkville, Missouri and Neil Ullo was from California. Neil had been an electrician in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed and as soon as he was able to get back to the States he joined the service. Bruce and Neil were my closest friends in the days to come and after the war Lettie and I visited the Bruces in Missouri and after Lynn was born, we visited the Ullos in California during one trip to Utah. Lynn stayed with her grandparents in Utah that time.

Now for the trip to Nebraska. We were real characters by now with our leather jackets, rakish hats and our 45's in our shoulder holsters. We had to protect these planes from the enemy even in the middle of the U.S.!! We were to fly by commercial airline to Omaha so we loaded all our gear into a small army truck and said goodbye to all our friends. We made the two and a half hour trip to the San Francisco airport to catch our plane. (It was the only time I ever flew in a commercial plane.) About four, and a half hours after leaving Oakland, we finally took off. About two minutes into the flight we landed at Oakland, across the Bay, on our first stop. There were all our friends standing there waving at us! We could have gotten on there and saved half a day of travel but that was the Army's way of doing everything. We landed in Omaha, checked into a hotel and set out to look for the nearest nightclub. We had a steak dinner and the meat in the stockyard district was totally different from anything in the East. The steak was about two inches thick and you could cut it with a fork. As soon as we found some girls, we stacked all our guns on the table and danced the evening away.

The next morning we left Omaha by train for Ainsworth, Nebraska. It turned out to be a little place about the size of Cheshire out in the middle of nowhere. The only one there to take care of the place was an old man wearing a beard. The four old planes were parked there and we didn't even know if we could get them started. To make a correction, the fourth pilot was not Bruce, but another fellow who was from Hastings, Neb. which was in the southern part of the state. We planned to fly down there and land at the nearest airport. We got the planes going and the old man wanted us to buzz the field before leaving, as a farewell. We took off, gained altitude, then dove down right at the building and the old man. We pulled up just as we passed over him and Neil Just missed the roof by inches. I found that the plane that I was flying had bad controls and you had to hold the stick way over to the left of the cockpit in order to keep the plane level.

We flew down to Hastings, Nebraska and stayed the night with the other pilot at his parents' house. Nebraska has always been known for its pheasant hunting so the next day we all got shotguns and sat on the fenders of his car and drove around all the back roads looking for birds. I can't remember if we got any or not, but we sure had a lot of fun.

We discovered that the planes did not have any oxygen so we had to find some way to get over the Rocky Mountains. We next flew to Ogden, Utah for fuel and when we landed the brakes failed on one of the planes. While we waited for it to be fixed, we wanted to get into town and had to sneak by the guards at the gate as we were not in uniform. We got through the gate and ran down the road far enough so they couldn't catch us. We caught a ride into Ogden. We were in a big department store when we saw the MP's coming after us so we got down behind the counters and ran all over the store until we lost them. We were never caught and made it back to the base safely.

I intended to ask Lettie to marry me when we got back to California and wanted to get down to see Mr. and Mrs. Clark while I was so close but couldn't get the transportation and didn't have enough time. We decided that as we had no oxygen in the planes, we could not fly over the Rockies and would have to fly down one of the valleys south to Las Vegas then to southern California and up the coast. It would be several days before the brakes could be fixed on the one plane so we decided that the three of us would fly on to Las Vegas and wait there for the other fellow. We started south with mountains on both sides of us when the clouds came down over the tops of the mountains. We were squeezed into a narrow valley and couldn't see ahead of us. We took a chance, continued on, and finally made it. Remember all this time I had to fly with the stick Jammed to the left and the right rudder pushed half way in to keep the plane level. My arms were very tired by the time we reached Las Vegas.

We stayed in a motel in Las Vegas just outside of town. At that time the city was undeveloped and the buildings were very far apart. The streets were mostly dirt. We headed for the nearest casino and started gambling. It was only a matter of hours and our money was gone so we wired back to Oakland and each got $100 advance on our next paycheck. We went back to the casino and after a couple more hours were broke again. The next day the other pilot caught up with us and we took off for California.

We flew in formation very close to the ground the whole way and whenever we came to a lake or other water, I would go up a couple of hundred feet above the others coming down to Join them when we were over land. We made it back to the base all right and the next day the planes had to be flown across the Bay to Hamilton Field which some of the other pilots did. The one who flew the plane I had flown from Nebraska could only get it a couple of feet in the air. He flew all the way across just above the water. It was just plain luck that got me there all the way from Nebraska.