LIFE STORY

OF

EUGENE HAYNES BUTLER

FIGHTER PILOT
 
 
Screamin’     Lead

Foreward4
The Early Days5
Life on the Farm17
High School Days34
Introduction To The Military44
PRIMARY  FLYING  EXPERIENCE  IN50
TULSA, OKLAHOMA50
Basic Flying At Coffeyville, Kansas52
Off To Advanced At Eagle Pass, Texas55
Graduation Day61
Life As A Flight Instructor66
Days At Foster Field, Texas71
First Assignment To Luke Field, Arizona74
Life In Illinois At Chanute Field79
Service In Central America79
Service In Central America80
Between The Wars84
Westward Ho The Wagons88
Married Life96
Second Tour At Luke AFB103
Ferry Flight To Turkey108
Flying Story Involving An F-84 Aircraft114
The Far East Experiences121
Coming Home123
The New Mexico Years125
Six Months Deployment To Europe135
Assignment To Waco, Texas152
THIRD ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE AFB160
lt. ERNEST E. VAN ALLEN, MY MOST CHOICE  & FOREVER FRIEND167
THIRD ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE AFB (CONT.)188
MOST IMPORTANT ASSIGNMENT OF MY CAREER--OSAN208
Special Story-- Osan Nuclear Weapons Pad213
Saga Of How WW III WAs Almost A Reality217
FOURTH & FINAL ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE221
COMBAT ASSIGNMENT TO VIETNAM237
CONCLUDING AIR FORCE ASSIGNMENT257

 
FOREWARD

(20 April 1999 Started this version)
On 14 April 1999, my sister, Betty Mildred Smith and Eugene left Provo, Utah in my 1996 Honda Van and traveled first to Phoenix, Arizona where we visited with Lloyd & Virginia Fish for a couple of days. They have been my friends for over 50 years.  Then on Friday morning, we roared off for Las Cruces, New Mexico in just over six hours total.  Freeway all the way there.  While visiting the Masonic Cemetery on Saturday, 17 April, I viewed again many, many gravesites of folks I once knew, went to school with some of them, and lots of their children.  As I was praying Saturday night late, I was inspired to again write my life story and this time do it correctly.  And as I pondered on my early days in Las Cruces, I was struck with the idea how utterly important those days were to me as a human being.  Especially important in preparing me to become a Fighter Pilot in the United States Air Force in just a few years at most.  So the following is my life story written as it should have been originally.




 
 

THE EARLY DAYS 

On Sunday about 1830 hours on 28 October1923 in the little town of Clovis, Curry County, New Mexico, there was born to Leslie Harland Butler and Maimee Burrus Haynes in their little home, a boy who they named Eugene Haynes Butler.  (My mother told me in my young days that I was named after the Legendary Poet, Eugene Field and my famous grandfather, Charles Wesley Haynes)  I was the youngest of five children born to this marriage.  Betty Mildred Butler born on 29 January 1917 in the tiny hamlet of Acme, northeast of Roswell a few miles in Chaves County, New Mexico. Clyde Wesley Butler born on 18 February 1919 in Deming, Luna County, New Mexico.  James Gordon Butler born on 5 August 1921 in Roswell, Chaves County, New Mexico.  Leslie Harland Butler, Jr. born 26 July 1922.  Junior was born with heart problems and this coupled with pneumonia resulted in his demise in Clovis on 1 February 1923 and he was buried the next day.  Junior was also born in Roswell.

When I was about 10 months old, our father deserted us and left town.  Our mother was quite well educated for those days, and if she had thought the process through a little, she would have taken all of us back to Roswell, which she did.  But then she would have gone to some of her friends there as she was well known due to her father, Charles Wesley Haynes being one of the most prominent citizens in those parts and asked for enough financial assistance to return to school and get a teaching certificate which would have been quite easy to do coupled with the education she already had. Our grandfather Haynes died in December 1914, so he was long gone by now.  But she didn’t do this and chose to take in laundry to make us a living.  She worked extremely hard and we did well considering everything.  Several folks there in Roswell did help us, I learned later.
    


In September 1929, just before I turned six years of age, I started to school.  Betty took me to school the first day.  I still remember she held me by my right hand and tucked into my left hand was a little primer, which all kids used in those days.  I was scared to death to start school.  But what I didn’t know was that I would just love school, and I really enjoyed school immensely.  And school became very important to me, too.  We lived on the west side of Roswell quite close to a road that led out of town to the western part of the state.

About the time I finished the first grade, Mama decided to leave Roswell.  One morning, Mama. Betty, Gordon and I departed Roswell forever as far as living there again.  I never knew Clyde when I was little, as by his own admission, he gave Mama a terribly hard time, so she farmed him out to different families in order to help him adjust to the realities of life.  I knew his name, and vaguely remembered that he was my brother, but I surely did NOT know him at all.  We first settled in Hot Springs, New Mexico that is now Truth Or Consequences and is located near Elephant Butte Lake.

While living in Hot Springs, Grandma Butler (Margaret Mahalie Sorrels) came to live with us for a short time. And I always really loved her and enjoyed being with her.  And as far as I was concerned, this was the first time I ever saw her.  I don’t remember going to school in Hot Springs as I think it was summer. One day, Grandma Butler was in the outhouse.  Mama took care of a crazy woman whose first name was Belle.  Mama worked for her husband and part of her job was to keep Belle out of trouble.  Well, as Grandma Butler was in the outhouse, Belle took a long butcher knife and was hacking away at the door as she intended to kill our grandmother.  All us kids were scared out of our wits.  Pretty soon, Mama walked up, very calmly took Belle by the hand and remarked, “Belle, it is time to go feed the rabbits,” and as she led Belle away, we observed Mama gingerly remove the long butcher knife out of Belle’s hand and slip it in her own dress.  We never forgot that incident.

After a very brief stay in Hot Springs, we again departed town, never to return again to live in Hot Springs.  But this time, all of us climbed into some woman’s old Whippet car and away we went south.  If my memory serves me correctly, we first went to El Paso, Texas, but immediately my mother told the woman to drive us back to Las Cruces, as she decided this was where we were to live.

I distinctly remember that when we first arrived in Las Cruces, I had a terribly infected foot and Mama put a thick, black salve called ickthy oil on the infected part, and soon I was well.  Right away, I was in the second grade in a school just west of main street about two blocks and right downtown.  My teacher was Miss Love, and I thought she was the neatest person I had ever known. (A newer elementary school is still on the same grounds)  We never lived in one house very long and if I attempted to name or describe the different places we lived in Las Cruces, I just couldn’t do it.

By the time I was in the third grade, we lived up the hill on the desert east of Las Cruces, and I was the only Gringo in the third grade.  Miss Christopher was my teacher.  In this class, there were 29 Mexicans, “Gugene”, and Miss Christopher.  I was never treated better in my entire life than by those little Mexican kids whose parents could not speak English and the kids weren’t much better.  If you visit this area today, you will find very few people of Mexican descent who can speak Spanish, as their parents never learned and they didn’t, either.  Isn’t this strange?

We lived in many places in Las Cruces.  Betty married quite young, Gordon was in and out of the home most of the time, so mainly, it was just Mama and Eugene who lived at home most of those years.  While we were living south of town, my mother was investigating the LDS Church.  One Sunday morning, she was cooking some pinto beans on a coal oil stove as they called them in those days.  She told Gordon to stay at home and not to leave because if the beans were left unattended, they would boil over, which would cause an explosion and the house would burn down.  She went to the LDS Church and I went in my little wagon to see Betty at her home in Las Cruces.  Betty would always give me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which I dearly loved, and still do!  She mixed the peanut butter and the jelly together ere she made sandwiches.  Gordon just had to go hunting or trapping, and sure enough, the house burned down.  We were left with just what we were wearing and my little red wagon.

Immediately, a miracle occurred.  The LDS Church came to our rescue, found us a nicer place to live just north of Lohman Avenue and about two blocks east of Main Street in downtown Las Cruces.  They brought us clothing, lots of food and other things that we needed to survive.  And the Western States Mission President with Headquarters in Denver, Colorado sent Mama a check for $10.  This is how much she made by working long hours for 15 days.  Yes, she would go to a family’s house, work hard for about 16 hours a day, six days a week and for this she received her own food, a place to stay for herself only, and received four dollars.  This was the going rate during the great depression of those days.  25 percent of the working force was unemployed.

Elder Barney and his Companion taught Mama the Gospel.  He was from Utah, I do not remember his Companion’s name at all, and never even heard Elder Barney’s first name.  Doesn’t this sound familiar?  It surely does.  After living in the first place the Mormons helped us with after our fire, we moved into a one room Adobe house up the hill with a dirt floor.  Elder Barney installed our wood- burning stove, and I still remember him putting the flue from the stove to the outside as if it were yesterday.  This consisted of several pieces of pipe that fit into the ends of each other.  Elder Barney was my Hero.  He was most charming and always there when we needed help of any kind.  And he was always happy!  Mama was baptized in El Paso, Texas by Elder Barney and both Gordon and I were present for her baptism.  Why she didn’t have Gordon and me baptized is still a mystery to me.  I know that Gordon was old enough to be baptized.  But as I seriously consider the time frame, I was just seven, in the second grade.  

I remember well Mama and I going to an office building in downtown Las Cruces where we attended the LDS Church.  But our attendance was not on a regular basis at all.  I also have wonderful memories of attending the LDS picnics on the desert south and to the west of Las Cruces.  I had never seen so much wonderful, delicious food in all my life.  I truly believed that the Mormons had all the food in the world and I always ate a lot, believe me.

One afternoon, while riding out to an LDS picnic in a large touring automobile, I was sitting in the back seat with a little Skousen girl on my left and another little boy was on her left.  As we rode along, she said to both of us, “Did you hear about the little boy drowning the other day?”  Then she called him by his full name.  “Yes,” we both replied.  “Do you know why he drowned?”  Again, we both replied, “No.”  “Well, I will tell you.  It is because he was swimming on Sunday, and don’t either of you ever swim on Sunday if you know what is good for you!!”  Well, that one statement is burned into my memory, and I doubt if I will ever forget it, and I don’t think I have ever been swimming on Sunday, either.

Gee, we moved around a lot.  I just can’t even begin to remember all the various places we lived while I was a small boy, but it was far too many!!!  One of these places was at a deserted location southeast of Las Cruces and I remember we had a turkey there, and as I raced across the desert during the summer, my bare feet would just burn as I ran from shade to shade of the small bushes there.  Another time, we lived east and south of downtown and Mama rented from a Mrs. Barncastle whose husband had been killed running booze or drugs across the Mexican border between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.  I remember owning a gray hen while we lived here, and each day, she laid an egg for us.  This was a big event in my life.  While we lived here, I was downtown one day, and a nicely dressed man approached me and asked if my mother had any sterling silver and when I replied that she did, he asked me if he could walk home with me so he could talk with her.  I led him to our little home.  Mama showed him the sterling silver that was a beautiful set of at least 12, along with ladles, serving spoons, forks, etc.  Her father had given this silver to her as a present long, long ago.  This was during the worst of the depression and his offer was very low, but Mama needed the cash, so she sold him the entire set.  After he left, Mama cried for a long time.  Naturally, this occurred before our house burned down on Sunday morning, so it was actually a blessing because if she had still owned the silver, it would have been destroyed in the fire as her fine linens, pictures, cut glass bowls, etc. plus everything we owned was lost in the fire.  There was absolutely nothing left in the burned home. Perhaps, her beautiful sterling silver set is still being used by some family to this very day!

At still another time, we lived immediately south of the Cunninghams.  This was also in southeast Las Cruces on a dirt road, as most of the roads were in those days.  Sid Cunningham, the Dad was a professional gambler, and a good one, too.  Charles, the son was about two or three years older than I, and he was just marvelous to me and I knew he was my friend.  He had a very close friend named Stanford Riley.  His Dad was Sid Riley, and he, too, was a professional gambler, and also an excellent one.  Stanford had to be very close in age to Charles, and he was my hero.  He was always ultra kind and good to me, and I always felt very safe around him, as I knew he would always protect me from any harm that might befall me.  I do know that during World War II, he served in Europe, but I have never seen or heard from him again.  If he is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces, there is no headstone identifying him.  I ate lots of meals at the Cunninghams and always read the El Paso Times when I was there, which was daily.  They were great friends of ours.  I always remember they lived very well, and Mrs. Cunningham used only Pillsbury flour for all her baking.

The school I attended in the third grade only had the first three grades.  So when it was time for me to enter the fourth grade, I was back in the same school where I had been in the second grade.  My teacher was Mrs. Harvey, and I am sure that I was her favorite student.  This was an excellent year of school for me.  I can’t remember, but when I was in this school either in the second grade or while I was in the fourth grade, I was in a class that they called manual training.  Today, it would be called wood shop, as that is all we did in this class.  Materials were very scarce, so they made us take a long time with each little project.  I made my Mother a wooden breadboard in the form of a pig.  This was the most popular form for a breadboard in those days.  One day, as I was hurrying up the stairs from the basement where we had manual training, I fell and broke one of my top, front teeth.  This cracked tooth stayed with me all through the years until one day, my present Dentist, Dr. John Chambers told me it was beginning to fail, so he filled in the part that was missing, and it saved the tooth.  One more tooth was failing due to cracking and he saved this tooth at the same time.  As of right now, November of 2000, I have all my teeth and hope to take them to the grave with me.  (Although this is out of sequence, I will state that Military Pilots always took excellent care of their teeth, and so did all the Dentists who worked on us, because if you had cavities and flew at high altitudes, you would almost die from the pain.)  And one must always remember that Fighter Pilots can stand anything but pain!!

While in the fourth grade, we lived in at least two places west of downtown Las Cruces.  One place was rented from a widow with several children, and she was very mean to them. Whether it was true or not, we were told she even burned her kids with a lighted cigarette, and this scared me to death, so I was very wary around her, and watched how I acted in her presence.  Gordon had at least 50 pigeons when we lived here which he had caught in the rafters of the downtown bank, and other places.  Mama sold them one day to a man for ten cents each as we needed the cash, and pigeons were mighty good eating back then.  Gordon felt pretty bad about losing his pigeons, but he also understood they needed to be sold.  

The other place where we lived while I was in the fourth grade was in a row house that had several units.  Right across the street to the west and a little south was a huge Baptist Church that is still there, and so are the one-room units in which we lived.  Gordon had a donkey there that he bought for three dollars.  The street was dirt, and this is where the donkey lived.  I guess it was legal then, as nobody complained, but Gordon soon sold the donkey.  On Mama’s birthday on 6 November 1932, I came home from the fourth grade.  She was hanging up the wash in the backyard that was east of our little one-room place and I said to her, “Happy Birthday, Mama.”  She looked at me with much sadness in her face and said, “Eugene, I have terrible news for you.  Bobbie Fred was run over and killed by a drunk woman driving her car today.”  Bobbie Fred was Lucille Smith’s little boy.  Lucille was Spurgeon Smith’s sister and he was my sister Betty’s husband.  Lucille’s maiden name was Smith, and she married a Smith.  I cried when Mama told me this little boy had been killed.  He was between three and four.  He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces in the same grave with Spurgeon & Lucille’s Dad, Emory Elijah Smith who died in 1924.  His widow was Martha Smith who owned and operated a busy café in Las Cruces, and her daughter Lucille, also had a hamburger shop there. 

Mrs. Harvey, my fourth grade teacher, was undoubtedly one of my favorite teachers of all time, and she always had me helping her clean the erasers and the blackboard, put me on duty as a school guard at the crossing for kids, etc.  On the very last day of class, Mrs. Harvey made a brief little speech about each of the 30 students in the class, and would then announce that this student was promoted to the fifth grade.  In that era, some of the students would be double promoted, which means that instead of going to the next higher grade, they would skip one grade and thus would spend one year less in elementary school.  When it came time for her to discuss Eugene, she related all the different things I had accomplished, and I just knew I was headed for the Sixth grade!!  When she announced that Eugene was promoted to the fifth grade, I felt worse than if she had said I was demoted to the third grade.  I was just devastated, but remained silent, indeed. 

Prior to me being in the fourth grade, Mama took a job with a man we all referred to as “Old Man Moore.”  He was a prospector who had a small place north of the highway that led to Alamogordo just up the slope of the east side of the Organ Mountains.  The Organ Mountain Range is approximately 15 miles east of Las Cruces. It is one of the most beautiful range of mountains I have ever seen as they rise very steeply, almost straight up on the west side and much more gentle on the east side as the foot of the range is much higher in elevation than the west side.  Mr. Moore was gone most of the time, so it was Mama’s job to take care of his place, and Gordon and I milked the several goats he owned.  He also owned one huge Billy Goat whose name was George.  George was one mean critter, but Gordon was too smart for this big goat.  From the opposite side of the goat pen, Gordon would coax him to a spot with some feed, then hook him to a long chain by his collar.  Then he couldn’t run us down and kill us in the process.  But when we wanted to play after the goats were milked each morning, Gordon would turn him loose so he had the run of the entire pen.  This was a very lonely place for Mama, and I am sure she hated this job with a passion.  She always felt less safe out in the country than she did in town.  WOW!!  We also had burros and hauled the water from a long way off, so we were kept pretty busy.  

Eugene was quite happy in this location, as it was summer, and I owned a little green semi truck that was probably 18 to 24 inches long, including the cab.  I really loved trucks so I had a bunch of empty tobacco sacks that roll your own tobacco plus the paper to roll them was sold in stores for five cents.  I still remember some of the names…Bull Durham, Dukes Mixture, Golden Grain.  There are lots of little rocks in the mountains, so I would fill these little tobacco sacks with them, and then truck them from my mine to the place where I would sell them.  Then just before lunch, I would wash the truck, and all afternoon, haul the “ore” from the mine to my place of sale.  I had a great imagination and never tired of playing with trucks.  And I never broke them as they were too difficult to come by in my early childhood years

One day while we lived in the mountains, a man in a dark suit came to the door looking for Mr. Moore.  Mama asked him if he were going to Las Cruces and when he said, “Yes,” she informed him that we were going with him.  She didn’t ask him, she flat out told him we were going with him.  As he didn’t refuse, she hurriedly put our meager belongings in a sack or box or whatever, and we just up and left the place with Mr. Moore gone, and the place unattended.  We never saw Mr. Moore again.  The two things I remember about him the most was his love of his goat, George, and he was always playing with rattlesnakes, wrapping them around his torso and petting them.  He had been bitten several times, but this didn’t slow him down.  A few years later, we learned that he had died from a rattlesnake biting him.  I guess he died happy.  I am sure he did. I would learn many years later that my childhood Friend, Tommy Cox knew Mr. Moore, and unlike us, he did NOT call him “Old Man Moore.”

In 1932, Betty met Spurgeon Guy Smith, a singer and guitar player on a local radio station who was paid One Dollar Plus Fifty cents a day for his performance. He sang very much like Jimmie Rogers, the famous singer of that era.  Spurgeon was born in 1912, which made him about five years older than Betty who was 15 at this time.  Mama was very much against Spurgeon from the very first time she ever met him and well she should be, as he was definitely much too old for Betty.  I never felt good about him either, due to his age and also his character traits that I just didn’t appreciate.  But I must add that he was nicer to me than probably anybody else in his whole life.  

Betty married him and in time, they had four children.  Billy Ray, Spurgeon Guy, Jr., Charles Emory and Gloria Jean Smith.  As of this writing, Bill and Charles have both died.  Junior and Gloria both live in Bremerton, Washington near their Mother.  Spurgeon died on 7 December 1975, after a long illness.  When Betty and I were in Las Cruces recently, I showed her the little one-room row house east of downtown, just north of Lohman Avenue and I think it is on Mesquite Street.  She just didn’t remember this place at all.  It has seven of these little rooms and I am confident they are deserted.  I hope nobody lives there.  That part of Las Cruces is quite dead and also run down in a pitiful condition.  This place is where we lived when Betty first met Spurgeon, just about 68 years ago.

Right after I finished the fourth grade, it was May and it was a nice summer for me.  Once again we moved into a very nice, small house up the hill to the east of Las Cruces.  This was one of the better places we lived.  In the backyard, it had a very small ditch about 10 inches wide and about 3 or 4 inches deep.  I found a large piece of steel with sides about 1/2 inch high, so this became the bridge that I built across the little ditch.  I had a little settlement on the west side of this bridge.  One day, a couple of Mormon Missionaries walked by and said to me, “When you grow up, I bet you will be an engineer.”   I thought to myself, but didn’t say this to the Missionary, “I am already an engineer.”  And I thought I was.

About this time, Mama started to work for Clint Dickerson and his Mom, Mrs. Victoria Poole who lived on the west side of Fairacres, south of the highway leading to Deming, New Mexico.  The farm was the last one just before the road climbed a steep, winding hill to the left that leads to the desert west of Las Cruces.  Betty was married, and Gordon was not at home, so this meant I was by myself except for late Saturday afternoon when Clint would bring Mama home and then on Sunday afternoon, he would return to take her back to the farm.  I really have no answer for the next two years of my life, and I have wondered about this many, many times.  Later on, I should have asked my Mother, but just never did for the remainder of her life.  When September of 1933 arrived, I was almost 10.  We still lived in the little house in the above paragraph that I enjoyed so much as it was clean, we had plenty of room and was actually furnished quite well for those times.  It had at least two rooms and we had a wooden ice box, too.  I did NOT start to school in the fifth grade and I stayed home all the time.  I have no idea where I would have gone to school, and if my Mother enrolled me, I didn’t know it.  And when she came home each weekend, she never mentioned anything about school.  Perhaps she didn’t deem it necessary for me to go to school.  And I was the one who dearly loved school, enjoyed all my friends I would meet there, and was always, without exception, an excellent student who applied himself well to learning, especially new things.  Also, I was very scared to live alone, especially at night and during bad weather.  But I never said this to Mama or Betty, or to anyone else, either.  And to make matters worse, the next school year rolled around, and it was now September 1934, and I didn’t go to school this year, either.  This meant that I never attended either the fifth or the sixth grades when I should have.  My Mother must have been aware of me not being in school, and I am positive that Betty must have known this, too, as I was at her home a lot, but always in the day time, and never at night, to the best of my recollection.  I was never the kind of kid who would get into trouble.  If I had, I am certain the authorities would have come down on my Mother, and I would have been in school in a hurry.  I always behaved myself, did my own cooking and housework, and never made waves or caused anybody any trouble at all. I am happy about this, I really am.

The reason Mama had a job at Clint’s is because his Mom, Mrs. Poole was ill a lot and could not cook and keep house and do all the other things that a woman did in those days on a farm. So my mother worked for them, six days a week, extremely long hours.  She did all the cooking, cleaned the house, washed the clothes by hand, etc. and for this she received her meals when she was on duty, had a room in the home, and was paid four dollars a week.  And she dearly loved Mrs. Poole, who would become her best friend of all in later years.  But when Mrs. Poole’s health improved, they could not afford to employ Mama, so she lost her job.




 
 LIFE ON THE FARM

Just about this same time, in the summer of 1935, Mama asked me if I would like to go live on the farm.  Clint and his Mom told her that if she would allow me to come out there, I could work before and after school and during the summer and they would buy my clothes, feed me and I would live with them.  That family consisted of Clint Dickerson who was born in September 1903, which meant he was just barely 20 years older than I.  His Mom, Victoria Dickerson Poole (1874-1961) who was about 12 years older than Mama.  Her second husband, Charles S. Poole (1881-1944) and his nickname was “Doog.”  And Clint was the father of 5 or 6 children who had all died, along with his wife.  Only Gerald, his son grew to manhood.  He is about 3 years or slightly younger than Eugene.

When Mama asked me if I wanted to go to the farm, I asked her how she felt, as if she didn’t want me to go, there is no way I would have gone.  But she said, “Well, we are really hard up and times are tough.  Also, you will have a lot better life on the farm, have plenty to eat, and you can obtain an excellent education, too.”  So I told her I would go to the farm.  Young people just don’t think due to their inexperience in life, but if I had been more experienced, I would have asked Clint and Mrs. Poole to allow my Mother to come with me to live with them.  I would tell them she was willing to work all she could just for staying with them and they need not pay her any wages.  I just know they would have jumped at the chance to afford us this opportunity.  They just couldn’t afford to pay her four dollars a week, this is for sure.  But I never even thought about this possibility until many years after I had left this dear family.

Mrs. Poole’s maiden name was Dickerson and they lived in Oklahoma.  She married a Dickerson and then he died before we ever knew them.  By the time we came into the picture, she was married to Charlie Poole and they had two grown daughters who were married.  By Mr. Dickerson, she had the following children: A daughter who married Oscar McElyea.  I never knew her as she was dead ere I ever knew them. They had one son, Ulysses McElyea who you will meet later.  Oscar owned a large farm just south of ours, so we saw him a lot.  He remarried a much younger woman.  

Fate Dickerson (1892-1972) who lived in Fairacres and he was the postmaster and owned a grocery store and service station. Fate’s wife was Etta Glisson, a peach of a woman.  Mack Dickerson was her next son.  He worked for Clint for many years and was on the farm when I first went there, but they lived on the south part of this farm.  He married a Mexican woman, Mary.  I loved her dearly.  And their son, Mack Jr. and I were extremely close friends.  He has to be about 2 years younger than I.  Clint was next and the youngest of the children was Joe Dickerson (1905-1966) who was a farmer south of us in Fairacres.  His wife was Mabel Johnson Dickerson (1909-1973).  They had two daughters, Madeline (7-28-25) is married to Tommy Cox (6-4-24) and they live in Socorro, New Mexico.  Shirley Mae still lives in Las Cruces, but I never think to look her up when I am there.  Madeline is a brilliant person who excelled in school and also in industry.  This is the second marriage for both Madeline and Tommy, and they have grown children by their first spouses.

Clint and Mrs. Poole were very kind and generous to me at all times, and I immediately became one of the family.  From day one, I felt completely comfortable, safe, secure and most welcome in that family.  I must add at this time that in all the years I lived with them, there was never one harsh or offensive word spoken in that home.  Outside, when Gerald would break something or would not mind, Clint had a few choice words for him, but Never inside the home.  And I thought all the world lived this way.  Boy, was I ever naïve!!!!  Clint even had a telephone in their home.  The number was 252.  To make a call, one picked up the phone, the operator would ask you what number you wanted and she rang it for you. And if she knew you, she would ask how you were doing, etc.  In my over six years living there, I never made one call from that phone, but I did answer occasionally, especially if nobody was in the front room where the phone was.  Believe me, nobody wasted time visiting on the phone in those days. 

It had to be June, July or August, 1935, but I think it was closer to June when I arrived to live with this family.  I was still eleven years old, I know this.  Before starting school in September, Clint took Gerald and me to the White House, a first rate clothing store in Las Cruces where he bought us brand new dress shoes, 2 pairs of cords each, 2 dress shirts each, underwear, jacket, cap, gloves, etc.  We did this each August just before school.  I had never dressed so well in my life to this date.  We wore the nice clothes to school, but immediately upon arriving home from school in the afternoon, we took off these nice clothes, put on our work clothes, including work boots and went to work in the field picking cotton until dark (October to December).  Then we did all the chores, ate Supper and did our school homework.  To them, the three meals each day were Breakfast, Dinner and Supper. There was no such thing as Lunch.  Clint always gave both Gerald and Eugene all the money we earned picking cotton in the fall that was done after school and on Saturdays.  In that time span, picking cotton paid 60 cents a hundred pounds.  This surely helped me a lot, as I would always save up my money, then when we would go to town on Saturdays, I could help my Mother, sometimes taking her as much as 20 or 25 dollars, always in five dollar bills and in ones.  This was a godsend to her and it made me feel good.

Although Clint and Mrs. Poole never said a word to me about what grade I should be in, I am sure they had the Principal of our little elementary school check my records, so they knew I had only gone through the fourth grade.  But they enrolled me in the sixth grade, and I fit right in and was among the very best in the class.  I am sure this was made possible by how very well I had always done in school.  So, instead of being in the seventh grade had I not missed any school, now I was only one year behind and this didn’t hurt at all.  I found out that several of my classmates were my age, so they had either started school late or had missed along the way as I did.  I really appreciated Clint and Mrs. Poole for enrolling me in the Sixth grade and not talking to me about my absence of two years of school along the way.  

My first three years of school in Fairacres were spent at a small elementary school not too far from our farm.  I even rode my horse to school some of the time, tied him up under a tree and left him there all day.  Some of the other kids did the same thing.  Quite by chance, each of the three years spent here, I had the Principal for my teacher.  The first two years was Mrs. McGee, the wife of a prominent Physician in Las Cruces.  Her husband delivered Betty’s first child, Billy Ray.  The last year I was there, Mr. Tannehill was my teacher and he too, had become the Principal.   He was not as good a teacher as Mrs. McGee, especially in math, but a very nice man.  The biggest goof I ever made with him was during English class one day when he asked who would like to give the three parts of the verb, to be.  I immediately responded and said, “I be, You be, He be.”  He laughed like mad and replied, “Well, I’ll be.” He probably thought I was kidding.  I always enjoyed school tremendously, and was never bored and always did the homework I was assigned.  But I was never a naturally bright student, I had to work for my good grades, and I felt that I learned more by working hard and applying myself.

Mr. Poole really liked young girls, and I mean he really LIKED them.  One summer, we had a young girl by the name of Stella working for us, and I thought she was pretty fat.  But inasmuch as I probably weighed 90 or 100 pounds, most folks looked pretty heavy to me.  We ate our meals in the kitchen, and we had no running water, but a large pitcher sat on a basin where we washed our hands and face before eating. The basin had a drain, so when the water became really dirty, we could pour it out, and then refill the large wash pan.  One day as Mr. Poole was getting ready to wash his hands, he dipped his fingers in the water, then splashed the water on his fingers in Stella’s face.  Without a word, she picked up the pan and threw the pan and the water in his face!!  Then she sat down to eat.  I said to myself, “This is the end of the peaceful times in this home.”  NOT SO!!!  Charlie Poole picked up the pan, put it in its proper place, filled it with fresh water, took a large towel, wiped dry his face and clothes, then cleaned up the mess on the floor, sat down and ate his dinner.  (Not Lunch)  Not one word was ever spoken of this incident then or later.  Gerald and I almost died trying to control ourselves and not laugh, Mrs. Poole must have been delighted, Clint loved it, and I am positive that Stella figured that she taught the old goat a valuable lesson, and I know that Mr. Poole was just glad that this was over and done.  Charlie Poole had a brother, they were both Texans, and he was the leader of a western band with lots of musical instruments.  His brother was an excellent singer.  This was the first time I ever heard, “Put My Little Shoes Away,” and I always think of his brother when I hear this beautiful song, sad though it is! 

In retrospect, I must have been born to be a farmer.  Before moving to Clint’s, I knew absolutely nothing about farming, but everything about running a farm of this type came very naturally to me in a big hurry.  This farm was actually owned by Van Laughlin who resided most of the time in the Casa Grande/Coolidge area of Arizona.  He was an extremely wealthy man who owned other farms and also oil wells in New Mexico.  His wife was Ida Laughlin, and I always enjoyed her as she was one practical and funny Lady. The Laughlins had eight children and came to visit us on occasion.  They held Clint and Mrs. Poole in the highest regard possible, as did all who knew them.  The farm was slightly over 100 acres, about 104 to be exact.  Each year we had 40 acres of cotton and 60 acres of alfalfa, and the little 4-acre plot was used mainly as an experimental program like raising soybeans, etc.  We also had a huge garden and this was Charlie Poole’s domain, as he did all the work and he was an excellent gardener.  In later years, we also had fruit trees, and these proved to be a blessing.  Charlie raised lots of watermelons and sold most of them at the little roadside stand just outside our front gate on the highway. Watermelons sold for one penny a pound in those days. The Federal Government became heavily involved in agriculture early in my life, thus we were restricted to 40 acres of cotton, and the rest planted in whatever the farmer desired.  Once in awhile, we had a few acres of corn, which was a very poor cash crop and was very hard on the soil.  

When I first arrived to live with this family, horses and mules were used to work in the fields.  This makes me one of the very few folks who are still alive to have experience with horses and mules to pull the plows, the drags, the harrows, the cultivators, the mowing machines and the rakes plus a few other jobs, too.  This was hard, slow, tiring work that took many, many man- hours to get the job accomplished each year.  When I had been there for at least two years, or perhaps three, Van Laughlin purchased a small, red Farmall tractor with steel wheels.  It was called the Farmall 12 and was manufactured by International Harvester in the Midwest.  When I worked horses and mules in the field, I always felt sorry for them, especially during spring plowing as this really wore out animals in one big hurry.  We had to rest them quite often, regardless what they were pulling.  I would guess that the little 5-foot mowing machine to cut the alfalfa was about the most easy job for the animals.  Well, the little red tractor made farming quite heavenly compared to using animals.  It could plow much faster in the spring, plowed at least 2 to 3 times deeper, which is important in great soil such as they have in New Mexico.  Instead of a 5-foot mower, it pulled a 7-foot one at about 4 to 5 times the speed of the animals.  And it never was tired.  In fact, we just didn’t stop for much of anything in the fields with the tractor.  At noon, we drove it back to the yard, immediately ate dinner, then we checked all the fluid levels, refueled it, and it was ready for the entire afternoon.  Ours had no lights on it, but many farmers with larger equipment did have lights, both front and rear.  I remember working for Charles Reiland, a friend of ours, helping him with his spring plowing.  I worked in his fields north of Las Cruces, and I plowed 12 hours each night.  After the first six hours, which was midnight, I would pull into his yard to refuel and check all the fluid levels, then back for six more hours of steady plowing.  His tractor had two large plows, so this meant we were cutting about 30 or more inches of ground all the time, and it just didn’t take long to do the job with this great equipment.  He owned a red Farmall 20 tractor.

Clint almost always had me do the cutting of the alfalfa, which I enjoyed a lot.  I drove a tractor long before I ever drove a car.  Then a couple of days after cutting the hay, it had to be raked and this was done with what we call a side-delivery rake pulled by the tractor.  This was easy work, and went by in a hurry.  Then the baler that Clint always hired arrived with its crew of four, and they baled all the windrows for us.  Then we hauled all the bales (about 60 to 110 pounds each) of hay to the large shed in our yard.  We used gloves and 2 hay hooks and we walked as fast as we could, hooked the hay, and hoisted it onto the truck, and as the truck was loaded with more and more hay on it, the higher we had to hoist it.  When I first started hoisting hay onto the trucks, I would wager that I perhaps weighed about 100 pounds or maybe even less.  I was never a heavy kid, but I was strong!!   Alfalfa was a very poor cash crop, but it did help pay the bills.  For example, most of the hay we sold went for about $8 per ton, and it cost Clint $2 just to get it baled.  This left $6 to prepare the ground, water the hay, cut and rake it, then haul the bales to the shed, so it could be sold.

On each farm in those days, the chores had to be done before and after working in the field for approximately 10 hours each day.  Clint had chickens, hogs, cows, and of course, horses and mules until the tractor arrived.  We never had more than four cows, but we milked them by hand.  Gerald helped me milk most of the time, but it was my job to run the cream separator twice a day, then each morning, take it apart and wash it thoroughly, plus the breakfast dishes, which I could do in a hurry.  Clint sent all the cream to a creamery in Trinidad, Colorado via the train in Las Cruces, and this provided him with much needed cash.  We never drank whole milk on the farm.  The only cream we saved was just enough to churn butter, and I became very adept at this chore, too.  There is nothing better than freshly churned butter, and I always loved the buttermilk.  When the butter separates from the cream, everything left is the buttermilk, and to this day, I still love buttermilk, even though it is now fake, not real.  It is called cultured. We always drank non-fat milk that we called skimmed milk, and Gerald and I always felt sorry for ourselves being denied fresh, whole milk. What we didn’t know is that the skimmed milk was just right for us, and we surely didn’t need all that fat. All the cream was shipped to a dairy in Trinidad, Colorado.  Each of the checks that Clint received from the sale of the cream had this saying printed on it:  “Always take good care of your cows and they will always take good care of you.”  That impressed me a lot. 
 
We were not heavy meat eaters on the farm, although Clint always butchered at least one hog and a calf each year, which provided us with enough meat.  Tradition held that on Sundays, you ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits.  I thought everybody in America must have had chicken on Sundays.  I still enjoy that meal a lot. Mrs. Poole was strictly a traditionalist in her cooking.  For example, she served cornbread for dinner Monday through Friday, but never on Saturday or Sunday.  She baked only two kinds of pies.  Currant and Green Grape and I enjoyed both.  Evelyn Coffman who was Mrs. Poole’s daughter was married to Earl Coffman, one of the best men I ever knew, and very intelligent, too.  Evelyn worked for the phone company as an operator.  Back then, she or another operator took all of your calls, both local and long distance.  Our phone number was 252.  I never used this phone once while I was there, but I answered it several times.  Kids did NOT visit on the phone. It was for real things.

When Clint would come in from the fields, he would ask his Mom if he could have a piece of the pie she had baked.  She would then tell him that the pie was for supper. And he would reply, “But what if I die before Supper?”  Mrs. Poole would always say, “eat the pie!!”  It was a joke between them.  We had so much skim milk that we couldn’t possibly use it, so all that was left over was fed to the hogs and they dearly loved it.  Of all the animals in the Kingdom, Hogs are not picky eaters.  Put it before them, and they will devour it even when they are not hungry.  When a sow has little ones, they are officially called pigs until they are eight weeks of age.  Then they officially are known as hogs.  Lots of hog farmers don’t even know this.

Growing cotton requires a lot of skills.  Preparation of the ground in the spring takes lots and lots of work.  If the cotton stalks from the previous season have not been cut and chopped, this has to be done.  Then the ground is plowed, in New Mexico at least one foot deep.  Then it is harrowed, then disked (Officially called a disk harrow, but we had another instrument with sharp teeth that cut the ground & this was what we called a harrow) then dragged (This means a large, heavy piece of equipment made of boards is dragged across the ground, which helps level the terrain) Then it is planted in rows, and soon irrigated. All irrigated land must have borders every so often, otherwise lots of the ground would never receive any water. When the cotton first comes through the ground, a tractor equipped with disks in the front that throws the dirt away from the cotton, and cultivators in the back of the tractor that run through the rows to plow the weeds is used.  Regular irrigation is a necessity as cotton gets mighty thirsty.  When men and boys with hoes go through the cotton fields the first time, they chop all the weeds and thin the cotton.  Some farmers wanted only about one stalk about each foot or so, others would only thin it to about two stalks together.  This first time takes lots of hours to accomplish.  Then at regular intervals, when men and boys walk through the fields with hoes, taking two rows at a time, and only chop the weeds.  If the fields are clean, one can walk a half -mile and lots of fields are this length, and only chop a few weeds or almost none at all.  We did this for ten hours a day in the summer.  I really don’t think I could walk in a cotton field for 10 hours in one day.  But we considered this to be about the lightest work we did, except driving the tractor.  But it is easier than the chores, and lots easier than hoisting hay on the truck and then storing it in the shed in the yard.

A typical day when I was in school consisted of getting up before daylight and doing all the chores.  The milking took the most time, as then I had to separate the cream, wash the separator parts, plus the breakfast dishes after we had eaten.  As soon as my work was done, I put on my school clothes, and with books in hand, rushed out the door to walk to school or the school bus that I boarded in front of my little elementary school. This walk was about one mile. School was a lot of fun, was quite easy.  When I say walked to the school bus stop, I must clarify this.  When I was in elementary school in Fairacres, if I didn’t ride my horse to school, I walked.  I had to walk to the same school to catch the bus to high school.  Bad weather isn’t very important to a kid, so when it was cold, or rainy, or whatever, we still went by foot.

When the school bus brought us home, we were left off at the elementary school, and we walked home.  We immediately changed into our work clothes and boots, and if we were picking cotton, we rushed to the field, as that was where cash was to be earned.  Clint hired mostly black people to pick cotton, and gee, were they ever good at this. It takes great coordination to pick cotton efficiently, as there are five locks in each bowl, and if you miss one or two or more locks, you must get that one or two locks in the bag, too.   Each time we took our loaded sack to the wagon, it was weighed, and the number of pounds recorded in a book under our name.  One also wrote down the number of pounds, too.  Then you dumped the cotton in the Huge wagon and returned to the field.  Clint’s black hands were very good workers with a great sense of humor and a culture all their own.  They laughed and joked a lot!

When school let out for the summer, always in the latter part of May, we arose before daylight, did all the chores, ate breakfast, washed the cream separator and the dishes, then we were in the fields at 0700, regardless what work we had to do in the fields.  (The solitary exception to this rule was when we were irrigating.  The water was turned into our ditches, and once we had irrigated, the water was again removed from our ditches.)  At noon, we returned to the house, ate dinner as fast as we could, then fell on the floor to rest for the remainder of the hour.  At 1300, we were back in the fields where we worked until 1800.  Then we returned to the house, did all the chores, including milking the cows, etc.  Then Eugene separated the milk, rinsed the separator, leaving it together so it could be used the next morning.  Then it was to bed as there was no homework to do, as a good night’s rest is necessary if one is to work hard all day.

In addition to all the above, there were several other things to accomplish.  All our land was irrigated, and when we were notified the water was coming, this meant we worked until everything was irrigated.  Sometimes, this took over 24 hours, and this was my nemesis as going without sleep is like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer.  It really feels good once you stop.

Sundays were a day of rest for all of us, except the chores that had to be done morning and night.  Invariably, the irrigation water would come to us on Sunday night, which meant we worked all night, plus the next day, too.  But other than the chores and the irrigation, we never worked on Sunday and neither did any of the hired help, including picking cotton. It was just taken for granted in that era that folks do NOT work on the Sabbath when they can possibly avoid it. I really appreciated this tradition a lot!!

To the best of my knowledge, Clint and Mrs. Poole were not members of any Church, but as I look back on this family, a lot of us could learn wonderful things about our religion from them.  There was a little community Church that met in our elementary school, and we had Christmas Pageants, etc. there, and several other things, too.  Mainly, we rested on the Sabbath and never, but never went to the movies or games, or anything else on Sunday.  Giving of gifts was always done late on Christmas Eve, and they always gave me presents plus candy and oranges, apples, etc.  I never asked Clint about the following, but I distinctly remember that only twice a year was the Blessing on the food pronounced.  Clint would never say it or ask any of us in the family to say it, but always a guest:  Just twice a year at Thanksgiving and Christmas.   Before FDR changed the date to the fourth Thursday in November, when I was growing up, Thanksgiving was always celebrated in America on the Last Thursday in November.  It was the only one he could legally change, and he did it!!  His reasoning was that it gave the merchants a few more days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Almost everything we consumed was raised right there on the farm.  We were taught to hunt and everything we killed, almost, was canned and used in the winter.  We just never hunted for the fun of it.  The meat was always used, including pheasants, doves, quail, deer, bear, and any fish caught in the streams.  When pineapple season came on, Clint would purchase lots of it at Safeway in Las Cruces, bring it home, and we would take the afternoon off from the fields, and can pineapple like mad.  We loved this activity.  I forgot to mention this, but Evelyn, Mrs. Poole’s daughter, would come out on Thursdays, I believe, and bake lots of goodies for us.  Gerald and Eugene enjoyed the sweets, etc. but Evelyn never once cleaned up the huge mess she made, so it was necessary for us to do this chore.  Somehow, this detracted from the Joy of all the sweets she prepared for us.

Mrs. Poole had many sayings that I remember, but my favorite of them all is this:  When folks came to visit us on the farm and stayed too long, upon their departure, she would say to them:  “Youins come back to see weeins, and when you leave, it is going to be lonesome around here, but it is going to be a Sweet lonesome!!” I have never heard anyone else use this very different statement.

When I was quite young, Mama took a job near Hatchita, New Mexico which is about half way between Deming and Lordsburg, and about 30 miles south of I-10 and not too far away from Columbus, New Mexico where Pancho Villa raided this community in the olden days.  Mrs. Rhoades owned mining interests and her foreman was Mr. Snyder, I believe.  I went to school in Hatchita just briefly, but I can’t even remember what grade I was in, but I was very young, I know this.  Anyway, when Mr. Snyder would pick up Mama and me at our home in Las Cruces to journey to Hatchita, he would stop at a café in Deming and buy us Enchiladas that were always three corn tortillas stacked flat with an egg on top of them.  This meal was 30 cents a plate. It is known as “A New Mexico Enchilada.”  I  will always remember his generosity.  He had a degree in engineering and had quite a sense of humor.  He gave me two nicknames, Pete and Shakespeare.  I think the latter nickname was because I was studious and could quote lots of poetry that my Mother had taught me at an early age.  Mama dearly loved quality poetry and was also a speed  reader who read many, many novels, etc.

I am positive that Mama never told Clint my two nicknames, and I surely know that I didn’t.  But after I had been there on the farm for a short time, he also gave me two nicknames.  Yes, Pete and Shakespeare!  But mainly, he called me Pete.  Never do I remember that he called me Eugene.  Clint was ultra kind to me.  And he always treated me as an adult with lots of respect and kindness.  One day at noon just prior to taking the tractor back to the field, I was checking the fluid levels and also filling the tank with fuel.  (Fuel at that time was a good grade of gasoline and cost Clint 7 ½ cents a gallon.  It was colored blue so it could not be used on the highway in a truck or auto) I can’t stand to have my hands wet or greasy so between each operation, I would wipe my hands with a large cloth we had.  Clint was working nearby, I knew he was observing me working, and finally he said, “Pete, will you do me a favor?”  I could tell he was quite irritated, and I replied, “Yes, Clint, what is it?”  “Please finish servicing the tractor and then wipe your hands.”  I replied, “Yes, I can do that.”  I asked him years later if he remembered this incident, and he said he could not recall it. When I interviewed him in Las Cruces, we were living in Cache Valley and Rick Goodwin and I went to Las Cruces.  Rick ran the camcorder and I interviewed Clint.  During the interview, I asked him why he never did get after me in all the years I spent on his farm, and he told me there was no reason to do this, as I always did my work correctly, and did my best at all times.  But I told him that I made some errors on the farm in my work, but he insisted that if I had needed supervision, he would have told me.  His idea of supervision says it all in the following statement:  “Pete, on Thursday morning, start cutting the hay.”  This was usually on Monday when he told me what to do.  I never wrote it down, he never said another word unless he wanted to delay cutting the hay due to bad weather, and I knew that on Thursday morning at 0700, that tractor with me on it would start mowing all the alfalfa which we had, normally it was 60 acres.  He was a superior executive and supervisor who could get the best out of all folks in a matter-of-fact way of running the farm.           

By now, you may be wondering why I have taken all this space to describe my life and times working for Clint on his farm west of  Fairacres.  While I was living on his farm, I never realized how perfectly I was being prepared to serve a profession as a Fighter Pilot and also as a ranking Air Force Officer in my later years.  But Let It Be Written, it was here on this farm where I learned almost perfect health habits through long, hard, honest labors as I developed a strong, lean physical body being possessed of a positive attitude and also learned to be a successful executive with much success:  All because of being on a farm as a young boy.  It didn’t just happen. There was a definite reason for all this training.

As I look back on my life to date, the Lord had a plan for me, completely unknown to me at the time.  Where else could I have learned as much about the important things of life as I did in Fairacres?  I just don’t know.  Then later on, when my brother, Gordon asked me to go to Phoenix with him, I thought he had lost his mind.  He was already married, and I could care less about moving to Phoenix, a place I had visited while on vacation with Clint a few years before.  But I went with Gordon.  We were picking lettuce in the fields of Phoenix. Then it started to rain (November 1941) so Gordon suggested we return to Las Cruces.  Normally, I would have jumped at the chance to return, but something told me to stay, but I surely didn’t have a clue as to why I stayed.    

Then I landed a job washing dishes and cleaning the place at a small café at 1930 West Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Arizona. The Cottage Café was west of 19th Avenue just beyond the railroad tracks on the north side of Van Buren.  Mr. McCoy owned this building and right behind the Café, He owned and operated a nice white motel, called The McCoy Motel.  Gee, was I starved when I reported to work the first day.  In fact, I remember that I hadn’t eaten in three days.  The two women cooks were very kind to me and I am sure they wondered how I could eat so much food each day, but it was easy.  After I was established there, I decided to move to a nicer room as I was living above a garage, and it was not very nice.  

One day, I walked by a really nice house on west Monroe Street at about 16th Avenue, which is really close to the Arizona Capitol building.  This nice home had a “Room For Rent” sign on the front door.  I knocked on the door and a very nice lady answered.  I asked her if the room was still for rent and she said it was, and I asked her how much it was, and she replied, “Four Dollars a week.”  Almost every room in Phoenix was that price, so I took it.  She was Mrs. Dana, a very nice lady whose ancestors were pioneers to the Valley.  Right away she told me I had to be a Mormon boy, and I replied, “Yes.” Well, I wasn’t, but my Mother was, and it was a lot easier to answer yes, as if my Mother were a Mormon, then that was good enough for me.

Soon, Mrs. Dana knew I didn’t like the job working for Orvill Sipes, a very mean and cantankerous man who owned the Cottage Café and a plumbing firm, and I was now working for him in his plumbing business.  She asked me one day if I would like to work for her son, George Dana who was the Manager of Martin’s Co-op Service Stations in Phoenix.  I told her I would surely enjoy this as it paid a lot more, and working for a decent man appealed to me a lot.  She then told me I already had the job, just report to George at 18th Street and East Van Buren and he would put me to work.  (Until now, I never realized that my first job on West Van Buren and my job at Martin’s Service Station on East Van Buren were almost equidistant from Central Avenue that divided the City  east and west.)    

The Lord planned this job for me, too, as whom would I meet there but Bill Ryan.  (I would learn many, many years later that it was our very own Grandma Irene Wilkins who was responsible for getting Bill Ryan baptized into the LDS Church.) 

We immediately became really close friends who had much in common.  To begin with, neither of us ever had a Dad we knew very well.  He was attending Phoenix Junior College and I was trying to join the Marines.  One day, he said to me, “Eugene, why don’t you go to the Luhrs Building in downtown Phoenix  (Located at 11 West Jefferson Street) and take all the exams to become an Army Air Corps Pilot like I am doing?”  With my brief, but excellent education, I didn’t believe that I could pass the written exams.  He then said, “Who helps me with my homework?”  “I do, but what does that have to do with it?”  “Plenty,” he replied.  Then he gave me some of the best advice I have ever received in my entire life.  “Look at it this way:  “Go down there and take all the exams.  If you don’t pass, what have you lost?  You can then go to the Marines and get yourself killed in the war.”

At this point, I need to explain something about my enlistment in the Marines.  When I was growing up in New Mexico, almost nobody ever brushed their teeth.  As great as I had prepared for this future life in the Military, when I first went to the Marine Corps Office in Phoenix, they said I had passed with flying colors, except for my teeth that were in extremely bad condition. They instructed me to go a Dentist immediately, then when he was through treating me, to return and they would sign me up.  I well remember going to a Dentist whose office was upstairs at Central Avenue and Washington Street on the Northwest corner.  He examined my teeth and told me I had a very bad case of Pyorrhea, also known as Riggs Disease, or more commonly called Trench Mouth in World War I.  Pyorrhea, if not cured, results in the loss of all your teeth. 

 The Dentist told me he could save all my teeth but if I didn’t get the problem corrected, all my teeth would soon fall out. Believe me, the first time I visited this Dentist in Phoenix, I had never brushed my teeth in all my born days!  Isn’t that gross?  He then told me the total charge to get my teeth in excellent condition would cost $25.  I guess he noticed that I almost fainted, because when I first visited him, I was at the Cottage Café and made exactly One Dollar a day. He said not to worry.  He would allow me to pay him as I earned the money.  WOW!  He gave me the first treatment right then and I am sure that when I left his office, he gave me a toothbrush and some toothpaste.  In time, he had my teeth as good as new.  Actually I had splendid teeth, but going without ever brushing them until I was 18 was not very smart!!   And soon I paid him in full and thanked him for making it possible for me to enter the Military.  By the time my teeth were up to par, I never returned to the Marines Recruiting Station! That was a blessing, indeed.  When I lived with Clint, we would listen to Bob Hope on the radio.  And who was his sponsor?  If you say, Pepsodent Tooth Paste, you are right.  I guess we must have thought they were speaking to the rich people.  Ever since my first visit to that Great Dentist in Phoenix, I have taken excellent care of my teeth, and plan to take all of them to the grave with me.   “You’ll Wonder ‘Where The Yellow Went, When You Brush Your Teeth With Pepsodent!”  I can still vividly recall that catchy verse on the radio during the Bob Hope show.  I think it was each Tuesday night.
                                       
Well, I took Bill Ryan’s advice.  Right away, I went down to the Luhrs Building, took all the exams, passed everything with flying colors including my very white teeth.  Gee, was I ever delighted!!!  The Officer who was a Surgeon and gave me my final interview in the Luhrs Building left the room for a minute, and like any good soldier, I went around to his side of the desk, and everything on my papers were extremely favorable.  In large, red letters, he scrawled, “Recommend this man gain weight.”  That sort of insulted me.  I was all of 18 years of age, weighed 127 pounds honest weight, and didn’t have an ounce of fat on my entire body.  Soon he returned and asked if 25 September 1942 was a good date to be sworn in as a member of the Army Air Corps.  Sure enough, Clarence Wilford Stemen, Jr. (DOB 18 April 1924) who was from Bisbee, Arizona and Eugene were sworn in together on the above date.  Clarence and I became instant friends, even though we had never met before in our lives, at least, in this phase of existence.  I will relate more of my friendship with C.W. Stemen later on in this life story.  My enlisted number was 19106967 and his was 19106969.  I have wondered a thousand times who received the number between us.  I will never know, I am confident of this. (I learned much later that he entered active duty on 2 Feb. 1943, & Eugene  on 7 Feb. 1943).

In my humble opinion, the Lord guided me to live at Clint and Mrs. Poole’s home on that farm.  Then when the time was at hand, to guide me to Phoenix  Then become friends with Bill Ryan (William Taylor Ryan) who also worked at Martin’s Service Station with me.  His date of birth is 8 March 1924, so he is slightly younger than I. Then following Bill’s advice, this launched me into the most rewarding, fulfilling, exciting, and tremendous profession I could ever dream of, that of a Fighter Pilot in the United States Air Force.  

If I have bored you to death discussing the events on the farm in New Mexico, please forgive me, but I consider it to be one of the most important times of all my born days in preparing adequately for my future life!!  In complete honesty, I just wouldn’t trade my career in the Air Force for any other career in the entire world.  I stated earlier, I was born to be a farmer, and even more important, I was destined to be a Fighter Pilot.  As the young Lieutenant who was to be on the cover of Life magazine in a few days when asked how he compared his profession with all others in the entire world, he replied:  “Well, let’s put it this way…I just feel sorry for all the rest of the world who aren’t Fighter Pilots.”  This says it all!


 
HIGH SCHOOL DAYS

Now, back to the farm in Fairacres…I graduated from elementary school that was the eighth grade back then, in May of 1938.  I was 14 years of age.  Then the month before I turned 15, I started at Las Cruces Union High School.  This school had four years.  Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior.  As I stated earlier, I rode the bus from my elementary school in Fairacres to Las Cruces.  The high school I attended is still standing, but is not used as a high school.  I loved my first years of high school, and I found out immediately that farm boys and ranch boys were treated with the highest respect and esteem.  And I also learned right away that the best students of all came from this environment.  Why?  Because all those kids knew what hard, honest work was all about, they were highly disciplined and were there to learn.  From the very first day, I felt right at home and thought highly of all my teachers.  

Ulysses McElyea was Mrs. Poole’s Grandson and I knew him well as he was at our home many times and I even worked for him at a later date one summer surveying farms to keep the farmers honest in the acreage of cotton they had planted.  If they had even one row too much, it had to be plowed under.  Anyway, in my freshman year, I had Ulysses for General Science in the morning and Algebra in the afternoon.  I am sitting in his General Science class the very first day in the front row, and he enters the room.  There were 30 of us in the room.  Practically every class I ever attended through school always had 30 students, believe me.  When he walked in, I said,  “Good morning, Ulysses.”  He said to me , “Good morning, who?” and I repeated what I had first said.  He then told me, “Outside this class, you can call me anything you want, you can even call me Horse Manure, but inside this class, it is Mr. McElyea.”  All the rest of the students laughed and I was totally embarrassed.  He was one of the finest teachers I ever had.  He only taught one year, then roared off to Colorado State to become a Veterinarian and is still right there in Las Cruces.  Gee, I was a dumb kid!!.  

  The first day of high school in the first class of the day, it was my great honor and privilege to meet Tommy Cox, a kid who lived on a ranch east of the Organ Mountains.  He came from one of the Pioneer families who first settled New Mexico, having come from ranching stock in Texas in the early days.  We became instant friends and he was my Hero, and still is! That year, we were together in Vocational Agriculture, English Literature, and I think about two more classes. In recent years, in speaking to him of his Grandfather Cox who was from Texas, I am confident that his Grandfather Cox and my Grandfather Haynes knew each other well, as both were noted cattle ranchers who had it made financially and were also well known and highly respected citizens of the New Mexico Territory.  

 If I remember correctly, it seems that most high school students had approximately six or seven classes each day, including physical Education, Band, Orchestra, etc. Farm and Ranch kids were excused from physical education unless they wanted to participate. I played the violin in orchestra during my first year.  Tommy Cox was the peacemaker in our school.  He could calm any student or even teacher who became too Hyper, as my son Dana, would say.  Everybody loved this kid and he is the most popular person I have ever known.  And he is a down to earth person all the way.  The Cox family was among the most wealthy in all those parts, but also hard working, God fearing and never puffed up about anything.  It was a huge family with many sons of the original Cox who came from Texas.  And they were all ranchers, too.

As mentioned above, I also had Ulysses McElyea as my Algebra teacher and this was an afternoon class.  A few days after we started school, Ulysses asked me one day if I would help another boy in this class.  Ulysses told me that Billy Joe Bryan was a better student than I, but was having much difficulty in algebra.  So he told me that instead of me playing rebote (A Mexican game that took lots of energy and stamina to play well) each lunch hour, I should take Billy into an empty classroom and do the next day’s homework assignment with him..  I used the blackboard to first work out each problem, carefully explaining everything to Billy.  If I remember, I spent the rest of the school year during lunch hour working with Billy in our assignments.  We became really close friends, and I feel that I was of much help to him in algebra.  When I first met him, he, his sister and his Mom had moved to Las Cruces from Arkansas and they lived in a hotel downtown.  As I look back on this relationship, I should have invited Billy to come spend some weekends with me on the farm, as I am sure he must have been bored to death in town.  We could have done a lot of things together such as hunting, riding horses, visiting with each other, etc.  Although I had a great desire to get better acquainted with him, and also to invite him to Clint’s, I never did, as I was just too shy.  Also, I could have asked Tommy Cox to invite Billy to his ranch on weekends, and I am sure this would have thrilled this boy to get to visit a real cattle ranch.  But the only relationship I ever had with him was on the school grounds and mostly in the classroom where we studied together each day.  I shall remember Billy Joe Bryan forever.

 When I became a sophomore, I thought that Billy had left the country, as I never saw him again.  But many years later, when I went back to the new Las Cruces High School to look at records, I discovered to my utter amazement that Billy Bryan attended Las Cruces High School for three years total, so I really don’t know why I never saw him at school again after our freshman year together.  But when I was at Shepherd Field, Texas in February 1943 for Basic Training, I spotted him one day marching in the opposite direction with trainees.  I should have left ranks, followed his formation to their barracks, and I could have talked with him and renewed our friendship.  But I wasn’t very smart in matters of this nature.  Thus far, I have never seen him again. One reason I was impressed with him is that he wore really nice clothes, and was always neat as one could be, was very proper, used excellent grammar, although he had a Southern accent as he had been raised in Arkansas.  I never once spoke to him about his family, so I never knew why he didn’t have a Dad in Las Cruces.  He was also very kind, well mannered and I believe that he appreciated me helping him with his algebra each day.  Tommy Cox only attended our high school for one year, but this is another story, and I may include this later on in my life story.

I forgot to mention earlier how I traveled out to Clint & Mrs. Poole’s place when Mama and I agreed that I would go there to live.  I packed what little belongings I had in a sack, Mama gave me a dime and I walked down to the Greyhound Bus Depot in Las Cruces where Mr. Hill was the Station Agent.  I asked him the fare to Fairacres and he told me it was ten cents.  I asked him if they had half-fare, and he curtly informed me it was ten cents.  He instructed me to tell the driver I wanted to get off in Fairacres.  I don’t think I had ever been to Clint’s before in my life, but I guess somebody described the place for me, as the driver let me off where I asked him, and it was the correct place.  Clint’s farm was four miles west of Las Cruces and also west of the Rio Grande river.

When I was not more than about seven or eight, Gordon bought a Model T Ford.  He told me later it was from the Sparks family.  He asked me if I would like to learn how to drive this car and I jumped at the chance to learn.  The Model T was a very difficult car to drive.  On the steering wheel, it had a spark handle on one side and the gas handle on the opposite side.  On the floor, it had from left to right, the clutch pedal, an oval shaped pedal in the middle that was the reverse, and on the right, the brake pedal.  Also, it had an emergency brake handle.  Gordon explained everything to me, then he cranked the engine from the front of the car, and it started immediately.  Then he got in on the right side.  I gave it more gas, pushed the clutch in all the way and released the emergency brake handle.  This put the car in low gear, and I gave it more gas as we started down the road.  When it hit about 15 or 20 mph, I let the clutch out, and now we were in high gear.  Did I ever love to drive this Model T!  I thought this was about the most fun I had ever had in my life.

To stop the Ford, you just put the gas handle in idle, and when it slowed down some, you would push the clutch in which returned it to low gear, then let the clutch out, applying the brake pedal and the emergency hand brake and you were stopped.  We were told the reverse gear was the slowest of all, thus it had the most power.  Once in awhile when the car would not go up a steep hill in low, they would stop the car, then turn it around and back to the summit.  I never did this or even saw it, but we were told it would work.  Henry Ford put America on wheels, and his motto was “You can have any color you want as long as it is black.”  Driving around town in a Model T was something else.  And lots better than walking.

Packard made the finest car available back in the early days of the automobile. They just didn’t know how to manufacture a poor car.  David Packard was the inventor of this fine motor car with headquarters in Ohio.  Their motto was “Ask The Man Who Owns One.”  And they meant this with all their souls!  Clint had always dreamed of owning a Packard because nobody in all of Fairacres had one.  In about 1938 or 1939, Clint contacted the agency in El Paso and one of their salesman drove up to the farm.   When he arrived in this beautiful black touring sedan, Clint went to the end of the field where he had parked the Packard and talked with the salesman for a long time.  We were chopping cotton so it was in the middle of the summer, quite hot, and the rest of us continued working while Clint talked with the salesman.  We just knew he would buy this beautiful model of the Packard, a four-door sedan.

When the salesman finally drove away, Clint returned to help us work in the field.  We excitedly asked him if we were going to get a new Packard.  He then told us this story: The salesman asked Clint to book enough of his cotton when it was ginned in the fall for thirty cents a pound.  The full price of the car was just about $2,000.  At 30 cents a pound, it would require just over 13 bales of cotton to fully pay for this new Packard.  (A bale of cotton is just about 500 pounds, which meant it would take about 6,667 pounds of cotton to pay for the car.)  Clint was the shrewdest Horse Trader in the Kingdom.  Almost all the time, he could just feel a business deal as being really good, or it was to his detriment.  But this day, He Goofed BIG TIME!!

He told the salesman that his gut feeling was that cotton was going to sell for a lot more than 30 cents a pound that fall, and therefore, he just couldn't feel good about this deal.  Guess What??  We kept our eyes on the cotton market that autumn, and Clint sold every bale of his cotton for only eight cents a pound.  WOW!!!  If he had made the deal on the Packard and booked a little over 13 bales of the first cotton ginned, this would mean that the Brand New Packard, straight eight engine, would in reality, have cost him exactly $533.  Why?  Because he would have gotten 22 cents extra towards the Packard for each pound of cotton booked.  His total savings on the car would have been $1,467.  Packard would have lost nothing at all, but Anderson-Clayton who wanted the booking would have ended up short.  I believe that Anderson-Clayton being willing to book all the cotton they could purchase at 30 cents a pound in the summer had One Great Influence on Clint’s decision.  After all, they were a huge firm and should have known better than almost anybody else what the market was going to do.  But they didn’t, and neither did Clint. And if Clint had made the correct decision, we would have been living high on the hog in regard to having the finest automobile in the valley.  Clint never owned the car of his dreams, the Packard.  “Ask The Man Who Owns One.”

Not long after Clint made this tactical error, and I think it was now about 1940, my Mother wanted to buy a car as she worked for John Engler, a farmer of German descent who lived in north Las Cruces.  I lived in Fairacres.  If she owned a car, then I could take her many places as she just loved to ride around, but had never learned to drive a car.  The reason: When she was quite young in Roswell, New Mexico, she was riding in a car that had a terrible wreck, some of the folks were killed, and she was badly injured which left scars on her face forever.  She was scared to death to even think about driving a car.  Early one morning, Clint took me to the Ford dealership in Las Cruces on Alameda Avenue, the same street where my high school was located.  He helped me pick out a 1934 Chevrolet with knee action.  If I remember correctly, it cost $225 total.  I am sure Clint co-signed for it.  The monthly payment was $11 per month.

This doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but it was horribly high for my Mother and myself.  We put a little money into the car later on in the form of repairs, but it was excellent transportation, and we drove it a lot.  Mama just loved this car and we went on many fine trips in it, including one trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico to visit relatives.

I took the car from the dealership to school and when I arrived home in Fairacres that afternoon, I thought somebody had died for sure as Mrs. Poole was more distraught than I had ever seen her, or even after that, too.  Gerald was also home as was Charlie Poole, and they all looked so pale and strange.  I just knew some great calamity had occurred while I was at school. When I asked Mrs. Poole what on earth was the matter, she told me that Clint had taken Lottie Camp with him that morning and went to El Paso.  That afternoon, Clint called his Mom on the phone to announce that he and Lottie had been married that day, and would soon return.  And that Lottie and he would be living in the house on the south part of the farm where his brother, Mack and his family once lived when he worked for Clint. Mack had gone to Coolidge, Arizona with his wife, Mary and their kids as Van Laughlin had made a deal with Mack to run one of his farms in that area.  

I thought Mrs. Poole would die because Clint had married Lottie.  By the way, Lottie was just about my age, and was a very pretty girl who had worked for the family.  We first met her family when they came to pick cotton for us a few months earlier.  They were from Arkansas.  Besides Lottie, she had an older sister, Theresa and about three or four brothers. all younger than Lottie.  I really liked  this family, and although I could not say this to Mrs. Poole, it didn’t bother me in the least that Clint had gotten married.  But Mrs. Poole never forgave Clint and I am sure Gerald didn’t, either.  But this in no way affected my relations with Clint or the rest of the family, for that matter.  I remained silent in regard to this event with Mrs. Poole, Gerald, and Charlie Poole.  I never talked much with Charlie, anyway.

Eventually, with Gordon trying to help Mama and me keep the payments current on the Chevrolet and buy fuel for it, we just couldn’t make it, so one day, we gave the car to Charlie Poole, who was delighted to get such a fine car for almost nothing.  At no time did he ever offer to pay us even a dime for the car.  The car was in better shape when we gave it to him than when Clint and I picked it out at the dealership.  Believe me, it is NO fun to be wretchedly poor, and we were pitifully Poor!!  I am sure this broke my Mother’s heart to lose this fine car, but she never complained about it at all.  

When Mama worked for John Engler on his farm, his sister, Bertha Engler Bennett   (1897-1946) lived with him.  She was either retarded or very slow mentally and I don’t know if her husband had died or was still alive, but they definitely were not living together.  Bertha had a son by the name of Francis Bennett who was the nicest boy and was quite brilliant, very sharp in every aspect of his life.  Well, Mama worked for this family doing the cooking, housework, laundry, etc.  When I would go to the Englers to get Mama, I would talk with Francis and we became quite well acquainted.  He was about a year or two younger than I.  After I left to go to Phoenix, I never saw him again.  I heard, although it may not be correct, that he had a nervous breakdown in World War II.  I don’t think he has died, at least I never learned any more about him.  But he was one of those fine young men with whom I wish that I could have kept in touch  through the years.  I guess I will see him in the next world, I surely hope that I do.

Clint and Lottie had several children and for a long time were quite happy in their marriage.  One of their married daughters was attending the college in Flagstaff was killed in a car wreck.  Their son, Bill was killed in Vietnam.  Another daughter was driving a pickup with Clint in it, and she had a terrible wreck that almost killed both of them.  Before this last wreck, Clint and Lottie had divorced.  I talked with Lottie on the phone in Willcox, Arizona and she blamed the divorce on a previous wreck Clint had that affected his personality, she believed.  But when I discussed this with Clint at a later date, he blamed the divorce on the fact that Lottie had been drinking heavily, and she was a changed person with whom he could no longer relate.  I asked Clint if he ever visited with Lotttie in an attempt to reconcile with her, and in his usual bluntness replied, “I won’t even speak to her.”

Then I asked him, “Weren’t both of you present for the funeral and burial in Arizona of your son, Bill, who was killed in Vietnam?”  “yes”, he replied, then stated that at the burial, he stood on one side of the grave, and Lottie stood on the other side without one single word being exchanged between them.  I told Clint that I could never act that way at the funeral and burial of my children, and he told me he knew I couldn’t, but that I was a different person than he.  This made me weep!   Since then, I have pondered in my heart many times, “When one has lost a child, especially in a war, there is just no room for bitterness.”  However, I have never walked in Clint’s shoes, either, so I can’t judge either Lottie or Clint.  Lottie is still alive, is happily married to a Mr. Kuhn, and they live in Willcox, Arizona.   Madeline Cox just recently told me Lottie’s last name is Kuhn. So this is how I was able to locate her.  We had a wonderful conversation on the phone recently.  She brought me up to date on the Camp family.
    
Now back to my sophomore year at Las Cruces Union High School.  This was a very fun filled year for me, and I was excited about learning all the new things in which a sophomore is involved.   Mrs. Carwadine was my plane geometry teacher.  She was a very thin lady, a widow who had lost her husband to illness and she had two daughters.  Probably one of the best teachers I ever had in all my schooling.  Well, the end of the year is fast approaching and I knew that I was going to get an A in this class, but it was also doubtful when you came right down to it.  So one day, I wrote a poem about geometry using all the phrases I had learned in this class.  It was pretty long, and ended up substantially as follows, “If you will work hard, pay attention to every detail, and always mind Mrs. Carwadine, You will pass geometry; Yes, You Will Pass Geometry.”  I thought she would read it, find it amusing, and then I was assured of getting the A that I really wanted.  Gee, was I ever surprised when she read my poem in our class, and telling the students who wrote the poem.  Not only did she read this poem in my class, but in about five or six more classes.  I was the laughing stock of the high school, and did I ever pay a price for this adventure.  Many years later when she was almost 96, I visited her in Las Cruces at her home not far from the high school, and related this incident to her.  She had forgotten it, but then in all seriousness, she asked me if I received an A for the course.  When I told her I did, she said, “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that.”  We are talking about this at least 45 or more years later.  After Mrs. Carwadine retired from teaching, she learned how to fly at the local airport, received her commercial license, and flew solo to both South America and to Alaska, plus a lot of other places, too.  She showed me some of the clippings about her aviation experiences.  She was about 100 years of age when she finally died. 

I finished my sophomore year in great spirits and can state with all honesty, that by and large, I surely had high quality teachers in high school, almost without exception.  Most of them had long years teaching, and they seemed to enjoy the students and worked hard to get us a quality education.  It was the fall of 1939 when I began my sophomore year and May of 1940 when I finished for the year.

In the fall of 1940, I again went to Las Cruces Union High School, and was eagerly looking forward to completing this year on an even better note than my previous year.  I am not exactly sure of the date, but at one time I worked for Safeway Grocery Store on Main Street in Las Cruces.  Ironically, it was right next door to another grocery store by the name of Piggly Wiggly.   They were real competitors and gave Safeway a run for their money.  I was to learn later that they were a group of stores similar to Fairway and Food Town.  Each store was individually owned but purchased lots of their merchandise from a brokerage firm.  When I first started, the manager was really nice to me.  He briefed each of us that we could eat all the bananas we wanted on the job, but nothing else.  In other words, we had to pay the full price for any candy, etc. that we wanted.  I was paid thirty cents an hour, and gee, back then, a grown man would work on a farm for either 10 cents or 12 ½ cents an hour, and they didn’t get any bananas to eat.  

This was an excellent job for me, and I should have stayed with them.  But as I wasn’t all that smart, one Saturday when I was supposed to be working for Safeway, I decided that I had rather go to the movie, so I didn’t even tell them I wanted the day off and I never went back to work, which was really dumb.  As I looked back on this job at Safeway, I could have worked my way through the rest of high school and college, too, and it would have been relatively easy working for Safeway.  We had a lady who came into Safeway all the time, and each time, she always placed something of little value in her purse.  We watched her carefully, then would tell the cashier before she arrived to check out.  He would say to her, that is five cents for the candy bar in your purse.  She would always deny it, but also paid for what was placed in her purse.  In my opinion, Safeway was smart to handle it this way because she was a good customer and they didn’t want to lose her.  A little example of prices was Safeway coffee which the customer could grind by himself, or we would do it for them, two pounds for 25 cents; Hamburger was about ten cents a pound, potatoes, one cent a pound, and on sale you could buy an entire stalk of bananas for fifty cents.  There are hundreds and hundreds of bananas in one stalk.

After quitting Safeway due to stupidity, things were not going too well for me or my Mother, either, so I dropped out of school sometime during my junior year, although my grades were as high or higher as they had been in all my schooling.  So pretty soon, school was out, it was now 1941 and in a few months Gordon, my brother and I went to Phoenix, Arizona.  Now I fully realize that if I had stayed in Las Cruces, I would have never become a Fighter Pilot, so in retrospect, it was meant for me to quit school when I did.  Then in November 1941, bid Las Cruces farewell, and to this date, I have never lived there again.  But I surely enjoy visiting there a lot, and the memories are always very precious to me and I do love to visit Las Cruces, the land of my youth!!
They have the best Mexican Food in all the world!!  This is due in large part to the fact that the best chili peppers are grown in Las Cruces.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE MILITARY
 
Now let us return to Phoenix, Arizona and the time is September 1942.  I am sure that by now I have you lost after all the side trips, events and journeys that we have accomplished on these past few pages.  Well, after being officially sworn in as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps with Clarence W. Stemen in the Luhrs Building in Phoenix, Arizona on 25 September 1942, they told us to go home and in due time, we would receive orders to enter active duty.  On about 7 February 1943, I left Phoenix on a train bound for Wichita Falls, Texas to begin my long journey in the Military.  Wichita Falls is the home of Shepherd Field and is north of Dallas, Texas.  It was here that I received my Basic Training that consisted of learning how to march, salute, lots of physical training, traditions of the military, and of course, to be issued all the Army clothing required of a young man in uniform. 

Basic was surely easy for me.  Shepherd Field was cold in February, but we had a nice barracks to live in, and we were mixed in with other young men from the hills of Kentucky and other strange parts of the country.  Lots of them couldn’t read or write, but they weren’t stupid, and most of them could live in a survival situation lots better than the rest of us.  One boy always asked me to read his letters from home, but he would ask another soldier to write back for him.  This way, we just had half the information that he considered personal.  Some of them didn’t even know the National Anthem and had never heard it, according to them.  Colonel Clagget was a busted two-star General who was in Hawaii when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to make examples of some of the ranking Generals who were there.  Just think, Roosevelt knew in advance we were going to be bombed, but was led to believe that it wouldn’t be very serious when it occurred.  In essence, we almost lost the war that first terrible Sunday morning, the Seventh of December 1941, a day that most assuredly, will live in infamy!!  (Eugene spent the first part of that memorable day picking lettuce in the fields of Phoenix.  After working, I was walking to the movie and as I became close  to the Orpheum Theater, a boy was hawking newspapers screaming, “Read All About IT!!  The Japanese Have bombed Pearl Harbor!!”  Early Monday morning, I stood outside an open- air café just east of the Court House, listening on the radio when President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against the Japanese Empire.  There was just one negative vote.)
We called Shepherd Field, “Colonel Clagget’s Concentration Camp.”  But it was an easy three weeks for me and I enjoyed all the neat things I learned and got along well with everybody I met there.  My only regret is not following Billy Joe Bryan to his barracks the one time I saw him in the military, so we could resume our Friendship.  What a shame!!

Ere we knew it, they shipped us potential Aircrews to different Universities and Colleges.  Many of us traveled to College Station, Texas to attend Texas A&M College as CTD Students.  (This was short for “College Training Detachment)  We were treated well by all the students there, and Texas A&M was an all male school then, and had the highest morale possible in my opinion.  Almost immediately, I was appointed as a Section Leader which meant this was my first leadership training in the military as I was in charge of about 25 or 26 students who all had hopes of becoming Pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps.  They fed us well, we had comfortable places to live, and we received lots and lots of physical training, college level physics, math, history, geography, chemistry, plus some other courses and they really worked us hard in the classroom.  My best friend there was a young kid from Texas by the name of Tipton.  He and I spent a lot of time together after duty hours.  He invited me to go home with him several times over the weekends, but I just never did and now I wish I had.  He always thought highly of me and was indeed, a true friend to me.  When we left Texas A&M, I never saw or heard from him again.  Tipton had to be in my Section, at least I think he was.  Also, I always wanted to take the bus to Jarrrel, Texas, north of Austin as I had a really close friend who lived there with his parents.  His name was Clifford Tonn.   They were Germans and really high class folks.  His older brother, Burt Tonn had come to New Mexico a few years prior to this time (1943), worked for Clint on the farm and was a good friend to us.  One summer, Clint took me, Gerald, Burt and Clifford Tonn on a very nice vacation in his red International pickup, which had a shell he had made for the back end of the truck.  Normally, Gerald, Clifford and Eugene rode in the back and Clint and Burt in the cab.  This is where I first met Clifford and we really got along with each other.  I am sure Cliffford was almost my exact age.  On this trip, we first drove west to Lordsburg, then to Alpine, Arizona in the mountains, then lots of other places, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, Blythe, California, Coolidge, Arizona so we could visit Clint’s brother, Mack and his family, Casa Grande, Phoenix, Tucson and several other places.  I know one thing:  This was the very first vacation I had ever experienced in my entire life, and it was just plain fun and most enjoyable.  Clifford was a real joy to have with us for this long, long vacation. 

When we returned home, the parents of Burt and Clifford were at Clint’s house as they came to take their two boys back to Texas.  All of them were fluent in German.  Because Clint was an expert horse trader (Except when it came to buying the new Packard) he had a nickname that he just loved.  Everybody called him “The Big Jew.”  When Mr. Tonn learned this about Clint, he taught me to say this to Clint in German.  “Wie geht’s grosser Jude.”  I thought Clint would laugh his head off when I greeted him in German with his nickname.  Clint had the best sense of humor.  About this same time, I became ill and threw up in the front yard.  He said to me, “Pete, does that taste as good coming up as it did going down?”  Even though I was quite ill, I had to laugh and reply, “Not quite.”

We stayed at Texas A&M for a few months, then about early June, 1943, I would surmise, away we journeyed to San Antonio, Texas where Lackland AFB is now situated.  The place was called “ San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center” and it was Huge!  It consisted of two different Bases.  The Classification Center and Pilot Preflight Center.

It seemed to me there were thousands and thousands of Pilot hopefuls there.  By the way, there were three of these Centers in the U.S.  (1)  The West Coast Command,  (2) The Central Command that I was in for all my flying training and  (3) The Southeast Command.  At the Classification Center, they gave us lots and lots of tests, including complete physicals with heavy emphasis on the eyes, coordination tests, etc.  Actually, this was a lot of fun unless you washed out.  The last person to interview us ere we met the Board was the Psychiatrist and they were plenty sharp.  This is one place where I lied.  When he asked me if I had any allergies, I told him I was allergic to tomatoes, and I was in those days.  Then he asked me if I still ate tomatoes, and I said, “No.”  He asked me many questions about Phoenix and vicinity, as he wanted to know how aware we were of our surroundings.  He really hit home on the agricultural system of Arizona, which was easy for me as I knew farming and could tell him all the crops plus the citrus they grew in Arizona.  This seemed to please him that I knew as much about Arizona as I did.  Then one day, I met the Final Board and they told me I had been classified to attend Pilot Training.  This was Great!!  At Classification Center, you were classified as (1) Pilot  (2) Navigator  (3)  Bombardier  (4)  Eliminated from any further consideration for aircrew training.  I was totally surprised at the huge numbers who were washed out of the Aircrew program before they ever were able to begin any training.

After spending about a month at Classification, we were shipped across the road to Pilot Preflight Center and this is the time when I learned that our class was 44-C, that meant we would graduate in March 1944.  My dream was becoming more of a reality with each passing day.  We spent nine weeks in 1943 at Preflight.  At first, we never went to town very much, but later on, we did.  The Gunter Hotel was the main place for the Cadets to hang out, and gee, there seemed to be millions of them there during World War II.  San Antonio had several fields where pilots were being trained.  Randolph, commonly called the West Point Of The Air, Brooks, Kelly, and several others back then.

Preflight was easy for me.  We received lots of physical training, weather, more math, lots of identification of ships & aircraft, the Morse Code, and several other things such as military leadership, traditions of the military, and things we would need when we became officers.  Each Cadet had to go to the photo shop to have his picture taken so it could be sent home to his family.  This was very inexpensive.  (We received $75 per month, and it took very little money to live, as most things were furnished us)  While at the Photo Shop, whom would I run into but my great friend who I enlisted with in Phoenix, Clarence W. Stemen, Jr.  We both were most pleasantly surprised.  It was so good to see somebody I knew and especially, Clarence.  He was in 44-D, which was my lower class.  We had a very nice, but brief conversation, and I never saw him again at Preflight.  I guess we were both too dumb to find out how we could see each other for the remainder of our stay in Preflight.  Clarence went to a different Primary Training Base than I once he had completed  Preflight.

I didn’t really make any new friends in preflight, and only saw Clarence W. Stemen from Bisbee, Arizona that one time in the photo shop.  I did live in a nice barracks and the kids from Texas were always a lot of fun, as they were really strong supporters of Texas and the South.  They really liked kids from the west, but not the north.   They called them "Damn Yankees" right to their face.  Each week night when we should have been in bed asleep, we would listen on the radio to "One Man's Family” which had as its setting, Marin County, California, across the bridge from San Francisco, in the city of San Raphael.  We became addicted to this story, and it was famous, indeed.  I always ask folks from that portion of the globe if they remember it.  The young ones don’t.  

At this point, I should relate that prior to entering the Air Force to become a pilot, Bill Ryan obtained a job for me at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.  I worked as a Line Boy working for White’s Flying Service who had a contract to give initial flying training to Naval Cadets.  They flew the Interstate Cadet, a little puddle jumper made in California and it was a pretty good trainer for a pilot who had never flown before.  As part of my pay, I was given flying training and while there, received my Private Pilot’s License.  I probably had the weakest instructor of them all in this program.  He had very little flying time and was from New York, and I had trouble understanding his English.  The first time he said, “Give it the “trottle” I had to think a few seconds before I was sure he meant the throttle, and he did. I soloed in 8 hours, the minimum time allowed.  I had lots of fun flying all over the Phoenix Valley in 1942.  I think I received about 70 to 80 hours total, and never had any trouble with this aircraft. 

 While I worked early mornings until about 1400 hours Monday through Friday, it was my job to roll all the aircraft out of the hanger to the flight line. I think there were about 8 to 10 aircraft total. I spun the prop of each aircraft to start the engine, shut it down, made sure it was full of fuel and oil, the windshield had to be clean, the bird was chocked, etc.  Just being around airplanes helps you to fly and understand them, and of course, we were able to talk with lots of pilots who flew out of Sky Harbor, including Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy.  He flew out of Sky Harbor and was a Staff Sergeant at Luke Field in the early days of the war.  He was well respected at Sky Harbor, and was quite friendly to all of us.  He was our Hero.  Bill Ryan worked the afternoon shift, so I would see him each day at work when he came in to replace me.  He really Loved flying with a true passion!!

At the same time I worked early mornings at Sky Harbor as a line boy, I also worked at Martin’s Service Station at Five Points.  This is where 19th avenue going north and south crosses Grand Avenue in Phoenix.  Our station was on the southeast corner of this busy intersection.  I worked the night shift from 2100 at night to 0600 hours the next morning.  It was really quiet until about four in the morning when all the Luke Field folks were driving to work and needed fuel.  It was so busy that they fueled the cars themselves, and would run over and hand me the money, normally the correct change.  Folks always, well, almost always, didn’t fill the tank, they would buy even dollars worth of fuel.  Gas was 16.9 cents a gallon for regular and 18.9 cents a gallon for Ethyl.  All gasoline contained lead in those days.  Just two grades of gasoline for cars and trucks back then.  Gee, people were honest in 1942.  I was never short of cash, as they totaled all the pumps when I went off duty, and it always turned out correctly.  When I had these two jobs is when I learned how to sleep better in the afternoon than I did at night, and I still can.  As soon as I arrived home at the Ridgeways where Bill Ryan and I lived together, I would go to bed.  Then I would get up and eat and be at Five Points no later than nine at night.  But this meant I only received about six or seven hours sleep each day, and this was never enough for me.  But on weekends, I made up by sleeping a lot, and this is what preserved my sanity and my excellent health.  Until way after I retired from the Air Force in 1970, I almost didn’t know what being sick was all about.  And I seldom ever missed any work during my years due to any kind of illness.








 
PRIMARY  FLYING  EXPERIENCE  IN
TULSA, OKLAHOMA

As I previously stated, we arrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for Primary Flight Training in early September 1943, the land of Will Rogers who so aptly stated, “I have been to a lot of places and have seen a lot of people, and I never met a man I didn’t like.”  Oh, that more of us could say this honestly.

I had the meanest instructor who ever flew an aircraft at Spartan School Of Aeronautics.  He was an uncouth, older man with a very dirty mouth.  One day as he was cursing my friend from Preflight, Leslie Boysen from Iowa, Boysen said to him, “If you call me one more dirty name, I am going to kill you.”  He immediately apologized to Leslie because he had to, and he knew it.  He would take control of the aircraft and gyrate it around wildly, thus making me sick as a dog.  Each day, I threw up while in the air, and it just got worse and worse.  One night, I was talking to my Tactical Officer in his office, A West Point Captain.  I told him I was thinking about quitting the program due to getting sick each and every day.  He asked me who my instructor was, and when I told him, he said to me, “Don’t you dare quit the program.  Tomorrow morning when you march down to the flight line, you go in and see Jay Gentry, the head man, and tell him you demand a new instructor as you are entitled to one.  He will tell you what a great instructor you have, and he is considering him to be a flight commander.  But just tell him you want a new instructor as he has to assign you to a different instructor.”

Well, I did exactly that the very next morning, and sure enough, Mr. Gentry expounded on the qualities of this instructor, but I held my ground, and he assigned me to another instructor right then.  The new one was quite a bit younger, a lot bigger, and just a very nice Individual.  I was never ill again in the air, and to this date in history, I have never been ill while in the air.  My new instructor also had quite a sense of humor, was always cracking jokes, and we got along fine, and he never raised his voice in all my flights with him.  Years later, I was riding American Airlines going back east for some purpose when I was a Captain at Luke and in the era of prop driven birds, one could fly all night going to various places.  I awoke early the next morning on this bird, and I could tell things had not gone well during the night.  I asked the Stewardess and she said everybody on the airplane was ill, including the crew except Eugene as I slept through all this.  They had gone through some terrible thunderstorms, and this is akin to riding a bucking broncho, but even worse at times.  I laughed and immediately thought of my mean instructor at Tulsa when he made me ill each flight.  
  
The rest of Primary was a delight for me and I know that I finished high in the class in spite of my first poor excuse of an instructor.  While flying at Tulsa in Primary, my dear Mother came to visit me and we were able to get her a room with a nice lady who immediately took to my Mother, and she stayed for several weeks, and surely enjoyed being with me there.  It was nice that she was able to be there for as long as she was, as visits from parents in WW II were rare, indeed, unless the parents were rich, and believe me, my poor Mother was not rich.

We flew the PT-19 aircraft at Tulsa.  It was a monoplane, with two cockpits in tandem.  And like the Stearman, it had open cockpits.  I can’t remember who manufactured this craft, but it was a great aircraft to fly and was very forgiving  of  pilot  errors,  which  Primary  students 
made all the time. 
                    
                                        
BASIC FLYING AT COFFEYVILLE, KANSAS

About 7 November 1943, many of us went north and a little east to Coffeyville, Kansas For Basic Flight School.  Here, we would learn to fly the Vultee BT-13.  We called it the “Vultee Vibrator” and later on when I would know Lt. Arthur Faulkenberry, he described this aircraft as follows:  “Thirteen thousand bolts in loose formation, and one big old Nut sitting up there guiding them all.”  I assumed that the nut was the Pilot. Gee, Coffeyville was terribly cold in January.  When I first moved into my barracks, it was horribly cold.  But with my experience as a plumber in Phoenix, I removed the little flow- reducing valve to each of the three heaters in our barracks and we were then plenty warm.  I kept hoping the barracks would not burn down, and it didn’t.  The flow restrictor was to keep the gas at a lower inlet pressure, but after I removed them, it was a straight inlet flow and we burned lots of natural gas, I am sure.

My first and only Instructor at Coffeyville was Lt. Custer, who was probably one or two years older than I.  He was my Ideal in every single respect.  And after riding with him a couple of times in the BT-13, I vowed that If I were ever to instruct Pilots in how to fly, I would try my best to instruct exactly as he did.  He never raised his voice, was never in a panic, was extremely dignified, well qualified and always serene about everything in life. If we made an error in the air that should not be made, once we landed, he would say in a very matter of  fact manner, “Mr. Butler, take two stars.”   Each time you pulled a bonehead error, you would acquire stars that cost you 25 cents each.  At the end of the class, they used all this money for a Great party for all the Instructors and the students.  Lt. Custer could fairly well fly that machine, always demonstrating spins, all acrobatic maneuvers, landings, short-field takeoffs and landings, etc and he was simply letter-perfect in everything he did.  The BT-13 was one of my very favorite airplanes and from the first flight, I knew that Bird was strapped to my body, and I was in full control of it at all times.  Nobody had more fun in Basic Flying than Eugene.  I never saw Lt. Custer after I left Coffeyville, but if he followed the usual pattern, he was sent away to Fighter Transition, then overseas to fight the war.  I wouldn’t want to fly against him in combat, this is for sure.
 
When I first arrived at Coffeyville, the Cadet Wing Commander with the student rank of Colonel appointed me as the 44-C Group Commander with the student rank of Lt. Colonel.  This was a fine job and gave me lots of privileges.  The Military has a special manner of rewarding those who serve in leadership positions, even Cadets who are in training.  I was in charge of all the Cadets in my class in regard to discipline, military training, etc.  I surely relished this job a lot, and never had any trouble at all with the Troops under my command.

When 44-D arrived at Coffeyville, who was amongst them except my friend from Bisbee, Arizona, Clarence Wilford Stemen, Jr.!!  I conned the Cadet Wing Commander into appointing Clarence as the Group Commander for Class 44-D.  He even thanked me for suggesting Clarence as he knew not a soul in the new class.  Clarence Stemen was a splendid Group Commander.  He had a beautiful personality, was never antagonistic or mean, but could lead Troops in a highly commendable manner. This meant that Clarence and I spent lots of time together in our jobs, and also when we were off duty. We also spent much time in town having dinner, etc.  He was a wonderful companion to me, and we always got along extremely well together.  Little did I realize that when I left Coffeyville for Advanced Flying School, I would never see my Tremendous friend, Clarence W. Stemen, Jr. again, at least not on this side of the veil.

The time at Coffeyville was simply wonderful and also very rewarding to me, and how the days flew right on by.  The progress a Cadet made in Preflight, Primary and Basic Flying was utterly important. Why?  Because this is what determined whether he would be washed out of the program, or go to multi-engine advanced training or to single-engine advanced.  I knew for certain I would be heading to single-engine that was the training for Fighter Pilots, and sure enough, when the names and assignments were printed, Eugene was headed for Eagle Pass, Texas, about 50 miles down the Rio Grande from Del Rio.  I had never heard of Eagle Pass in my life, but I knew it was single-engine advanced, and how sweet it was to know I had passed the last hurdle on the way to becoming a Fighter Pilot.  I could even taste it.  I told my Awesome Friend, Clarence W.Stemen, Jr. goodbye, wished him well, and we were on the train to Eagle Pass.  This had to be just about 10 January 1944.  I would never see Coffeyville again, not to this date in history, anyway.
 
OFF TO ADVANCED AT EAGLE PASS, TEXAS

When we first arrived at Eagle Pass Army Airfield, we asked one of the Cadets in our upper class about the washout rate.  When he told us one kid washed out of his upper class, we were elated.  WOW!  We lost lots of Cadets at Coffeyville, either through crashing the birds and getting maimed or killed, or flat out being eliminated from the program due to flying deficiency.  This means you just can’t learn fast enough to keep up with your fellow Cadets, thus you are gone.

Eagle Pass is located right on the Rio Grande that separates the U.S. from Mexico.  The little town across the river in Mexico is Piedras Negras, and it was a wild town for the Cadets to visit, especially on Saturday afternoon and Saturday night.  They had many fine cafes there, and it was a very nice place to visit, and as always, lots of things to purchase at a low price.  The only legal currency in Mexico during WW II was the Two Dollar Bill, so we would always load up on these ere we crossed the border.  The cafes served pretty good Mexican food, and it was genuine and also hot from the chili.

My Instructor was Lt  M.W. Sublett.  He was a very low key, laid back man with little flying experience and wasn’t a really sharp Instructor.  I got along well with him and he corrected me very little in flying the aircraft.  The AT-6 was a natural bird for me to learn how to fly it well and with much precision.  North American had a wonderful engine in the T-6 that never gave me any trouble.  I remember each time you looked inside the cowl on the front of the engine, just a few inches below where the prop shaft stuck out, they had made a little round indentation and each aircraft had a penny in that small round hole & was secured by a little wire across the penny to hold it in place.  They told us it was for good luck, and I never heard differently, so I guess this statement was true.  

From my earliest days in flying at Sky Harbor in Phoenix, I learned to stay far away from props when they were turning, so this was never a problem with me.  However, not all Pilots and ground crew personnel learned this valuable lesson, and too many were either killed or maimed.  The very thought of getting chopped up makes me sick.  Little did I ever realize that when my career was finally over, that I would have more than a thousand hours in the AT-6 Texan.  

That Bird was some good to me from day one at Eagle Pass all the way to Luke AFB & Williams AFB where I last flew it as it was being phased out of the program in about 1951, or maybe even a little later.  Most of my flights in this Bird were of one hour or less.  I can’t count the landings I was involved in, as oft times, we would shoot 10 touch-and-go landings with one student on one flight.  Generally speaking, it was a very easy aircraft to fly, most difficult to land due to its very narrow main landing gear.  We always said, “There are those who have ground looped the AT-6 and those who are going to.”   The Army Air Corps owned them by the thousands, maybe even the ten thousands.            

At Eagle Pass, we had runways that crossed each other in the middle that was in the form of a cross.  A taxiway went out to the middle where the runways crossed, thus as the AT-6 didn’t need much runway for takeoff, this actually gave us four runways for takeoff.  The first Bird would take an open runway, the next took the next runway to the right, and so did each succeeding aircraft, which enabled lots of aircraft to takeoff in a short period of time.  Once all the aircraft were airborne, then we started using an entire runway for all takeoffs and landings.  This was an ingenious system to get hordes of aircraft off the ground with a minimum of delay.    

My Squadron Commander at Eagle Pass was Captain R.E. Ballard, really a professional Officer who ran an excellent Squadron.  The flights almost always consisted of six Cadets or Student Officers in all my training in Primary, Basic and Advanced.  Normally, a Cadet would almost always fly with his own Instructor.  It was designed to be this way, except for check rides, instrument flights, etc.  The Six students in my Flight were  (l) Newell H. Beaty of Fort Wayne, Indiana  (2) Leslie C. Boysen of Comanche, Iowa  (3) Eugene H. Butler of 1801 East Harvard Street, Phoenix, Arizona  (4)  Edward E. Chase of  New Orleans,  Louisiana  (5) John B. Dodge of St. Louis, Missouri  and (6)  Robert A. Greenwood of Nashville, Tennessee.  All of us graduated.  If a Cadet were a rather poor officer-type, then upon graduation from Advanced Flying School, he would be appointed a Flight Officer instead of being commissioned a Second Lieutenant. Flight Officers were a temporary appointment that meant once the war ended, he would probably be released from active duty.  Gee, six students in my flight from six different states, with me being the most western with Phoenix, Arizona as my home of record.

Most of us were in our teens and we were so very bigoted.  Once in awhile, there would be a Cadet around 23 years of age, and we would say to each other, “Why isn’t he home teaching high school and with his family, he is really too old to be here as a Fighter Pilot!”  We were really dumb.
                  
At this point in time, I must tell you about Colonel John H. Bundy, our Commanding Officer at Eagle Pass.  His friends called him Hal. He was a West Pointer and had been a full Colonel for so long that even he couldn’t remember when he wasn’t a Colonel.  He arrived at Eagle Pass and supervised the construction of the Base.  He was the C.O. from the day Eagle Pass opened for business until it closed down.  Then he stayed to see the Base dismantled.  Later, Eagle Pass become a different kind of Base, and they built right over the old foundations, and after our Mission, I think it became an early-warning Base, but I could be in error, then the new structures were torn down. 

 All that remains are a couple of old hangers where they were manufacturing jeans at one time, the old concrete foundations of the buildings, including the remains of the Base Theater which is easy to spot with its downward sloping huge concrete floor that led to the screen at the bottom.  The times that I have visited this old, remains of days long ago Base with the thousands of Cadets and the permanent party officers and men, brought back many fine memories.  I could even locate where my squadron building was located and even the flight line snack bar due to all the bottle caps still laying on the ground becoming even more rusty with each passing day.  A vivid reminder of the good old days when this Field was alive with much, much activity; the roar of the airplanes along with the hundreds of Cadets, Pilot Instructors, and all the rest of the crew that numbered in the thousands to successfully graduate all of us who flowed through Eagle Pass Army Field.  “Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul.”     

 And always and always, Colonel Bundy who was the first one there and the last one to leave.  Randolph Field in San Antonio was our Headquarters and Colonel Bundy’s favorite remark was “I don’t care what Randolph says, we are going to do it this way.”  And he did!  If ever there was a Maverick in the Air Corps, it had to be this unique and different Officer, Colonel Bundy.  He lived and died in his own world.  
        

Colonel Bundy loved Texas and at one time he had all the Cadets and all the Officers dressed in cowboy boots.  Randolph did a slow burn over this idiocy and soon, it came to a screeching halt!  Each year, he would shut the Base down for a week so he could host a huge rodeo in Eagle Pass and everybody turned out for this annual event.  No wonder he stayed a Colonel for the rest of his life.  But all in all, he was a good man, but completely different in a myriad of ways.  I will always wonder how many lives he affected for much good while on this earth, but it was in the Huge numbers, in my humble opinion.

I must mention that at Eagle Pass Army Airfield, we had a very small contingent of W.A.S.P.’s.  This stood for Women’s Army Service Pilots.  They were not actually in the Army, but it was their full-time job to test aircraft, ferry them from here to Hinterland and all over the globe.  They were a great bunch of women who were plenty tough.  They had to be to put up with all the gross jokes told about them by the Air Corps Pilots.  Colonel Bundy surely enjoyed them and made sure they were invited to all the social functions and he actually adored them, believe me.  But during business hours, we had little or no contact with them as their mission was quite different than ours.

I became good  friends with Leslie Boysen and Clyde Cagle.  I had known Leslie since Preflight at San Antonio and at one time we both had the same Instructor.  I first met Clyde Cagle at Eagle Pass.  He was from Bartlett, Texas and was as fine a young man as you could ever know.  He was also a very sharp Pilot with lots of drive, but really easy to get to know well.  He slept in the next bunk to me in our barracks and just never gave anybody any trouble.  For some reason, Texans make the finest and most professional Officers in the military.  They seem to thrive exceedingly in the military and especially in the Air Force.  Allie B. Burton, Jr. was also one of my closest friends at Eagle Pass, and we spent a lot of time together when off duty.  He was from Kerrville, Texas.    

As a Cadet, I surely enjoyed Eagle Pass.  Everybody was especially good to me, and I just had no trouble in the program, including ground school that I remember very little about for some reason.  As students, we were assigned as Officer of the Day for all the Cadets in the Detachment, and this was a busy job for the 24 hours we pulled this duty.  When any Cadet had this duty, we jokingly referred to him as “Mr. O.D.”  And so we were.  I knew that I ranked very high in this large Cadet class of approximately 250 students in Class 44-C.  We had little to do with the other training squadrons so I didn’t really know this for sure.  I can’t ever remember being ill from the day I entered service in February 1943 through graduation day on 12 March 1944, which was on Sunday.
 
 

GRADUATION DAY

Well, graduation day arrived all too soon, and at about 1000 hours on Sunday morning, 12 March 1944, we all marched into the Base Theater.  Leslie Boysen and I sat next to each other about two-thirds down from the front doors on the left as one faced the screen.
(The military always aligned all of us inasmuch as possible in alphabetical order by your last name.  No wonder, I became so well acquainted with the latter part of the B’s and the first portion of the C’s.) 

This was the most thrilling day in each of our lives, I am sure.  We now were attired in our brand new dress uniforms.  This meant we had dark, green coats or jackets, very light colored pink pants, brown tie, brown shoes, billed cap with the Eagle insignia on the front upper part, plus the U.S insignia on each lapel. (We were in the Army.  Once outside the Theater, we would have a friend pin our bars and wings on our jackets.) I believe the Army gave us about $150 for our uniform allowance, but most of us spent over $500, as we had different uniforms, including summer, and a beautiful mid length coat which was most attractive.  In fact, the uniform was just great and all of us enjoyed it a lot.  The dress pink pants were not really pink, but just a choice of words, I would wager.

Our speaker that morning was Chaplain (Colonel) MacArthur of the Army.  He was invited as his son, David W. MacArthur was in our graduating class, but I never knew him as he was in Squadron Six and I was in Squadron Seven.  He was the last name in Squadron six, otherwise he would have been with me in our Squadron. 

Chaplain MacArthur delivered a brilliant speech to our graduating class on Teamwork.  The title of his address was “Tinkers To Evers To Chance.”  They were a trio of professional baseball players way back in the early days of this sport.  Tinkers was a Shortstop, Evers was a Second Baseman, and Chance was the First Baseman.  They were extremely successful in making double plays due to their splendid teamwork, so he used them as an example of how success can be achieved when all work together for victory!  He went on to tell us that if we didn’t learn this invaluable attribute, we would not only fail, but be killed in our profession of Fighter Pilots.  He even told us the name of the team they played for, but I forgot this name, but just read on, please.

If you will pardon me for jumping ahead to Saturday, 17 April 1999, I will tell you that now I know the name of their team.  Betty Smith, my sister and I were in Las Cruces, New Mexico on this date and had just finished a delicious Mexican dinner at the Napolito Restaurant there and were on our way back to the motel when we stopped to buy some  luscious custard ice cream. At a drive-in, while waiting in a long line, I turned around and there were two of the largest people I have seen in ages.  A very friendly couple who told me they had lived in Las Cruces for 40 years and when they arrived, the population was about 30,000.  Then I told them that when I arrived, the population was only 3,000.  They said I must have come there in the thirties, and I replied, “It was in the twenties.” 

 I finally asked the husband what he did for a living and he told me he had been a professional baseball player, and they lived in Chicago.  Excitedly, I told them I had been waiting over 55 years to ask them a question that I am sure they could answer.  I then told them of Chaplain MacArthur and his famous speech was titled, “Tinkers To Evers….” And just as I said Evers, both of them replied in unison, “To Chance.”  This totally surprised me.  And then I said, “You know this story.”  They knew it well!  Then the man said to me, “In case you are interested, Mr. Chance was also the Manager of the team.”  I didn’t know he was the Manager.  “And what team was this?” I asked.  “The Chicago Cubs.” He replied.  This man also played for the Chicago Cubs.  I thanked them both profusely, picked up my order and went to the car where Betty was waiting for me.  Isn’t it interesting that I had waited for just over 55 years to be reminded of the name of this Team.  Thanks be to that portly man and his good wife who were so happy to provide me with the answer.

To give you a little bit of info on the life of a cadet at Eagle Pass, I have borrowed this poem taken from my class book of Class 44-C.  Graduated 12 March 1944. The below words of wisdom is known as “From Rags T Riches” or “My Life As An Underdog.” 

“Listen my children and you shall dig
How I came to be flying an Army Rig
I was fat, dumb, and happy, drawing good pay
When I heard the man on the radio say
“You too can be an Aviation Cadet
There’s a plane on the line waiting for you-yet”
So down to their office I galloped like hell
And began to find out what the man didn’t tell.
I stripped to the skin, they examined the same,
They stuck me with needles, and knocked on my knee:
And wanted the low down on my family tree.
And when they had checked on my letters, and weight
The next thing I knew I was mailed “G.I.” Freight.
I was dusty and pretty near dead from the ride
When they left me in Texas to be classified.
I got my equipment and two barracks bags
And was all fitted out in government rags
But the suits weren’t zoot and the seats weren’t “reet”
And they weren’t designed for withstanding the heat.
And I lived in a tent and I drilled in the mud
And the M.D.’s kept drawing off samples of blood.
Till after they’d broken my spirit and back
They sent me with baggage across to the S.A.A.C.  (San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center)
I spent nine long weeks at the Pre-flight routine
In drilling and Ground School and mopping the latrine
I learned to take code and to roll up my socks
And I spent summer evenings picking up rocks
And still being eager and full of “the try”
I popped off to Primary, Jackson, to fly.
For there it was, solid as ivory and hep,
I climbed in an airplane and took my first step
I met my instructor, we took to the blue
And gators, believe me that cat sure could chew
“Don’t cross them, co-ordinate, more rudder—more!
Your flying is feeble—your landings “p…poor!”
And then came a program of spins, stalls and such
With chandelles and “eights” to develop the touch!
I soloed in time---(a matter of weeks)
And used up the balance of my lucky streaks.
For just to make sure the boys’d come clean
They ran quite a few through the washing machine
But when it was over, we got our degrees
And went on to Basic, H.P.’s if you please.    (Hot Pilots)
It was basic at last and 450 horses---
Navigation and more meteorology courses---
Instruments, night flying, prop, pitch and flaps
Formation, cross country, crashes perhaps
“Center the needle and center the ball”
Don’t horse it back or the damn thing will stall!
Give it the throttle---you’re just too damn high!
Take it up solo, I don’t want to die---

And so it was children without no romance
I thumbed my nose once and was off to Advance
Advanced is a place called Eagle Pass
Where there’s lots of dust and ain’t no grass
And the Rio Grande is a muddy trickle
(You’ll find “Cadet Widows” are pretty damn fickle)
Where you fly by night and you sleep till ten
And you go to school every now and then
You learn about mils and radii lead
And at what angle and target speed
For a groovy gun is the calibre 50
And the 20 cannon is even more nifty
Bracket the beam and turn to your heading
Saturday morning, you get new bedding
Saturday night, sample tequilla
Sunday morning, the taste will kill ya
Who blew up my head like a balloon
How can I eat with a rusty spoon?
You can’t date a nurse and you can’t date a Waac.
And you don’t get time to enjoy your sack.
Eighty eight guys on the bus to town
You can’t stand up and you can’t sit down
The AT-6 is a lovely ship
Maneuverability and plenty of zip---
You can’t fly nights if there’s any soup
If you don’t keep it straight you’ll sure ground loop
Officers’ clothes cost lots of dough
“It’s the bars, not the wings that count, you know.”
---Turn off the light---here comes a commando!
“I go to instructor’s school to Rando’---“         (Randolph Field)
“I hope I get stationed near my home.”
“Pour me a beer, Gate, and spare the foam”
“Geez---no mail again today---“
They took 34 bucks outa my pay!”
Looka this laundry---these creases ain’t right---
“---I like Lana Turner---her sweaters fit tight
So he buzzes the field---really grandstanding---
And tears up the plane with a fine wheels-up landing---
And so my earth-bound loose-toothed friend
Such is the plight of air borne men
If you’d live to be a gray-haired wonder
Just keep your nose out of the wild blue yonder
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
It’s a hell of a way to earn a commission.
Amen---L.W.A.

Graduation lasted just over an hour, and we were now officially Officers in the U.S. Army Air Corps and rated Pilots.  What a great day for all of us !!!  It was tradition that the first enlisted man who saluted you was entitled to a dollar, and each of us had a dollar for this special occasion.  The enlisted men loved this tradition, I assure you.

The following is a direct Quote from Class 44-C of our Book:

TO THE CLASS OF 44-C:

You have reached the conclusion of thirty-six weeks of arduous training.  Twenty-seven of these weeks were taken up in giving you the world’s best flying training.  You are now prepared to take your place as a member of the combat teams of the Army Air Forces.  We know that you will acquit yourselves in a manner that will bring nothing but credit on yourselves and your country.  May the fortunes of war smile upon you.

    JOHN H.  BUNDY            
Colonel, A.C. Commanding
             
                                     Eugene’s Flight, Class 44C, Eagle Pass, Texas
 LIFE AS A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR

All during my training at Eagle Pass, I knew in my heart that upon graduation, I would be assigned for further training in a Combat Aircraft such as the P-40, P-47, or P-51 or some other great aircraft and go to Europe to fight the war against Hitler and the German Air Force.  But the wheels chose the top seven graduates to remain at Eagle Pass to be Flight Instructors and Eugene was in that number.  To this very day, I have no idea whether I was the number One Graduate, or the number Seven, or somewhere in between.  And they would not tell us.  My good friend, Clyde Cagle was to remain as an Instructor, but early in our training to be Instructors, he and another classmate of ours, Robert A. Kelly of Boone, Iowa were killed in an AT-6 while illegally buzzing the terrain.  This left only Five.  The Base held a joint funeral for Clyde and Robert.  We and some of our instructors served as pallbearers for them, and all of the Instructors concerned with our upgrading were at the funeral.  It was on a Saturday afternoon.  I really missed Clyde Cagle and couldn’t help but wonder why he and Robert wasted their lives in such a foolish accident.  I never knew Robert, but Clyde would have gone on to greater heights had he lived!! 

Soon, we were given leaves and I took off for Phoenix, Arizona to visit where Bill Ryan and I lived with the Ridgeway family when we rented from them.  I had loads of fun on this vacation.  Bill Ryan had now graduated from twin-engine school and would soon be flying B-24’s and he was in Phoenix, too. (We called the B-24 Liberator Bomber “The Flying Prostitute” as it had no visible means of support.)  How Gross! 

One morning while in Phoenix, I journeyed downtown to find myself a car.  On West Van Buren Street just west of Central Avenue about First or Second Avenue On the north side of Van Buren Street, there was a nice used car lot owned and operated by Clark Smith.  He walked up to me and I asked him if he had a nice Ford or Chevrolet that I could buy.  He saw that I was in my brand new dress uniform, complete with Pilot’s wings and he said to me, “Would you like a really nice car that will give you excellent service?”   I replied that I would.  He took me over to a huge, long, black four-door touring sedan, a 1939 Packard 120.  Honestly, it looked brand new, and it almost was.  He asked me if I liked this car, and indeed, I did.  He then told me to take it for a ride and when I asked him if he wanted to go with me, he said to go drive it all I wanted and he would talk to me when I returned.  This car drove better than any automobile I had ever been in during my entire life.  Everything worked on it, it had excellent tires, a nice radio, and even overdrive, a knob that you pulled out at about 60 MPH after you pushed the clutch in, then let the clutch out and you just glided along.  The car did a lot better on gas than I ever imagined it would, too.  When I asked him how much it was, he replied, “Six Hundred Dollars.” (The price of this Packard was just about equal to two and one-third months of my total pay as a Second Lt. on flying status) It was just perfect, but I must admit, it seemed very large to me and also it was definitely a rich man’s car.   I am sure it was owned by one previous, rich owner and it had probably been parked in a covered garage, and it had very low miles on it.  I told Clark Smith to sign me up, and I drove it home.  This Packard had a straight eight engine and would cruise at high speeds all day long.  What a comfortable, luxurious automobile it was.  In reality, it was just like it had come out of the factory.  There wasn’t a scratch or mar on the entire car.  The paint looked very new.  It even smelled like a new car!!!

While on this vacation, Bill Ryan announced one day that he had a nice evening planned for us.  Two girls he knew well were going to cook us a chicken dinner, then afterwards we were going to a movie.  Bill told me that one of them was pretty heavy, but the other was thin.  As he knew both of them, he said the heavy girl, Nellie Odom was his date, and my date was Jane Wilkins.  We went to Nellie’s house, I am sure, and they had a great dinner for us, which was most enjoyable.  Then we went to a movie and afterwards, I asked Jane if she would like a beer.  I thought she was going to faint. This really surprised me, as most girls were eager to drink in World War II.  Finally, it was getting late, and I took her home in my new Packard and told her goodbye.  I just knew I would never see her again.  That’s how much I knew about future events that would unfold.

Soon, I was back in Eagle Pass with my new Packard, to resume my training as an Instructor.  Although I was bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t on my way to Europe, I nevertheless enjoyed working with Aviation Cadets, teaching them to fly the Advanced Trainer that was the AT-6 Texan, made by North American.  By the time I was graduated one year, I had over 700 hours flying time. That was superior in that era.  Most of these hours were of one hour duration, or less, which meant more experience for me.  And I was still alive, too!!!  In all honesty, I really worked diligently to be just like my Basic Flight Instructor at Coffeyville, Lt. Custer.  And in my emulation of him, I did become an excellent Flight Instructor and each person I ever flew with surely enjoyed the kind manner in which I treated them, and the quality instruction that I always gave them, always without exception. I always taught exactly in the manner that I was taught by Lt. Custer.  It was richly rewarding.

I flew many Cadets at Eagle Pass.  I don’t think that any student failed to graduate who I trained.  Vaun L. Johansen, an inactive Mormon from Huntsville, Utah, Jimmy Johnson from the South, and Chester C. Jennings, Jr. from Baltimore plus three more young men were my students in 44-F, the first class I taught in my career.  Both Vaun and Jimmy are long departed from this earth, and Chester is just about gone and lives in a full-care rest home. For some unknown reason, almost each time I was to fly with Jimmy Johnson, the bird was late in landing, so we would sit on the ramp and just talk.  We became very well acquainted and I really enjoyed being with him. He was very sincere, also easy to know well, and a wonderful Pilot with excellent judgment.  He became one of my best friends there.                 
              









































        
 
 
 DAYS AT FOSTER FIELD, TEXAS

In March 1945, I received orders transferring me to Foster Field at Victoria, Texas to train in the P-40 Warhawk, the same aircraft used by General Clair Chenault of the Flying Tigers Fame in China against the Japanese.  We received several hours in this bird, including some gunnery that was really cool.  Just after I graduated from this course, World War II came to a dramatic conclusion with the B-29 ‘s bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan with atomic bombs.  The Enola Gay bombed Hiroshima and Bock’s Car bombed Nagasaki.  When WW II ended, I was still at Foster Field in Victoria, Texas.  That has to be my most memorable and truly joyful and elated time of them all.   There just isn’t any way to describe my deep, deep feelings and I am sure millions and millions of good people throughout the earth had very similar feelings and deep emotions about this important date in history. 
If I live to be a Thousand Years Old, I will never forget the extremely deep emotions and splendid feelings associated with the end of World War Two!!!!

In early October 1945, I asked for and was transferred to Luke Army Air Field near Phoenix as a T-6 Instructor, working mainly with foreign students.  This was my first of four assignments to Luke, a Base where I received promotions to Major, Lt. Colonel and Colonel.   In the years to follow, Luke would become my favorite of them all in the Air Force.  I was promoted to First Lt. While stationed at Foster Field, and to Captain when I was in the Fighter Group in Panama in 1947. 

Just before leaving Foster Field for Luke Field in Arizona, I committed the most stupid mistake I have ever made in my life.  I took my beloved Packard that was still running perfectly to Houston and traded it in on a raunchy 1941 Oldsmobile that had the experimental hydramatic transmission.  The Olds was not a good car, it even had a puky two-tone paint job, and was a 2-door.  

When I left Foster Field for Phoenix, I stopped by Las Cruces as Mama wanted to go to Phoenix to live, so this was a perfect time to take her.  I gave three uncouth ruffians who were on their way to Arizona and were also Pilots, a ride from Foster to El Paso. As my compensation for hauling them all the way there and their heavy baggage, they treated me to a cheese sandwich.  Butlers are really good at letting folks they don’t even know or care about, take them to the cleaners.  Anyway, after an overnight stop in Las Cruces, Mama and I left for Phoenix early on a Saturday morning.  The weather was perfect. The Olds ran OK, but used one quart of oil each 35 miles all the way from Victoria to Phoenix due to the rear main seal on the pan being shot.  Coulter Cadillac later repaired this and it cost me more than one month’s salary. 


 Had I kept the Packard, it would have run for eons as it just didn’t have many miles on it when I bought it in Phoenix or when I sold it in Houston.  I would have put more miles on the Packard, but they only allowed us four gallons per week during gas rationing.  When we transferred, they gave us enough gas stamps to get between Bases.  On the highways during the war, the speed limit was 35 miles per hour.  It did give you much better gas mileage, however and was easy on the tires. Just after I left Victoria,I had to stop at the Government office in San Antonio and get coupons for two new Firestone tires, as the Olds had nothing on it that was worth a tinker’s damn!  Talk about plenty Dumb Lieutenants, I was at the top of the class when I traded off my Packard!!

John A. Tripp was one of the finest students I ever worked with at Eagle Pass.  I flew practically every dual flight with him.  He was an extremely sharp young man who could really fly that bird.  Later, he was stationed with me at Foster Field, so when he was leaving the Air Force, I took him to Houston to catch his flight home to Miami, Florida. This is when I traded the Packard for the Dumb Olds!!  When I was the Base Commander at Laughlin AFB. Texas, I was the host for some Del Rio businessmen and we flew to Miami and while there I had some free time.  So I met John at a yacht club that he belonged to, and then we went to his home where his dear wife prepared us a great dinner, and we discussed all the Troops we knew in the past.  Then I lost track of him, his number isn’t listed in the phone book in Miami so there is no way to contact him.  He and I spent hundred of hours in Victoria just having fun and being with each other.  He was from a wealthy family, a large one who was in construction in Florida. I always thought that he was so much younger than I, but his birthday was 8 October 1925, so there was less than two years between us.  And he might be dead, too. The Tripp family members were Super Patriotic.
 
FIRST ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE FIELD, ARIZONA

When Christmas 1945 came into view, I was at Luke Field, Arizona flying students in the T-6.  Originally this bird was designated the AT-6, but about the time the war ended, they designated it the T-6 as it was no longer an Advanced Trainer, just a Trainer.  About the same time, they changed all the fighters from P for pursuit to F for Fighter.
     

It is now the Christmas Season of 1945 and I have been at Luke for a very few months.  I lost track of my truly Great friend, Clarence W. Stemen, Jr.  My last contact with him was when I told him goodbye at Coffeyville in early January 1944 when I left for Eagle Pass, and he still had half his Basic Flying Training to complete.  I never heard from him again, but during the Holidays, I sent him a Christmas Card with a long note written on the card.  In the note I was kidding him about how all the girls went crazy over him.  Shortly,  I received a very nice letter from his Mom in Bisbee, Arizona stating that Clarence was burned to death in a Bachelor Officers Quarters at Tonopah Army Air Field, Nevada the previous year. He died on 23 August, 1944 when he was 20 years old. I immediately felt very bad that I had kidded him about women. I should have expressed my gratitude and genuine appreciation for the wonderful friendship that we had with one another from the very instant we first met in the Luhrs Building in downtown Phoenix on 25 September 1942 in the afternoon, as we were sworn into the Army Air Corps together.  I will remember him forever!!  His family called him Willie.  I always called him Clarence.

His Mom corresponded with me until her death several years later.  Then a sister of Clarence said she would like to correspond with me as her Mom had died, and she did for quite a few years.  During this time, she mainly lived in Kingman, Arizona.  Finally, she died when I was living in North Logan.  The last time I heard from her was a Christmas Greeting, and she told me that she had joined the Church.  This made me very happy.  Then sometime later, I received a letter from one of her relatives telling me she had died.  I was going to write them and then lost the letter from them. I have always felt bad about this.  Like so many dear friends who have departed, I know beyond any doubt that I will see Clarence, his Mom and his Sister who wrote me faithfully until each died at separate times.  I will recognize Clarence as I can still see him vividly in my mind’s eye.  Gee, there are a lot of my splendid Friends who have gone to the other side of the veil. 

While at Luke in November 1945, I met Lt. John J. Hill who had graduated from Aloe Army Airfield that was on the opposite side of Victoria, Texas from Foster Field.  He graduated in Class 45E on 23 May 1945.  We became instant friends and we spent lots of time together.  I was able to give him some flying time in the T-6 and he was a very stable, reliable Pilot who was very business-like in the air.  John is the only person I ever associated with who became acquainted with both my Mother and my Father.  When Mama wanted to leave Phoenix to go live with Gordon & Mary in the Oxnard area, John and I took her there in his 1936 Ford.  We had a very pleasant trip together.  Then when I transferred from Luke to Chanute Field, Illinois, I had purchased John Hill’s 1936 black Ford and sold the rotten Olds to somebody.  John Hill rode with me as far as Chanute, then took the bus to his parents home in Farmington, Minnesota. 

John could repair anything,  was very low key, really quiet until one started him discussing flying, then he had lots to say.  We kept in touch with each other on a regular basis until he died from a crash he had in his private airplane very close to Oroville, California about a year or two ago.  He married quite young in Minnesota and nobody could ever please his wife.  She divorced him twice ere he died and for no valid reason.  She never realized what a quality and good, honest husband she had.  He was the best!  Without exception, he was always ultra kind and good to me.

When I first arrived at Luke on this, my first assignment there, I met a very young man by the name of Glen M. Haynes who was a 
pilot. He was from the south and had been an entertainer, I think on Grand Ole Opry, and his stage name was “Little Pete Haynes.”  
Glen, John Hill and I spent countless hours together and we always got along wonderfully well.  Glen was one of my finest Friends.    A few years later, I learned he had been killed in an aircraft crash.  This made me very sad!!  I will never forget him. We were probably related to each other, but I never asked him about this, but I should have.
 
When John and I were driving from Luke to Rantoul, Illinois where Chanute Field is located, we stopped in Roswell, New Mexico one night.  While there, we visited Dad, Elma Hibler, my stepmother and all the children from D.D. down through Sue.  John Hill’s death was very strange.  He was flying alone in his aircraft when it hit a flat top mesa.  The aircraft hit so flat that about the only injury was to the front part of his head.  He lost no blood, broke no bones, but from then on, was simply a vegetable.  The only thing they could do for him was to keep him comfortable and one day he just up and died.  I probably knew John Hill better than anybody.  He didn’t have a mean streak in him, was extremely generous, really friendly, and if his marital situation hadn’t been so rotten, he would have been one happy individual.  He was the object of way too much animosity from his spouse, she was downright mean and terribly ornery with him, and in her mind, he was a worthless person.  But he was a great individual.  I knew his Mom and Dad, his brothers and his one sister. When he died, they had him cremated immediately and held no funeral, either.  How terrible can you be?  He lived a good life, was a great person, and I know he is a wonderful Friend who I will see one day on the other side. One thing for certain: He is much better off where he is right now than during the latter years of his life. 

 
LIFE IN ILLINOIS AT CHANUTE FIELD
 
At Chanute Field, I was able to travel to Farmington, Minnesota as this is how I became friends with John Hill’s family.  I was assigned to a technical training squadron where the young men in our squadron were being trained as parachute riggers, cooks & bakers, etc.  We had a lot of young men who had very little good schooling or training, thus lots of them were in trouble all the time.  This was a not a good assignment for me, as I was accustomed to working with the very elite of all those who served in the military in that time frame.  For flying proficiency, I was introduced to the B-25,a North American twin-engine light bomber that had a fantastic record in the Pacific.  As this airplane had short exhaust stacks and they were on each side of  the pilot and co-pilot , most pilots who flew the B-25 very long became really deaf.  Anytime you met a former pilot who could not hear, you would just shout in his ear and ask him if he flew the B-25.  He would smile and say, “Yes.”  It was in this training squadron that I first became engaged in counseling young men in the military as part of my job, and I was a natural at this, although I never had any formal training in this field.  But listening was the main thing and to become aware of their problems, and never judgmental or vindictive made one a success in counseling.  And I continued this as long as I was in the Air Force, and even beyond, too.  I thoroughly enjoyed counseling young men and feel that I was of great assistance to them.
 
 
SERVICE IN CENTRAL AMERICA

In July 1946, I was transferred to Panama at Albrook Field, which is very near Panama City, Panama.  Right away, I was selected for a six months TDY to Guatemala City, Guatemala.  This had to be one of my most choice assignments.  We only had four officers at our little Base near the main airport of Guatemala City, which is south of downtown.  I had many jobs.  I was the Mess Officer, the Transportation Officer, The Operations Officer, plus several more jobs.  I was the only one who was checked out in the T-6 that became my own personal aircraft.  The airplane was almost brand new, really a great bird.  The T-6 was a lot of fun to fly, and I saw lots of Guatemala from the air. The Finance Officer never thought I earned my flight pay, and as we were paid in cash each month, he would first pay me the base salary plus living quarters and subsistence, then separately would pay me the flying pay.  Then he would say this was the undeserved portion.  I kept telling him that I would just love to give him a ride in the T-6, and finally he consented.  I shouldn’t have done this, but I really wrung him out and he became quite ill, which just made me laugh.  Years later, he would visit my Pad in Osan, Korea.  When he first saw me, he told me that he wished many times that he had never made fun of me collecting flying pay, as he was never so ill in his life than when he flew with me in Guatemala City.  I felt redeemed that he would say this, especially in front of the entire team of Inspectors.  His last name was Holland.


About the only friends I would have in Guatemala City was Lt. Matthew R. Biggs, a pilot who had graduated in Class 44-B, which meant he had become a pilot in February 1944.  He was not assigned to our little Base, but lived in the same BOQ as I did, and he worked for the American Embassy.  We corresponded for quite awhile after we both were out of the service in 1947, but I eventually lost track of him.  He was A very efficient young officer and was plenty sharp, too.  We spent a lot of time together visiting the Mayan ruins way west of Guatemala City.  We always enjoyed being together and there just weren’t many other young Troops in this area, at least any who were Pilots.  Tommy Nesbitt was a young kid who spent almost all his waking hours at our Base.  His Dad was a ranking civilian who lived with his second wife and Tommy in downtown Guatemala City.  He was a highly educated man but had very little time to spend with Tommy.  We kept in touch with each other after Tommy and I had both returned to the U.S.  In fact, he lived in Beloit, Wisconsin with his Mom, so I was able to visit in their home and Tommy and I spent a weekend in Chicago.  That is one expensive town, and we had a great time being together again as we grew to know each other quite well in Guatemala.  Also, Tommy came to visit me when I lived in Minneapolis and stayed in my rented room while he was there.  We were really extremely close friends and always had a wonderful time when we were together.  He appreciated me being kind to him and we had many similar qualities. Although, I was a few years older than he was, he was a very mature young man who really enjoyed being with me.  We kept in close touch with each other until shortly after I was married, then somehow, we lost track of each other.  I have wondered many times where he is and how he is doing.  I just know he has excelled in life, as he was a very bright young man who everybody highly admired and respected. 

My six months TDY came to a rapid close, and when I returned to Panama, I was sent to a field on the opposite side of the Isthmus from Albrook, called Howard Field.  This is where I first met Colonel Henry Russ Spicer as he was my Group Commander.  We flew brand new P-47N aircraft, and talk about a huge, easy to fly bird.  It was nicknamed the “Jug” because the fuselage resembled a huge jug.  It was probably one of the safest aircraft I ever flew, and to get to work for Colonel Spicer was a great honor and a real privilege.

He was known as the Grand Old Man of Fighters.  During WW II, he was in combat over Germany in a P-51 Mustang and was shot down by the Luftwaffe.  As he was the ranking officer in his prison camp, the Germans gave him a very hard time.  The Germans insisted that all his officers, regardless of rank would be forced to salute all German officers.  Colonel Spicer knew the rules of the Geneva Convention that stated prisoners must salute enemy officers of equal and greater rank, and this is what Colonel Spicer insisted they do.  The Germans became very angry with him and court-martialed him and condemned him to death.  By the way, Colonel Spicer was a German by descent so he knew them well.  He wouldn’t take anything from them at all.  Late at night, or early morning just prior to his execution, the Camp was freed by the Russians, so he lived to fly again.  Nobody enjoyed more respect than this talented and strong officer.


Let me return to Guatemala for this little story.  Just a few miles south of the airport in Guatemala City was a huge, single mountain rising far, far above the terrain.  This mountain had an inactive volcano inside it.  Each time I flew over this mountain, I would get down to about 50 feet above the top, and as I flew by quite near the huge hole in the top of the mountain, I would peer down into this large, black hole, but it was so black inside even on a bright, sunlit day, I could never see very much of anything.  Then just south of this mountain, the elevation dropped rapidly to just above sea level.  I would fly over this dense, green jungle, and saw so many different kinds of animals, I just couldn’t believe it.  Just Zillions of monkeys and if a pilot ever bailed out over this jungle, he would have been there for the duration, this is for certain. 


 We had a very small Base at San Jose, Guatemala and it was actually part of this jungle.  This had to be a very poor assignment, and I was glad I was never sent there to serve.  Pete Fernandez, who would become a famous jet ace in the Korean War was stationed at San Jose, and this is where I first met him.   He weighed about 100 to 110 pounds if he were soaking wet.  Really thin and short.  His Dad was either a two or three-star U.S. Air Force General.  Pete was a real character.  But everyone just loved him.  He was never unhappy in his life.
 

When I first met him, we were both First Lieutenants.  When Pete was retired, I am sure he was a Colonel.  He was running drugs from the south into Florida where he lived.  One day U.S. Fighters approached him and demanded he land at the first available Airfield.  He wouldn’t, so they shot him out of the sky.  This has always been one of those ironic twists of fate that amaze me.  Pete was a famous Jet Ace in Korea, then stooped to running drugs into Florida and was shot down and killed in the process.  How can one justify this?  I honestly don’t know.


While stationed in Panama in about January 1947, I took leave to visit my friend, John Hill and his family in Farmington, Minnesota.  John and I wanted to go into business together.  By the way, he was a very sharp businessman, as later years would prove.  It seemed that everything he touched, turned to gold.  Well, almost.  So after this leave, I returned to Panama and I was still a First Lt..  While at Foster Field, Texas, I was promoted to this rank in September 1945.   So in July 1947, I asked to be released from active duty, and Colonel Spicer approved this as I told him I wanted to return to civilian life.  Upon separation I was promoted to Captain, and was automatically in the Reserve Forces.

 
BETWEEN THE WARS

Immediately, I returned to Farmington, Minnesota where John Hill and I had a wonderful time running around, but we never did go into business together.  After a short time, I applied for and obtained a job as a grocery salesman for Pillsbury Mills.  At that time, Mr. Pillsbury, the son of the original owner ran the company, and it was a relatively small firm, but well respected and carefully controlled by the Pillsbury family.

One night at a banquet for all the salesmen and others who held highly responsible positions, Mr. Pillsbury told us this story about himself.  In essence, he stated that one day he drove to Rochester, Minnesota as the Firm had a branch office in that city.  On the way down there, the car blew a tire and it was the middle of summer.  He removed his suit coat, his tie, and in changing the tire, his hands became quite dirty and so did his white shirt.  He walked into the branch office in Rochester, and a brand new receptionist was at the desk. She said, “Good afternoon, Sir, may I help you?”  “Yes, I am Mr. Pillsbury.”  She replied, “Oh Yeah and I am Betty Crocker.”  Just at that moment, the branch manager walked out of his office and said, “Mr. Pillsbury, Good Afternoon.”  He then told us, “I am not lying, this young woman crawled under her desk.”  He thought that was the funniest thing he had heard in years.  Betty Crocker is the woman, not a real one, used by our worst competitor, General Mills.  So this made it even more amusing to him and to all of us.  Our legendary woman was named Ann Pillsbury, but I think they have dropped any mention of her in their advertising, but I could be incorrect.

When The folks in Personnel at Pillsbury hired me, I was then interviewed by three Branch Managers who also took me to lunch to see how I behaved towards people.  Each one had to approve me, as they were unaware at that point in time whom I would actually work for, if all approved.  Well, I passed and went to work for Clyde Haines who had served in the Navy in World War I, got out when the war ended, went to work for Pillsbury and that was the only employer he would ever have for the remainder of his life.  Clyde and Rosella Haines were nice to me.  I spent many happy hours in their home eating their food and winning at poker with Clyde and the other salesmen who worked in his Branch.  Clyde was the best grocery salesman I ever knew.  He knew Pillsbury like the back of his hand, and never lost the excitement of selling.  Pillsbury had a marvelous training program for new salesmen, and this was worth its weight in gold.  When I completed training, I called on 150 plus grocery stores, placing more emphasis on the large chains such as Gamble Skogmo, National Tea and some large local chains that were in Minnesota.  When you are a salesman, the grocers never call you by your name, but you are Pillsbury, Procter & Gamble, or whatever.  I learned right away that P & G had the finest training of all, and gee, were their salesmen ever sharp.  They hired only the top- notch individuals to call on the grocery trade.  The only place Pillsbury competed with P & G was that each had a cake flour.  I don’t think you will find boxes of cake flour in any grocery store today, in my opinion. 

Pillsbury came out with many new products following WW II, and as a salesman, this was much fun.  Shortly after I went with Pillsbury, the company introduced Cake Mix to the market.  The only thing Mrs. Housewife was required to add to this mix was one cup of milk.  Later, they would change to water, eggs & cooking oil, as the shelf life was much longer with the eggs & oil missing from the mix. The new Cake Mix retailed for 25 cents.  Pillsbury ran full- page ads with a 15-cent coupon good towards the purchase, which meant a dime would get you a box of this new product.  It went over like wild fire.  No merchant could keep it in stock.  I made up my mind at the Saturday sales meeting that all the stores I called on would have this new mix.  A few resisted slightly, but they all bought and then had to reorder like mad.  Gambler Skogmo originally purchased hundreds of cases and sold out immediately.   Pillsbury was the pioneer in ready to bake pie crust.  This, too was a huge money maker for them. We also sold lots of pancake mix and the buckwheat mix.  But the big money in the late 40’s for both General Mills and Pillsbury was the flour products.  Most women baked their own bread.  Now, I am sure the packaged goods sold by these firms far outweigh the bucks they make in flour.          

I only worked in Minneapolis, although Clyde’s Branch covered St. Paul and a lot of smaller cities in that area.  They gave me a brand new car to drive and I kept it 24 hours a day.  They paid all the expenses of the car, and when we entertained grocers who we took to lunch, dinner, or the major league baseball games in Minneapolis.  They were always sending gifts to the managers of the stores.  I started at 200 bucks a month, but this wasn’t bad for 1947.  I paid 20 dollars a month for a nice room in a private home, then later, the same amount in a new basement apartment, which I shared with Norman Hiltenun, who was a Finlander, but he was born in America.  He had a very thick accent due to his parents. He was a good young man with high principles and I think he was Lutheran.  Most folks in Minnesota were either Catholic or Lutheran, believe me.  The very sharpest grocers I called on were the Jewish people.  They always had clean, well-run stores, and their sons always worked for their dads in the business.  And gee, were they ever well educated.  Anytime Pillsbury had a promotion that I was in doubt about, I first took it to my Jewish grocers, and if they went for it in a big way, it would be highly successful.  Also, we never had even one Jewish account that was in arrears in his account with Pillsbury.  What a beautiful record they had.

While at Pillsbury, I applied for a long vacation and they approved it.  Would you believe they let me take my new company car, a blue Chevrolet on this extended trip.  They charged me three cents a mile, but they paid for all the fuel, oil, repairs and tires if they were needed.  The only thing that happened to the car was some kind of transmission trouble, but it was repaired immediately. It was a fine Chevrolet.  A young man who was a student in high school went with me after I was interviewed by his Mom, in case I was a drunk or a reckless driver.   When she discovered that I worked for Pillsbury, she was convinced I was a good guy.  The young man paid me for his share of the trip to Southern California.  He and I really enjoyed our time with each other, and we got along with one another wonderfully well, and we surely talked to each other all the time.  He was a highly intelligent young man and wanted me to tell him stories about flying fighters in the military.  We stopped at a small town in South Dakota to pick up Ralph Trevillyan who had been one of my students at Eagle Pass.  This was a big mistake, as he was pretty uncouth, plenty dumb, liked to drink a lot and had no social graces at all.  I knew the young man felt very uncomfortable in his presence, and this ruined the remainder of the trip for this bright young man.

This trip took us through the badlands of South Dakota, through Rapid City, then on to Salt Lake City, and on west to California. While there, I visited Betty & Spurgeon and my Mother who lived nearby.  The high school boy was taken to his destination on time, and because of my gross friend, Ralph, I am sure he was happy to arrive at his destination.  If I could make that trip again, I would have just taken the young man, then visited in California while he visited with his family, then he could return with me to Minneapolis and help me drive and both of us would have tremendously enjoyed this fine vacation.  But I thought of this too late, in fact as soon as we arrived to pick up Ralph, I knew in my heart that I had a person join us who would ruin the entire trip, and he surely did.

On the trip home from California, we stopped in Phoenix and I went to see Rollo Norton who had sold me an insurance policy when I was at Luke the first time in 1945 and 1946.  Since I had last seen him, he was now the General Agent for Lincoln National Life Insurance Co.  Before this, he was with Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Co.  He was anxious for me to return to Phoenix and sell life insurance for him.  He gave me a lot of tests and said I would excel in this business.  He also liked the fact that I was presently employed at Pillsbury as a salesman, as they had an excellent name in successful training.

 
WESTWARD HO THE WAGONS

After returning to Minneapolis, I worked for a little while longer.  At one time, I owned a very good Mercury, but sold it at a nice profit.  Then I wished I still had that fine machine.  I bought an old Pontiac Chieftan, 2-door.  It wasn’t a very nice car, but it was paid for.  So in July 1948, I loaded my stuff in the Pontiac, resigned from Pillsbury and headed for Phoenix.  Clyde Haines wanted me to stay in the worst way, and offered me a very substantial raise in salary, but I told him this wasn’t the reason I was resigning.  I needed to return to Phoenix, and this I did.


Working for Rollo was a blessing.  He knew the insurance business like nobody else.  He could never remember names, even the first names of his two sons and any rank in the military, but he could train and sell life insurance.  He was the best.

For about the first time, I really noticed the heat in Phoenix in July 1948, especially after residing in Minneapolis, but I didn’t mind it.  I journeyed out to Sky Harbor Airport as I knew they had a Reserve Flying Detachment and they were flying the T-6.  With my Form Five in hand (This contains the record of all your flying time in the Air Force by date and aircraft type) I showed this to the Captain in charge, and he said I was welcome.  He just didn’t know that soon, this place would be called Butler’s Air Force. And we would be a holy terror in that valley flying with the likes of Ed Rosser, who was raised in a bar there on East Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Harvey Samuels, a drunk who was also a Highway Patrolman and Bill Ragon who I first knew at Foster Field in Victoria, Texas.  And soon I would meet Lloyd Eugene Fish, who graduated at Luke Field in my under class, 44-D.  At this time, his older brother, Arthur was already dead, having been killed while delivering the Arizona Republic in the Pine, Arizona area in a BT-13.  Lloyd told me many fine things about Arthur, and I just wish I could have known him.  Arthur was stationed at Aloe Field on the opposite side of Victoria, and all the pilots were in town each night, and I might have even seen him or even talked with him and just never knew who he was.  John Hill was also at Aloe, graduating 23 May 1945.  Lloyd was the most eager Pilot I have ever known, and he dearly loved flying.  But he also realized that the construction business took up a lot of his time.  He was married to Virginia Stephens, and they had one little daughter, Barbara Fish.  I have known Lloyd and Virginia for over 52 years.  It was at Sky Harbor Airport that they gave me the nickname of  “Bishop.”  They all thought I was LDS, but the nickname was because I didn’t smoke.  WOW.

During my career in the Air Force, we never had any women Pilots or women trainees as it was unthinkable in those days that you would train any decent woman to fly combat.  But while I was in the Air Force Reserve Detachment at Sky Harbor, they had a rule that you could give an orientation ride in the T-6 to a wife of another Pilot, but never your own wife.  As Lloyd Fish was a member of this Detachment, it was legal for his wife, Virginia to receive an orientation ride, so she chose me to give her this flight.


After properly briefing her on how to bail out of the aircraft, and everything else she was required to know, one morning, we took off from Sky Harbor.  We flew around for awhile, then from south to north, flew extremely low over a school building that Lloyd was constructing in Maricopa.  This is a few miles south of Sky Harbor out on the desert, at least, it was then.  Lloyd was at the construction site when we flew over, and later told us that we were plenty low and as fast as the aircraft could fly.

We then went to the acrobatic area where I demonstrated all the maneuvers I knew, except one and Virginia just loved flying in this aircraft.  Also, she took the controls and flew the bird around the sky, and she was pretty good.  About the time I was ready to head back to Sky Harbor, she asked me if there were any acrobatic maneuvers that I hadn’t shown her. 

 Well, there was one.  After telling her about it, she asked me if I would perform one.  Normally, we just never do a hammerhead stall in the T-6 because it is quite a violent maneuver.  It is done as follows: You dive the aircraft at a very steep dive angle, then when you have lots of airspeed, you pull the nose straight up in the sky.   Eventually, the aircraft slows down like mad because it is 90 degrees to the ground and soon it stalls.  When it stalls, it falls straight down tail first.  But as the engine is so very heavy in this bird, all of a sudden, the aircraft swaps ends by the nose of the aircraft pitching down past the vertical.  During this phase, your body attempts to fly through the canopy, but as you are strapped in, you remain in the seat. Also, all the dirt, any tools left in the bottom of the floor, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, etc. fly past your head and hit the canopy and stay there for the time being.  When the aircraft has passed straight down plus about 45 more degrees, you just roll the aircraft right side up and recover.  This scares most unsuspecting persons out of their skulls.  But Virginia asked if I would do one more.  So we climbed back to altitude and did another with exactly the same results.  This is not hard on the T-6, but it surely throws the occupants around like mad, and it surely is quite thrilling.  I told Virginia that she should be a Fighter Pilot.  Both of us will always remember this flight of long ago. Virginia was the only woman I ever flew in an aircraft with me as the Pilot.  I am sure that not too many wives even wanted to ride in the T-6, but Virginia certainly did.  

Well, the gang and Eugene put on a lot of air shows, some of them were authorized and some were NOT.  We also buzzed Phoenix from north to south right down Central Avenue about 50 feet above the buildings.  Although they didn’t like this, it really wasn’t a cardinal sin, either, but the desert was our favorite place for low level acrobatics, and this was simply insane!  Why some of us didn’t get killed is anybody’s guess, but we all survived.  We never killed a pilot in the Reserves in Phoenix.


Jimmy Shackleford had been an Air Force Pilot.  He was born on 2 October 1925, so he was just two years younger than I.  His Dad was a famous Dentist from a well-known family, and during WW II, Dr. J. Gordon Shackleford instructed Army Air Corps Cadets at Thunderbird Number One.   He loved to fly, and had his own aircraft, and was a fine gentleman of the first order.  Jimmy and I flew together a lot, and soon, he was inviting me to their beautiful, large home on North Central Avenue.  The Shacklefords treated me very well, and I was always welcome in their home.  They had only one younger son who they called Peanuts.  His given name was Ellis.  That was his Mom’s maiden name.   Many, many years later, I would learn that Jimmy’s bedroom in this huge mansion was on the Northwest side of the home, on Culver Street that runs East & West.

When Jimmy was in the Air Corps, each time he visited a Dentist on any Base for a checkup, the Dentist would open Jimmy’s mouth and exclaim, “Your Dad is either a Dentist or a Millionaire.”  And Jimmy would reply, “Both,”  Which was true.  Jimmy was one of the most wonderful individuals I have ever known.  I haven’t seen him in years.  Ellis became a Dentist, but Jimmy’s grades weren’t high enough at ASU, so he went into selling dental supplies to Dentists, and probably did better financially in this field than working on people’s teeth.  I always went to Dr. Shackleford to take care of me, and he spent all his time working on me and telling me flying stories during his vast experience as a Pilot.

All good things must come to an end, and one day, after we had torn up the skies of Arizona, gone on many fine cross-countries to Vegas and other spots where we could have fun, they shut down our Reserve Unit.  I wonder if that was their way of getting rid of Butler’s Air Force.  I hope not.

Barry Goldwater was a Lt. Colonel in the Air National Guard and was the C.O. of a National Guard Squadron at Luke.  At this time, Luke was an inactive Base, except for the sole Guard Squadron.  Luke had been inactivated shortly after WW II came to a conclusion.  Well, the Guard looked at our records, then Barry invited Eugene, Lloyd Fish and Dick Stough who was a Major, to attend a meeting held in our Reserve building at Sky Harbor.  Barry Goldwater asked me when I was called in if I would like to fly the P-51 with his Guard Unit at Luke.  I said I would be delighted to do this.  He went on to say that he knew I was in the Insurance business and I could sell insurance like mad to all the Guard Troops, he concluded.  

Then he dropped the bomb by saying that if I signed up for the Guard Unit, I would be reduced in rank to a Second Lt.  I carefully explained to him and his other officers who were there that I had lots of experience in the Air Force, I had worked long and hard to attain the rank of Captain, and I wasn’t about to go with anybody who would reduce me in rank.  He then asked, “Well, who are you going to sign up with, then?”  I told him that Williams AFB had promised me a Mobilization Day slot and would check me out immediately in Jet Fighters.”  Barry replied, “Well, that sounds good, but you will never fly a jet at Willie, It just won’t happen.”  I told him that I knew it would happen and would occur in one big hurry.”  

He interviewed both Lloyd and Dick Stough, and for the same reason of reduction in rank, they too, turned him down.  In about 2 days, Lloyd and I were at Williams.  Captain Francis “Buzz” Binnell, who would later become a good friend of mine asked us, “Are you guys out here to goof off, or do you want to work hard and become qualified in jet aircraft?”  We assured him we were there to fly, and the very next day, we were in the air.  Dick Stough, Lloyd Fish and Eugene Butler were the only three Reserve Officers not on active duty at that time to become fully qualified pilots in the F-80.  Lockheed’s and America’s first Jet Fighter.  This was a great thing, especially for me.


All the pilots in my Squadron knew that I sold Life Insurance for a living, and they would ask me to talk with them about their insurance program.  I always told them I could not discuss anything commercial on the flight line, but would be happy to go to their home at night and discuss this topic with them and their wives.  Gee, I became somewhat of a celebrity at Williams as one who flew jets by day and sold insurance by night.  I really appreciated their wonderful attitude towards me.  

Major Lefty Selenger was the C.O. of the Squadron where Lloyd and I flew and he was a great Patriot.  He really preached this to all the Cadets, and Buzz Binnell was one of the sharpest officers I have ever known.  Lefty Selenger flew with the Acrojets at Williams AFB as a part-time duty, and so did the entire team.  And they were good.  The F-80 could turn on a dime in relation to other jets that came along, so they had one excellent show.  Their first pass was always about 50 feet from behind the crowd.  What a scare until one became accustomed to the aircraft flying over your heads ere the sound hit you.  This gave the crowd an eerie feeling, to say the least.

Another part of their show was a T-6 parked near the crowd.  A pilot would lead “an old lady about 80 years of age,” put her in the back seat and buckle her in.  All this time, the engine is running.  The pilot would then get off the wing onto the ramp, and almost immediately, the T-6 would start taxiing towards the runway.  The officer who narrated the show would bewail the fact this old lady was just sitting in the T-6, but it started taxiing on its own.  Soon the T-6 was on the runway, full throttle was applied and the aircraft made the most horrible takeoff one could imagine and also not too far from the crowd.  

After becoming airborne, it did a lot of crazy maneuvers that made it look like the bird was out of control all the time.  In about 10 minutes of these stunts the T-6 came in for a bouncy landing, which looked plain crazy and finally taxied to the ramp where it was at first.  The engine would shut down, and the little old lady would just sit there in the cockpit, probably too afraid to get out.  All this time, the Announcer was telling the crowd what a terrible mistake it was for the little old lady to be in that aircraft alone.  Well, as you have probably guessed by now, it was not a little old lady, but a Captain who was a marvelous acrobatic pilot with lots of time in the aircraft, and he put on a show for them.  To my knowledge, they never told the huge audience the truth, but perhaps they did in all good time.

 Lloyd, Eugene and Dick Stough in another squadron picked up some very expensive and valuable time in Jets.  Along came the Korean War And many of those instructor pilots were sent to Korea to fight the air war.  Lefty Selenger was killed there.  I had sold him a huge life insurance policy, and I am sure I had the highest death rate of all the Lincoln National Life Insurance Salesmen.  But the company was good in their contracts, and each policy paid off in full, except many policies had a clause that paid the widows a certain monthly amount for 20 years, or sometimes, longer.  So I felt that I had been of splendid service to all those pilots who I sold insurance there at Williams AFB.

A short while after I arrived to fulfill my Mobilization Day Assignment, Colonel Russ Spicer arrived to be the new Wing Commander.  I was reading the paper on the flight line one day with the paper in front of my face, and somebody called attention and as I snapped to attention.  Right in my face was Colonel Spicer.  He immediately recognized me and said, “Hello Gene.”  This surprised me, but he had a wonderful memory for names.  We always said about him, “He can never become the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, because how could he remember all the troops’ first names?”  He always called everybody by their first name, Unless he was terribly upset about something.

While selling life insurance at Williams AFB, several folks warned me about Dr. Von Forstmeyer’s wife.  They told me she would give me lots of trouble, so don’t ever go near her.  She sounded like a holy terror, at best.  One day in my office in the Luhrs Building in Phoenix, I received a call from her.  Boy, was I surprised!  She asked me if I would come to their home on the Base at Williams and discuss life insurance with her and Dr. Von Forstmeyer.  He was a very high- ranking civilian who was the Educational Advisor for the entire Base, a very brilliant man, and I think both were from Austria.  She told me what time they could see me, and I was there a couple of minutes early.  She escorted me to a chair; I already knew her husband, and in essence said to me, “We have very little life insurance, the Doctor is older than I, and we have four young children so we need the most protection for the dollar.  What do you have for us?”  Well, I sold lots of policies in those days that consisted of a low-cost permanent plan with a huge rider that was actually term insurance, and almost always, paid the face value of the policy upon the death of the insured and the monthly payments for as high as 20 years or longer.  
 


I very carefully explained how this worked, and how much it was, and she said, “Write it up.”  I did this, she paid me a check, I told the Dr. how to get his physical exam at the Flight Surgeon’s, gave them a receipt for their money, told them goodbye and was walking out the door when she said to me in rather a stern voice, “Wait a minute.”  I thought to myself, “What have I done wrong?”  But she then said, “Mr. Butler, I like you, you conduct your business in a truly professional manner and then get the hell out!”  Boy, was I surprised and also pleased.  Well, I delivered the  policy  to them, she and I became excellent friends and she helped me a lot with other folks there.  

One day when I was visiting with her, she said that she had heard that I was getting married, and wanted to have me and my new bride to her home for dinner, which I accepted.  Then she said in her typical way of coining phrases, “I promise you that I won’t serve any coffee or tea or booze.  Hell, I won’t even curse.”  Events transpired, we never did get to their home for dinner, and a short time later, they were transferred to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.  She was having her fifth child, and during delivery, she died during childbirth.  I am sure the child survived.  Isn’t life ironic?   She planned so very carefully for his death as he had to be at least 20 years her senior, then as a young woman, died during delivery of her fifth child.  Yes, life is strange in millions of ways, and especially when we leave this phase of existence.  I will never forget Mrs. Von Forstmeyer, who was truly one of a kind, but exactly opposite than I had been led to believe prior to becoming friends with her.

 
MARRIED LIFE

Jane and I had a great courtship for many months and unknown to me, but she told all her friends we were to be married on 1 August 1950.  It wasn’t until later that I learned that almost all women operate this way.  One just has to become accustomed to it.  Bishop Arch Campbell, Jane’s Bishop married us early one morning in the Relief Society room, which was normal for civil marriages in those days.  On 1 February 1946, Jane and Harold Arthur Fish were married in the Arizona Temple.  Then on 17 February 1947, they had a little son who they named Harold Arthur Fish, Jr. and he has always gone by the name of Hal.   Hal was almost 3 ½ years of age when Jane and Eugene were married.  
  



Lloyd Fish was the Best Man at our wedding and his wife, Virginia was the Matron of Honor.  We had lots and lots of Jane’s relatives at our wedding.  We almost didn’t make it.  Bishop Campbell forgot about us and when Virginia called, he was walking out the door to tend his cattle.  Virginia told him to get his suit on and rush over before she killed him.  Well, it wasn’t quite that harsh.  He did a great job with the ceremony.  Lloyd & Virginia took us to a wonderful breakfast at the Westward Ho, the nicest hotel in Phoenix, in my opinion. I will always remember sitting in this very nice restaurant looking out the huge windows on Central Avenue. We took off for our honeymoon, spending the first night in Prescott, Arizona where Jane was born.  Hal stayed with Grandma Irene while we were gone.  Jane really missed her little boy and was anxious to return home to see him again.
   

We then spent a couple of nights at the south rim of the Grand Canyon in their huge wooden hotel, known as The El Tovar.  That is my very favorite hotel of them all.  I stayed at this hotel last November on my dear Mother’s birthday.  It is still simply beautiful.  We also spent a night in a crummy motel in Gallup right next to the railroad tracks.  Talk about loud noises.  

Then we journeyed to Durango, Colorado and after the first night, we were in a brand new cabin at Lost Creek that is northeast of Durango in the high country.  Extremely Beautiful Country. We would return to this scenic wonderland several times  with our children, and they always enjoyed being there.  The summers were glorious.  Nice warm days, usually a huge thunderstorm in the afternoon to cool things down.  Our honeymoon cabin was brand new. It even had two bedrooms, a nice kitchen and bath and everything was furnished except the food.  What sweet memories.

Right after returning from our honeymoon, I went back to work in my office on the ninth floor of the Luhrs Tower.  One day, while working on some papers, Colonel Russ Spicer, the C.O. at Williams AFB called me and asked how I would like to return to active duty.  I explained that I was really happy where I was and the type of work I was doing.  He then explained to me that I was being recalled involuntarily for one year due to my qualifications as a jet pilot and told me I would be working for him at Williams.  I then stated that if I had to return to active duty, I had rather work for him than anybody else.  He thanked me for having the right attitude and then told me if I needed any help from him to call him on the horn.
   

When I went home that night (we were living in my home in Sunnyslope) and told Jane I would be returning to active duty as an Air Force Pilot, she just laughed and said, “Eugene, you are always kidding about everything.”  But that time, I wasn’t.  (The U.S. Air Force was officially established On 18 September 1947, along with new uniforms.  The U. S. Army Air Corps was established on 2 July 1926.  This Branch of the Army lasted exactly 21 years plus a little less than three months total)
 

Soon, Eugene, Jane and little Hal were on our way in our brand new 1950 Buick Special (Green in color) to Hamilton AFB in Marin County, California, just north of San Raphael that is just across from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  It was here that they officially brought me back into the Air Force as a full time Officer.  I was issued new uniforms, had a complete physical with much, much emphasis on the eyes.  The eyes are utterly important to any Pilot and especially the Fighter Pilot.  We weren’t really busy there, and we had a wonderful time eating out three times a day, going to shows, and generally loafing.  Hal thought this was the way to live, and you know what?  He was right.  But soon, we were on our way back to Phoenix. 
   

Well, the Personnel folks who issued my orders back to active duty also assigned me to Goodfellow AFB, Texas that is located in San Angelo.  They had no jets there, only T-6’s and B-25’s.  Upon initial receipt of my orders, I went out to Williams AFB to see Colonel Spicer.  He took one look at the orders and told me to go to Hamilton AFB to get everything in order for me to serve on active duty.  Then to check with him when we returned to Phoenix and we did.  Still no change in orders.  So he told me to go ahead and report to Goodfellow, but to tell the Personnel Officer there I was NOT to go to work, as this would have prevented me from returning to Williams.  We piled into the Buick, took only enough clothing for a vacation, none of our household goods and drove to San Angelo.  The World Series was on, and this is what we listened to on our trip there and also back to Arizona.

When I told the Personnel Officer that I was not to go to work, he said, “Who on earth told you that?”  “Colonel Russ Spicer” was my reply.  He stated this was fine and to give them my number at the motel where we were staying and when the transfer came in, he would call me.   I could pick up the orders, sign out and go back to Williams.  We were there, again for a great vacation, just really loafing all the while.  No wonder Hal thought the Air Force was the most wonderful place he had ever seen in his short life.  It was, too.
 


We then drove to Phoenix, moved out of the home I owned in Sunnyslope, a very nice little two bedroom, one bath home with quite a large living room with huge windows.   We rented a small house in Chandler very close to the railroad tracks, just east of the main drag.  In those days, Chandler had only one traffic light total.  We attended a Ward there and most of the folks were farmers, I think.  We lived exactly 10 miles west of Williams AFB.  We also learned about Monti’s who had a bar and café that served the best T-bone steaks in the world.  All for about $2.25, including the drinks.  We went there often.  Later, he would move this highly successful operation to Senator Carl Hayden’s home where he was born in Tempe, Arizona right by the Salt River.  It is called “Monti’s Casa Viejo.”
 


While at Williams, I first started teaching in the T-6.   Right away in the T-33 and the F-80 which was thrilling to me.  Then in a very short time, the brand new T-28 huge trainer arrived from North American.  This replaced the T-6 that had been in the inventory forever.  They gave me one ride in this bird, and I was checked out.   To me, that was the easiest airplane I had ever flown, it had huge cockpits, the largest I have ever seen to this day, and I fell in love with this large, powerful aircraft.  And one could pull lots of G’s and it performed well at all times.  Lloyd Fish and I were flying the T-28 one day and I was demonstrating a maneuver to him.  He was in the front seat and I was in the back as I was giving him instruction.  I had about 6 ½ G’s on that bird when I noticed his head drop rapidly to the right.  Immediately, I stopped the maneuver and he woke up.  Gee, this really surprised me a lot.  He said that while he was out, he had a dream about being in a small boat on the lake and was fishing.  He has told me several times that I am the only one who ever blacked him out in an aircraft.  I would guess that I logged about 160 to 200 hours in the T-28 Trojan, as it was called.  It was one perfect bird to me, and if I were a rich individual, I would purchase one of those in favor of all other aircraft.  Gee, they are old and decrepit now as they are close to 50 years old.  That is pretty ancient for an airplane.
     
T-6 Texan                      T-28 Aircraft
   
Lockheed T-33                Hal on Vacation

 
Honeymoon Cabin in Colorado
 
 

 
SECOND TOUR AT LUKE AFB

In April 1951, a call came down wanting a pilot who had lots of time in the T-Bird (Lockheed T-33) to transfer to Luke and also to check out in the F-84C aircraft.  The F-84 was manufactured by Republic, a huge, under- powered bird, but exciting to fly.  Strictly a Fighter-Bomber.  I volunteered and ere I knew it, I was back at Luke for my second tour.  We had since moved back into Jane’s home at 2010 North 27th Place in Phoenix, as she wanted to be near her Mom, and this was an excellent move for us.  We added a double carport plus some nice storerooms there, and this is where we lived when Haynes and then Leslie were born.
 

When I arrived at Luke, almost all the Troops there were with the Air National Guard from Michigan, 3 squadrons to be exact.  Also, the Arizona Air National Guard Squadron equipped with P-51 aircraft was also stationed at Luke AFB.  They had no discipline at all, they argued like mad, and rank meant nothing to them as they all knew each other for years and it was more like a mob.  But individually, they were a fine bunch of qualified pilots.  They called me “That Guy From Willie,” and the new Group Ops Officer, a Major Son was “That Guy From Korea,” as he had just returned from a combat tour there.  But Luke was lots of fun, and they really appreciated me checking them out in the T-Bird, and they checked me out in the F-84C.  All of us active duty officers had a name for the boys from Michigan.  We called them the “Political Guard.”
     
      1950 BuickEugene 1950 Cadillac

An over-age-in-grade First Lt. By the name of Guy Henage was to chase me on the first ride in the F-84 as it was a single-seat Fighter.  I will never forget this first flight as long as I live.  We were on the short runway and we were to takeoff to the Southeast.  Almost immediately after I arrived at Luke for this tour, They quit using this runway, as it was just too short for the F-84C aircraft, a beastly bird, to say the least.  Guy said to me, “Run it up to full power, check all the instruments, and when you are ready, shake your head yes to me.  I will tell you when to lift the nose wheel off the runway and also when to lift the bird off the runway.  Don’t you dare do this until I tell you.”

We taxied out, he took my right wing on the runway.  We always did this as it was much easier to fly formation looking over your throttle to the lead aircraft, and just more natural, I think.  We ran the engines to full military power.  Talk about a lot of noise.  I shook my head at him and he nodded in return.  I released the brakes and a strange thing happened---The bird didn’t move for a second or two—I was dumbfounded---Then it slowly rolled down the runway.  After the longest time, I asked him if it were okay to lift the nose wheel off the runway, and he replied, “Not yet!”  Finally, he said “Yes” and I lifted the nose wheel off the runway.  Pretty soon, I asked if it were okay to lift the bird off the ground, and again he replied, “Not Yet!”  WOW!!!  There was hardly any runway remaining, and then he said, “Now.”  Gee, this was one sick airplane with no power at all.  We finally were airborne and right in front of us were these gigantic power lines that run north and south along Litchfield Road.  I had a hard time deciding if I was supposed to go under them or attempt to get over the top of them.  I opted for the latter, and believe me, we didn’t make it by more than ten feet at the most.
 

I was now over open country so I held the nose down, and after awhile, it had lots of airspeed, and it was a different aircraft altogether.  And the bird performed beautifully once it had all the airspeed it required to be a good aircraft.  So much for my first flight in the F-84.  That was my total checkout, and I grew to love this bird, except for the takeoffs there in Hot, Dry Arizona.  (The lower the altitude on takeoff and the colder the weather, the better and more efficient a jet engine performs.  Heat and high altitude are the enemy to the jet engine, but it thrives on low altitude and extremely cold weather, as it packs more air through the engine and this is what produces engine.)

 

Major John Roberts who would eventually become a four-star General told us one day at 12th Air Force Hq. in Waco, Texas where we all worked in Operations that he had the perfect fix to help the F-84 on the takeoff roll.  He would install a little box right in front of the nose gear, loaded with sand.  When you wanted to get airborne, you would pull a little lever in the cockpit, and all the sand would drop right in front of the nose gear.  The aircraft would think all the runway had been used up, and would start flying.  He had a great sense of humor.  Another pilot returned to Luke early one morning in the F-84.  He told us that on takeoff at El Paso International, about two miles off the end of the runway at an extremely low altitude as he flew by this house, a woman was in the kitchen frying eggs and he said that he really believed they were “over easy.”  He was pretty low.
 
F-84G at Paine AFB, Washington

General Roberts had a brilliant career in the AF.  He was a very bright young man who had been the gunnery champion of the entire Air Force one year, and he was destined for greatness.  Colonel Dewey Bower, my boss at 12th AF Hq once told me if Major John Roberts didn’t make four stars, there was no justice.  Dewey Bower died many years ago, and just recently so did General Roberts in San Antonio where he had lived in retirement.
 
Lt. Charles Scofield, Luke AFB 

I enjoyed this tour at Luke as I did all my tours there.  Also, I logged a lot of flying time in both the T-Bird and the F-84.  We finally received the brand new F-84G that had a much more powerful and improved engine.  At one time a bunch of us went to Long Island, New York where Republic manufactured these birds, and we picked up some brand new ones.  I loved this model of the F-84, and we had very little trouble with it.
 
Lt. Charles Scofield, Luke AFB 

 
FERRY FLIGHT TO TURKEY

In May of 1953, I volunteered to help ferry a bunch of new F-84G’s from Warner-Robbins AFB in Georgia to a Base in northern Turkey.  Our leader was a ferry pilot who had very little time in the F-84, and due to this, he was super cautious.  Upon arrival at Warner-Robbins, we made one test flight in our bird. Mine was okay.  Gee, it should have been.  It had just been flown from the factory there and I think it had less than 4 hours on it when I tested it in the air.  We soon roared off to Bangor, Maine where we stayed overnight.  The next day, we flew into some Base, and right now, I can’t remember where it was located, but I do remember the weather was really bad at our destination.  I was flying on a Capt. Thompson’s wing.  Although a very smooth pilot, he could not follow instructions from the GCA, so all the way down final, I was telling him what to do once the controller told us.  We landed without incident.  We spent a night here, too.  About the next day, we flew to BW-1 Greenland and this Base had to have excellent weather, as the runway ran uphill at quite a steep angle, and off the far end of the runway, there was a huge mountain which necessitated a VFR approach.  The weather was simply beautiful there.

 
Captain Bulter - Passport

The next morning we took off, but now we had to use the runway in the opposite direction, which meant we were going downhill like mad.  This helps the speed of the aircraft a lot.  As I was taking off, just a few feet from land, a very huge iceberg was floating down the water.  Only then did I appreciate the true meaning of “It is just the tip of the iceberg.”  It was a monster, but only a little of it compared to its total size was sticking out of the water.  No wonder the Titantic sunk when it hit the iceberg in the Atlantic.  This time we flew to Keflivik, Iceland.  What a pretty Base where we landed.  And as it was May, it never became dark that night at all, but the sun did go down.  What an eerie feeling to know there will be no darkness there at this time of the year.


We left the next day for Prestwick , Scotland.  Our brave & fearless leader chickened out due to some weather at Prestwick, and turned all 12 of us around so we returned to Iceland for the second time.  I told him when we were on the ground that I much preferred flying a letdown on instruments at Prestwick, rather than flying the North Atlantic twice.  He was just scared to death of weather flying, probably because he was not good at it.  So the next day, we flew again to Prestwick.  We stayed in a super clean hotel, with white linens, ate in the finest restaurants, and surely had a wonderful time in this Scottish town.  I could not even understand those good people, and they could not understand me, either.  I have always wanted to return to Scotland, but to this date, I have never been back.

After our stay in Prestwick, we flew to Germany, landing at Frstenfeldbruck that is west of Munich.  This was my first time in Germany, and I just loved it.  We had lunch in Munich at a huge, beautiful building with about four men playing the violins while we ate.  Talk about luxury, this was it.  The next day, we departed for Rome, Italy, landing at their huge International Airport.  This is my one and only time in Rome.
     
     Eugene on Vacation            Jane and Hal 1950

The next day, we took off on a very long flight, at least it seemed long to me, and we landed just outside Athens, Greece.  Gee, I loved this country.  They close up during the afternoon, then party all night long.  What a crazy, fun-loving  people .  We stayed in a huge, modern hotel and were treated like Kings in Athens.  And it was quite inexpensive, but lots of fun.  The last leg took us to our destination in northern Turkey.  I have never had any desire to return to Turkey.  To get back to the U.S., we jumped on a TWA Super Constellation built by Lockheed and it had four large engines.  This bird was the last piston-driven engine ever used as a Presidential aircraft.  It was used by President Dwight D.Eisenhower.  We rode this bird to New York, then another commercial flight to Phoenix on American Airlines, DC-6.  The Connie was a wonderful airliner and also had an excellent record and was pretty fast, too.  I have never been on one of them again.

 
Lockheed Super Constellation 

At Luke AFB, we trained Fighter Pilots in the F-84.  Upon graduation, they were sent to Korea to fight the war.  In Korea, they also flew the F-84, and our pilots did well against the enemy in that hostile country.  During the early part of my tour at Luke in the summer of 1951, I was on Mobile Control one day when an officer came out to tell me I was supposed to attend the Air Force Instrument School at Tyndall AFB in Panama City, Florida.  “When do I leave?” I asked .  “You were supposed to be gone yesterday.”  Thanks a lot,” was my reply.  I immediately left Mobile Control as he took my place.  I rushed to the phone to call Jane as we still lived in her home at 2010 North 37th  Place in Phoenix. 



She never liked surprises, and the Air Force and her husband were full of them.  I asked her when she and Hal could be ready to leave so we could all go to Panama City.  Then I told her why.  I rushed home, and early the next morning, Jane, Hal and Eugene drove away in our Green 1950 Buick Special headed to Florida.  This was a long trip and she was pregnant with our first child.  We lived in a crummy little place in Panama City, but we all enjoyed the vacation we had there, went to a little LDS Church near our rented home and spent lots of time on the beautiful white beaches and at the movies trying to stay cool.

 

This was our first experience in our married life outside Phoenix, and it was more uncomfortable than we had it in Phoenix.  At the time, I never dreamed how much attending the Air Force Instrument School would help my career, but it surely did, indeed.  (If I remember correctly, we flew the T-33 there if we were a fighter pilot, which I was.)   Toward the end of summer, it was not only hotter than blazes, but Jane was approaching the time to deliver the little baby.  By the time I graduated in late August or early September, Jane had to fly home as the Flight Surgeon wouldn’t think of allowing her to drive that long distance.  She flew home on a commercial plane.  A good friend of mine, Major V.V. Heywood, who was one of the few black pilots at Williams who I had known there was in the same school with me, and he flew home on the same aircraft with Jane.  At each stop, he helped her off and back on the aircraft, and in those days, there were plenty of stops enroute. He was so very nice to her and she really appreciated having him assist her all the way home.  She made it home safe and sound.
 
Hal and Haynes--Phoenix 

 Little Hal and I drove home with two more pilots who were stationed at Williams AFB and had also been in the school with me.  We drove this nonstop, but having three drivers in the car and Hal entertaining us by singing and playing his little ukulele that he owned, it was a fun trip.  I worried about Hal on that long journey, but he fared better than the rest of us and seemed to enjoy the long trip.  While at Tyndall AFB, the battery on the Green Buick died, and like most fools who trade cars all the time, I purchased a brand new Mercury.  Compared to the Buick, it was really tinny, junky and rode much worse than the Buick.  And I just never cared for this Mercury at all.  It was a 1951, two-door, very light color.

Extremely early on 27 September 1951, Jane informed me it was time to deliver the baby, so we rushed her to Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, and at 1011 hours the same day, EUGENE HAYNES BUTLER, JR arrived to bless our lives and thoroughly entertain us.  He was Jane’s second child.  Jane never had much trouble delivering babies, and she was always on time.  And she never was in a panic, either.  We still lived at 2010 North 37th Place in Phoenix.
    
   Grandma Butler, Eugene & Haynes                                         Tiny Haynes

  
        Hal & Haynes at 2010

  
Jane & Haynes 1951 - 1952

 
Jane, Haynes & Hal Showlow 1952
 
FLYING STORY INVOLVING AN F-84 AIRCRAFT 

This story involves Eugene and the F-84 Republic Aircraft he was flying one day in late September, 1951 at Luke AFB, Arizona.  This bird was a straight-wing F-84C.  (Later, the F model would arrive at Luke, and it had swept wings.  I never flew this aircraft even once) The model I was flying was quite speedy in the air, but used lots of runway for takeoff, especially when it was heavily loaded with fuel, bombs, missiles, napalm, machine gun bullets, etc.  It was also the most stable bird in the air and was super for all types of bombing, napalm, gunnery, etc.  It was affectionately nicknamed by the Fighter Pilots who flew it simply as “The Hog.”  Later model swept-wing birds picked up the name “Super Hog” and the F-105 which was the last real fighter Republic ever built, that was headquartered in Long Island, New York, a stone’s throw from New York City, was known as the “Hyper Hog” but this name was not generally used.  But always remember that pilots must have a nickname, so the more popular name was simply “The Thud.”As Jane was still in Good Samaritan Hospital with our newborn son, Haynes, the date of this flight was probably about 28 September 1951.
  
Haynes & IreneHal at 2010

I was a Flight Commander with the rank of Captain and one day around noon, I was leading a flight of students on the Tactical Range, which meant the students were about ready to graduate and Roar off to Korea to fight the war in “The Hog.”  We took off without incident and proceeded to the Tactical Range that is about 75 miles southwest of Luke.  We had made two passes, and as I pulled off the target with about 8 G forces, which was about normal for me in my younger days, I felt a strange pop somewhere in the aircraft and immediately my right main gear light came on in the cockpit.  I knew what had happened.  The right main gear had fallen out of the wheel well.  I knew the gear was not down and locked because I would have had a green light for the right gear position, and I had a warning light, which meant it was not up and locked and it was definitely not down and locked.  I requested the number two man in my flight to pull up along side of me as I made a turn to the left.  When he was on my wing, I rolled out and he gave me some bad news.  “Screamin’ Lead, your right main gear is approximately half way down at a forty-five degree angle.”  I told him to stay on my right wing and I was going to slow the Bird down, and attempt to lower the landing gear and perhaps it would go all the way down.  ( As soon as this trouble occurred, I sent the rest of the flight home to land, except for number two as I needed him to tell me what was going on in regard to the right main landing gear.)  So when I first attempted to lower the landing gear, we were about 10,000 feet MSL (Mean Sea Level) and I was at 200 knots.  Well, each time I lowered the landing gear, the left main and the nose gear would come down normally, and also raise normally, but the Right Main was stuck at about 45 degrees.  Then the number two man told me it appeared that the faulty gear was also twisted.  After about three or four times of trying to get the right main to lower, I raised the other two gear and instructed the Number Two Man to return to Luke and land.  At this time, I contacted Group Operations on their channel to advise them of my troubles.  After a short interrogation by the Group Commander and being satisfied the Right Landing Gear was stuck half-way down and that all Hell wasn’t going to change its position, he said to me: “Screamin, you can bail out over the desert, or you can land the Bird.  Which do you want to do?”  I replied immediately, “I will burn out most of the fuel, then bring it in and land.  He said this was okay with him, and wished me well.

I immediately descended to a lower altitude to burn out the fuel, then told the tower I was going to Guard Channel to declare the emergency.  When I was down to about 400 pounds of fuel total, I declared the emergency on Guard Channel and almost immediately was on the downwind leg for landing.  (400 pounds of Jet Fuel is approximately 60 gallons as this fuel weighs about 6.4 pounds per gallon)  I turned a wide base leg, called left main gear & nose gear down & locked, pressure up, right main gear warning  light on.  They said I was cleared to land and to acknowledge.  “Roger Boy” was my reply in a most cheerful voice.  When I turned final, I couldn’t believe all the emergency equipment on the field.  Huge Fire Trucks, Cherry Picker, Jeeps Galore, the Meat Wagon. (Ambulance) and all sorts of things one would never dream of, I assure you!!! 
   
F-4 at LukeEugene & Hal by pond


There is a strange phenomenon associated with professional Pilots and especially Fighter Pilots.  When they are under stress to the point that could prove life or death, all of a sudden they become Super Sensitive to doing things exactly correct, and in this instance, this is what happened in my Emergency.  I flew the final at exactly the right airspeed for the light fuel load I had, the flaps were down, the speed brake was also down and I made a perfectly normal landing right in front of Mobile Control.  If I hadn’t been so busy, I would have asked Mobile Control, “Am I on the ground?”  But I refrained from being a smart aleck at this point.  As the aircraft slowed down with the left main and the nose gear on the runway, I slowly applied left aileron to prevent the aircraft from racing off the right side of the runway.  As the aircraft stayed in the upright position for the longest time, I was beginning to think the gear had come down all the way .  It hadn’t!  All of a sudden, the right wing dropped and I took off to the right, first on the dust cover and then through the dirt.  Gee, there were lots of smoke, dust and also lots of noise as the right wing scraped across the desert land.

 
F-86F in Korea 

Soon, I came to an abrupt stop.  As there was much dust and smoke on my right, I decided to jump out of the aircraft to the left, which was the normal exit side, but also the high side in my position with the right wing down.  Back then we wore seat pack Chutes which was dumb, as once you are in the air, it throws your center of gravity off, and tends to upend you.  I didn’t land on my head, but I did land hard on my right leg, which caused a lot of pain.  But I saved the aircraft with just Five Thousand Dollars total damage, which isn’t very much when you need to repair a Wing of a Fighter.  Nothing else was even damaged, except the right gear that failed in the air, and even the left main gear and the nose gear were still undamaged, which is great.

Well, the emergency was over, and now the funny portion of this true story begins.  The Chaplain rushed up to me, asked me if I were okay and then handed me a cigarette.  He was actually disappointed when I refused it.  They put me in the Ambulance and rushed me off to the Emergency Ward.  The Flight Surgeon came over to me with a little vial of something and said, “Here, drink this!”   “What is it,” I asked.  His reply, “It Is Mission Whiskey, And It Will Calm Your Nerves.”  Again, when I told him I didn’t drink, he was really disappointed.  Aren’t folks funny?  I think they are.  Because of the way I landed on my right leg when I jumped out of the aircraft, I was on crutches for about two weeks, but in time, I was okay.
   
 Hal by ’50 Buick at 2010Hal & Haynes by pond

  Now back to Good Samaritan Hospital where little Haynes and my wife, Jane were.  When I walked into her room on crutches, I thought she was going to faint.  She didn’t really believe me when I first told her I had made a crash landing and injured my right knee in the process. She always thought I was kidding or playing some joke on her. A lot of the pilots asked me if I could repeat this emergency, would I still land the Bird?  Yes, Sir, without a doubt, I would, indeed.  I have to admit that the most exciting part of this flight was turning final and observing all the Crash Equipment, then the perfect landing right smack in front of Mobile at the correct airspeed.  To this day, in all my flying experience from the very beginning at Sky Harbor in 1942 through today, I was never forced to bail out of any aircraft.  The fortunes of War surely shined upon me all the way.  About 29 years and approximately 7,500 hours, mostly in high performance Birds with nary a scratch, a bailout or heavy damage to any aircraft I ever flew.  This record pleases me.

We had a very nice life in this era. We attended the 7th Ward of the Phoenix Stake, and Jane knew everyone in the Ward.  Eugene kept plenty busy flying Fighters at Luke and these were happy times in our lives.  Jane’s Mom, Irene Wilkins was always so much help to us, and she dearly loved all our children.  At Christmas, she gave all of us far too many presents.  Jane’s home was very comfortable for us and we had plenty of room. 

 
Lesile & friend

Then on 19 February 1953, at 1118 Hours, LESLIE JANE BUTLER was born at the USAF Hospital at Luke AFB, and Jane always received better care and treatment in the Base Hospitals than she ever did in the ones in town.  And each birth was free, except for the mother’s food that ran a few dollars at most.  

Jane named our first two children. Leslie received her first name after my father. The name of Jane was on her mother’s side of the family for generations as both her Mom, Irene and her Grandmother Leola Jane Harris and  even farther back on that line always had a Jane in the family.  This tradition has been carried even longer as we have two Janes among our Granddaughters:  Melissa Jane Williamson and Emily Jane Butler.  Leslie was born between Eugene’s second and third mission that day at Luke.  My boss, Major Francis Bailey whose call sign was “Baseball” got on my case as I didn’t tell him that there was to be a new baby in our family that day.  My retort was that he didn’t ask me.  We all laughed at this.
  
     Leslie at Easter     Leslie & Haynes Christmas

  
    Jane, Hal, Leslie, & Haynes       Kids with Aunt Betty 1955
 
                                  
THE FAR EAST EXPERIENCES

I had volunteered for the Korean War and the main reason I did this was because I knew I would be flying the F-84 in Korea in combat right away.  My papers went in, they took way too long to approve them, and by the time I arrived in Korea at Taegu, in November 1953, the war was over.  I became Major Al Klappel’s Operations Officer in the 310th Fighter Bomber Squadron.  This was an excellent tour for me.  In March 1954, I volunteered and was sent to Chia-Yi, Formosa (Now Taiwan) to assist the Chinese Fourth Fighter Group become combat ready in the F-84G aircraft.  I was there six months.  I spent a lot of time visiting Hong Kong on the weekends.  It was here that I also flew the C-46 aircraft.  This was a huge 2-engine transport plane that flew the Hump in the CBI in WW II.  It was manufactured by Curtis and the Chinese had lots of them.  For the assistance I gave the Chinese, they awarded me Chinese Pilot Wings and Tiger Wong who was the Chief of Staff of the Chinese Air Force presented me these wings that I was authorized to wear on my Air Force uniform.
  
Eugene – Formosa 1954
 Editor’s Note…In all of Asia, the Tiger is the most respected
Animal in all the vast array of  the Animal Kingdom!! The motto of the Chinese Air Force was “Every Man A Tiger.”  And they meant this, too.  In the famous movie about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, it is called “Tora! Tora! Tora!”  Tora is Tiger in the Japanese language.
   
F-84’s on ramp Formosa Carl Miller Korea
Taipei was a beautiful city in those days, and I did get to spend some time there.  Mail between Formosa and Phoenix was excellent.  Each time I was gone from home, I managed to write regularly, and for the most part, daily.  I was also able to send many things home that were purchased in Hong Kong, so this was a blessing, too.  In September 1954, I returned to Korea as my six months TDY was up.  Instead of allowing me to return to my Unit, I was transferred to the 474th Group that was returning to Clovis, New Mexico soon. We would be flying the new F-86H, the best by far and the most speedy F-86 of them all, and also the newest.  I had also visited Japan quite a bit, and these were fun times, too.  Things were winding down at Taegu.  All the Bases in Korea run by the Americans had a number, and my first Base there was K-2.

  
          Eugene in blue uniformGen. Tiger Wong – Formosa

 
Briefing Room Eugene
 
                                              
COMING HOME

Well, in November we all went to the Port of  Inchon that is on the west coast of Korea, and boarded the Troop Transport Ship called the Brewster.  Talk about transportation across the Pacific.  One 24-hour period on this ship in a storm, we covered exactly 96 nautical miles.  Not very far in that vast ocean.  Anyway, in early December we finally sailed under the Golden Gate bridge, and I flew to Phoenix from San Francisco Airport on a commercial flight, arriving in Phoenix on Saturday afternoon, 11 December 1954.  Before I left to go overseas, I found a really nice 1950 White Fleetwood Cadillac, which I dearly loved and Jane thought it was too pretentious for us, but I told her, “If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It.”  This car gave us wonderful, comfortable transportation for our growing family.  I almost forgot, I was officially promoted to Major on 11 June 1954 while serving at Chia-Yi.  This was a great promotion.  And as always, I earned this promotion while serving at Luke AFB.
  
          ’50 Cadillac             Haynes & Hal 1953

I always remember that Haynes arrived home initially in the 1951 Mercury, and Leslie in the Cadillac.  It was especially good to be home, and Christmas was on the horizon, so this meant a lot to my little family and me.  We had a truly blessed Christmas that year, even though we were soon leaving in January 1955 for windy, cold, cold Clovis, New Mexico where I first saw the light of day.  Pete Hendrickson was a young pilot who brought us an F-84 aircraft, along with several other pilots while I was at Chia-Yi.  Pete was there to meet me when I arrived back at K-2 and he came home on the same ship as I did.  But he was in sick bay all the way home, as his body didn’t like being on the rough waters.  He and I became really good friends, and while at Clovis, he got out of the AF due to a crummy C.O. who later committed suicide overseas.  Pete became an airline pilot and took early retirement at age 50.  He now lives in Redding, California.  He looks the picture of health and still weighs the same as when I first met him on Formosa in the summer of 1954.  Recently, Pete has had some serious health problems, but seems to be coping well.  I would guess that he is about 10 years younger than I.
     
Family – Christmas Day 1953
 
THE NEW MEXICO YEARS
                                     .

In early January 1955, we left for our new home in Clovis, New Mexico.  The 474th Group was a strange unit.  Colonel Franklin H. Scott was a hopeless alcoholic, and I am afraid that he ran the Group this way.  I became the Operations Officer of the 428th Fighter Bomber Squadron and we went through a couple of real losers as the Squadron Commander, but along came Lt. Colonel Warren Lewis, and things picked up in a hurry.  Just after he arrived there, a few very young and also quite new Fighter Pilots were assigned to our Squadron.  Charles Richard Brownlee was one of these.
  
    Rencher Home Clovis       Lts. Buie, Brownlee, Bagley, Hendrickson

He was in the Group in Korea, and Pete Hendrickson knew him well, and he also came home with us on the Brewster, but to the best of my memory, I had never laid eyes on this young man until he reported to the Squadron in January 1955. Immediately, I sensed that here was a very sharp, highly intelligent young officer with lots of ambition and potential.  I asked him if he would like to be my Assistant Ops Officer, and he told me that if he could get a lot of flying time, he would love this job.  Well, from the very first day, he did his job in a superior manner.  Also, he was undoubtedly one of the finest Fighter Pilots I ever flew with in the Air Force.  He and I flew many hours together in F-86H aircraft.

  He was totally dependable, with lots of energy and he didn’t have one enemy in the whole world.  We took lots of cross-countries together, and he was often in our home for dinner.  Our little kids knew that Richard had lots of girl friends, so they named him "The Cat.” Kids are plenty smart, and this was a good name for him.  Another young pilot came into our Squadron a little later than Richard Brownlee, I believe, by the name of Kenneth McKean who was from San Diego, California.  Just recently married, very eager to work hard and be a success, and he, too, was one of my Assistant Ops Officers.  Richard, Kenneth and I were an excellent team, and we did lots for the Squadron.  Colonel Lewis was a great Squadron Commander, and everybody in the entire Wing had much respect for him and his ability to lead.

 

The name of Clovis AFB was renamed by an act of Congress. It was to be named after General John K. Cannon.  He had lots of fame in WW II and when the Air Force became a separate entity in 1947, they gave all AF Officers new serial numbers and his was 2A.  This meant he was a regular officer, that the A stood for, and he was the second ranking officer in the entire Air Force.  He was an inactive Mormon, but still a great leader and officer.  He died very shortly after retirement.

When we first arrived at Clovis AFB, New Mexico, we drove with our 
   Family in Clovis 1955     Mountain Scene
 
children to Roswell, New Mexico where my father and his wife, Elma lived.  It was late evening or early at night and we were in the living room of their home at 204 East Bland that is south of downtown Roswell.  They introduced us to my sister Shirley’s husband.  His name was Marshall Payne Ivey, Junior.  I can’t explain why, but to this very 
  
      Tastee Freez – Clovis  Kids in Clovis
 
Haynes, Hal, and Leslie 
day, I still remember exactly the way he was dressed.  He wore a very clean pair of Levi’s, a white T-Shirt with short sleeves, his black AF flight boots, and white socks.  We became instant friends.  He was a crew chief on a B-47 bomber that was pretty new in the inventory and was stationed there at Walker AFB.  This aircraft was most difficult to fly, and I was informed that the airspeed had to be just about perfect on final approach if one desired to make a decent landing.  Marshall was the son of Marshall Payne Ivey and LaVerne Osborne Ivey.  He was born in Mayfield, Kentucky on 27 October 1932, which made him almost exactly nine years younger than I.  Marshall and Shirley would end up with three children, (1) Sheryl Ann Ivey born on 14 March 1956 in Roswell, (2) Mitchell Alan Ivey born on 12 April 1958 in Mayfield, Kentucky and (3) Shelia Kay Ivey born on 24 February 1962 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  All the Butler family dearly Loved and respected Marshall.  Indeed, he was a truly wonderful individual with high ideals and lofty goals and he enjoyed life to the very fullest at all times.
     
Hal at Clovis 1955 - 1956


The next Thanksgiving Holiday, Marshall and Shirley came up to Clovis to spend the Holiday with us.  We had forgotten some small item of food that was needed, so Marshall asked if he could ride to town with me and I was very happy that he did.  To this day, he is the only one married into our Huge family who ever talked with me about the divorce of my parents when I was a small baby.  For some reason, he knew all about our father leaving us and the lack of support he gave us from that time forth.  Marshall had a beautiful way of relating the facts and he told me that he was extra proud of the manner in which Betty, Bun, Gordon and Eugene coped with this unfortunate event in our lives and said how very happy he was to be associated with us. He said that he wanted to be close to us and that we would always be really close, abiding friends.  Marshall was my very favorite in-law, and more especially a true Friend to me at all times. I have always known that the Lord wanted Marshall and Eugene to be close, trusted, genuine friends, and I know that we have been.   
 
Family Clovis, Winter

The saddest thing that occurred in our lives at Cannon AFB was as follows:  One morning, a call from Wing Hq. came to our Squadron asking for a pilot to fly a Staff Sergeant to Kinchloe AFB in upper Michigan on emergency leave.  Kenneth begged me to let him take this flight as he always wanted lots of flying time.  I very carefully told him that under no conditions was he to return the same day, but to get a good night’s rest at Kinchloe, then fly back to Clovis the next day.  He promised me he would do this.  About 0200 hours the next morning, the phone rang in our home and it was Colonel Lewis telling me Kenneth McKean had been killed on takeoff at Kinchloe a few minutes earlier.  He also told me to say nothing about this to anybody, as he felt it best to wait until 0700 hours this morning to take the Flight Surgeon, Nurse and Chaplain to tell Kenneth’s widow.  About 0600 hours as we were riding to work, Neal Olver asked me if I knew that Lt. McKean had been killed earlier this morning on takeoff in Michigan.  “How did you know this?” I asked him.  He said that a busybody, one of the wives in the Group had called his wife and told her.  I told everybody in the car to say nothing more about this until Col. Lewis could go see the widow.  Quite by chance, no one had called Kenneth’s wife, so the visit by the Squadron Commander and assistants went well.  For many years, I heard from Kenneth’s young widow.  She remarried and had a very successful second marriage.  She and Kenneth had a truly wonderful marriage, and I know they did as Kenneth was just pure gold.  More about Kenneth in the following pages as I don’t want to get out of sequence at this point in time.
 
Eugene & Carl Miller 1955

 
Berry Home Clovis 1956

On 21 February 1956, late in the evening, Jane told me the baby would arrive in a few hours, but she didn’t want me to take her to the Base Hospital right then.  I always listened to her, as she knew more about these things than I did.  Well, she almost waited too long, so we jumped in the car and rushed out to the Base Hospital.  But we had to cross railroad tracks going into the Base and a long freight train was coming.
  
Family – Clovis   Eugene, Haynes, & Hal

We waited in vain for the train to pass, then I rushed her right to the Hospital.  They put her in the delivery room and within 20 minutes, CARL SCOTT BUTLER came into this world.  He was born about 20 minutes before midnight, otherwise he would have been born on George Washington’s birthday.  But this would have messed up one of our family records that I will discuss after the birth of the rest of the children in this family.  Jane’s Mother, Irene came over right away to help.  The dust was blowing so bad that they would not allow Carl to come home for an extra two days as they didn’t want him exposed to all the dust.  Irene asked me why anybody in their right mind would choose to live in such a dusty place, and I told her I didn’t know, as we were there by appointment.  When Carl came home, he rode in our new 1956 Fleetwood Cadillac, and like our other Cadillac, it too, was white.  That was one elegant car, it really was.  Carl was an extra healthy baby and a happy one, too.  Hal, Haynes and Leslie made him most welcome.  All our children were always extremely happy when a new baby arrived and they were of much valuable assistance to their Mom in caring for each new child in our home.
 
 
 
 
 

SIX MONTHS DEPLOYMENT TO EUROPE

In April 1957, the 428th Fighter Bomber Squadron was sent on temporary duty to Toul, France.  The name of the base was Toul-Rosierre and the F-86H aircraft we were to fly were already in place as we were replacing the 429th Squadron, another of the units in the 474th Group.  Bill Pope was our Commander.  Talk about bad luck!!  While I was in that Squadron, we had not one, but count them---Three Drunks as Squadron Commanders.  And to make matters worse, we had an over-age-in-grade 40 year-old Captain as the Maintenance Officer.  As he couldn’t pull rank on anybody, we always said that he would pull his age on you, and often he did.  He loved to stir up trouble, but was highly unsuccessful in this effort.  He hated Cloves, New Mexico with a passion, and each day he was there, bad-mouthed it to death.  Guess where he retired?  You got it---Clovis, New Mexico.  What a Jerk!  He is now gone.

All the while we were in France and Germany, it was usually my responsibility to not only be the Ops Officer, but to be the Commander, too.  But this gave me very valuable training, especially in lots and lots of correspondence.  I always kidded Bill Pope that the only reason Franklin H. Scott, our Group Commander liked him was because he drank with the Old Man.  This was a private joke between us!  Later on after we returned to Cannon AFB, the Old Man did fire him.  Why?   Because Bill Pope became so very ill with hepatitis at Toul that he had to go on the wagon permanently, so this ended the friendship with Col. Scott.  What goes around comes around.

We really had some splendid Flight Commanders in the 428th Squadron in France.  Ragon Bill (Actually Bill Ragon, but Haynes really liked him, but never could get his name straight, so soon, he was known to all of us as Ragon Bill, and he liked this, too)  Lloyd Hawkins, J.C. Butler and Arthur Hoodecheck. 

Richard Brownlee was still working for me in Operations, and he just became more perfect as he gained experience in the Squadron.   Richard and I had the most wonderful association that any two people could enjoy.  We knew each other so well, we thought alike, we had perfect communication with each other, oft times without saying a word.  We never had a cross or unpleasant word between us in all the time we were together, both on duty and at all other times!  And we thoroughly enjoyed flying together in F-86H aircraft as we knew and respected each other in the highest degree possible between any two individuals on this earth!  

Richard Brownlee had a saying as we flew through the air at ultra high altitudes, usually on a cross country.  “We Are A Connin’ And A Slattin!”  This meant that we had contrails coming out the back of our aircraft caused by the hot jet exhaust hitting the extremely cold air, causing contrails and on the F-86H at really high altitudes, we had slats on the leading edges of these Birds.  When the aircraft required more lift, the slats slid out some to give us more lift He just loved this expression and in reality, we really were A Connin’ and a Slattin’.   

Even though our Headquarters for the 428th Squadron was in France, we mainly operated out of  Sembach, Germany because France no longer allowed us to have nuclear weapons in their country, but Germany did.  Before we left Clovis for Europe, our Squadron ran the Mark-12 Suitability Tests on this weapon.  It was designed to be carried on Fighter aircraft, and we felt the F-86H was perfect for this job, and it was.  We spent almost all our effort for many months on this project, and this gave us an extremely high priority in regard to personnel, parts, etc. which helped the Squadron tremendously.  And it gave us knowledge about nuclear weapons that we didn’t even know existed prior to our participation in the testing program.

Several of our pilots, especially the younger ones without children flew their wives over to Germany on a temporary basis, which was legal.  They had to pay all their expenses, find them a place to live while they were there, etc.  This worked out fine and we saw them a lot at the officers club during the evenings.  Richard Brownlee was able to bring his wife, Judy to Germany plus a few others in the Squadron.  I don’t remember one wife who had children that came over, as this made it too difficult for them..

One evening, I was sitting in the officers club at Sembach AB, Germany talking with some of my friends when Richard Brownlee came over and told me there was a woman who wanted to talk to me, and could he bring her over to my table?  He escorted her over, sat down with us and she related to me the following: She was the wife of the Base Operations Officer at Kinchloe AFB in upper Michigan.  She had met Lt. Kenneth McKean the day he flew the Staff Sergeant there who was on emergency leave.  Kinchloe is a very small Base and had very little air traffic in and out of there.  Her husband invited Kenneth to have dinner with them in their quarters on the Base and Kenneth accepted the invitation.  Right after dinner, which was quite late, her husband told Kenneth that he definitely should not do any more flying for the day as he was out of crew rest.  He invited Kenneth to stay the night in their home, and if he were not comfortable with this, to get a room in the Visiting Officers Quarters.  And when Kenneth declined both suggestions, the wife pleaded with him not to fly out, as it was late, he was out of crew rest, and needed to remain overnight.  She then told me that Kenneth looked her right in the eyes and said it was imperative that he must leave. And she knew right then that he was being guided by something that would prevent him from staying there overnight, and she also knew that nobody could change his mind.  

Kenneth returned to Base Operations, filed his clearance, went out to the aircraft and started it up.  This woman said that she had never in her life watched any aircraft taxi out at night and takeoff, but she watched Kenneth all the way, and she had this foreboding feeling that something terrible was going to occur.  She watched him run up the engine as she could hear it plainly from her window in the home.  She watched the entire takeoff, and shortly after the aircraft became airborne, she saw it crash.  The weather was clear, the visibility was great, Kenneth was in no kind of stupor, in my honest opinion, as I knew this boy much better than almost anybody else.  He was highly intelligent, very well balanced, extremely dedicated, and one who really loved life to the utmost.  She said that when he looked her right in the eyes and said he must go that he knew it was the end of this life for him.  

Well, the accident report came back to us.  They found nothing wrong with the aircraft.  It had a full load of fuel, the engine had no malfunction that they could find, the controls likewise, and there was just no plausible explanation why this aircraft crashed just after becoming airborne.  There was even a clear horizon that sometimes at night you don’t have, especially on takeoff.  The results of the Accident Board: Unknown!!!  And as a parting remark to me, she said, “ Major Butler, please don’t worry about Lt. Kenneth McKean.  He knew what he was doing and he knew it was going to happen to him.”

When Lt. McKean was killed just after takeoff on that fateful night there in upper Michigan at Kinchloe AFB, we were still at Cannon AFB.  In a few weeks after the tragedy, and ere our Squadron was sent to Europe, a young pilot, Lt. Buie and I flew a T-bird out to San Diego to visit with Lt. McKean’s Mom.  Mrs. McKean’s husband had died some time ago, and Kenneth was her only child, if I remember this correctly.  We had a very nice visit with her on a Saturday evening.  A very pleasant conversation, and in the course of our visit, I explained the concept that President David O. McKay always preached from the pulpit when he stated that no righteous person has ever been taken from this life until his work here on earth is completed.  She was not happy with this explanation, and remarked that she was convinced that the airplane broke and as a result, her son was dead.  She too, has now left this phase of existence, and now she is with her dearly beloved son, Kenneth and she understands the full meaning of President McKay’s beautiful Gospel message.  Lt. McKean and I became instant friends the very first time I ever met him, and we had a very beautiful association and we were always very close to each other.  We surely enjoyed a truly beautiful friendship, and I know that one day, I will see him again.  As with Richard Brownlee and I, Kenneth related extremely well to both of us and we to him.

One weekend, probably a few months after Richard  Brownlee and Kenneth McKean arrived in the 428th Squadron, the three of us flew F-86H  aircraft out to Nellis AFB so we could visit Las Vegas and have some excellent meals together.  It was a nice cross country flight, especially flying these three new aircraft out to Vegas.  It was summer, and gee, was it ever hot and dry in Nevada.  As we were walking out to our airplanes, Kenneth said to me, “Major Butler, promise me that you will never ask me to come here again, it is just too hot for any human being to endure.”  I laughed and promised him that we would never return here when it was so terribly HOT.  I guess that I forgot he was from San Diego and they don’t even know what hot weather is.  Ironically, Kenneth and I never flew to Vegas again.  

Flying low level over all of Western Germany was a wonderful experience.  Germany has to be one the most beautiful places in all the earth, and lots of interesting terrain, so many railroad tracks, castles, and steeped in rich history!  Soon, we knew all about Germany from very low level flying which we did each day.

One day, I was landing to the east at Frstenfeldbruck Air Base west of Munich.  I had just touched down in an F-86H when a T-33 aircraft was on the runway headed west at a fast rate of speed; we each scooted to our right in a hurry and probably passed each other at least 150 knots minimum.  I learned later that GCA had landed the T-Bird to the west and the tower had landed me to the east and there was absolutely no coordination between the two agencies. A great way to kill pilots in a big hurry.  

When I first arrived in France with the 428th Squadron, for the first time in my life, I had the greatest desire to learn if the Church were true.  In order to do this, I prayed to the Lord and told Him that I needed an answer to two questions:  First, was the Prophet Joseph Smith actually called by the Lord to restore the Gospel to the earth and secondly, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the only true and living Church upon the face of the earth today?  Then I promised Him that I would pray until I received an answer, that I would study the scriptures every single day and also that I would read all the Church history books that I could find.  Thus, I started in earnest and I really felt that the answer would be forthcoming shortly.  After all, I had asked in all sincerity and I needed to know, and I was willing to live my life in the best manner that I knew how; I was willing to study on a daily basis.  Well, the answer did not come in a hurry.  As I flew the skies of Europe and North Africa, I fully expected a heavenly being to give me an answer that I so diligently asked about.  The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months and in the interim, I always managed to attend the LDS Church whether it was in North Africa or Germany or wherever on a regular basis.  Soon, I was spending practically all my time at Sembach AB, which was pretty near Kaiserslautern.  Most Servicemen in this area attended LDS meetings on a huge Army Base by the name of Vogelweh, and so did I.  This way, I became acquainted with the Branch President, the District President, etc.  And I became acquainted with lots of LDS folks in those parts.

I prayed and I prayed.  At first, I even thought that Jesus Christ would personally appear to me and give me an answer.  Then I thought that perhaps one of those new angels who had nothing else to do anyway, would appear with the answer.  None of this occurred.  In fact, to this very day, I have never been visited by any being from another world.  One thing I did notice was that from the very beginning of my prayer to the Lord with my two questions, I became a much more happy, contented person.   My work in the Air Force went extremely well, and those in my Squadron would remark about how happy I seemed all the time, and I agreed with them, but never told them why.  After all, it really was none of their concern.

Next, a strange thing occurred.  One beautiful morning early in late June, I had just arisen from my bed, immediately made the bed (Good soldiers always make their bed almost before they awaken, and so do I)
Then I always prayed.  As I knelt by my bed, I felt better than I ever remember in my whole life, and instead of asking the Lord, I told him these things were true, and this amazed me to no end.  Now, did I know these things when I arose?  I don’t think so, but immediately upon starting to pray, they were revealed to me in that instant.  I always imagined that some dramatic event would occur such as a huge cloud splitting in half, then some heavenly being with fire all around him would make the announcement to my request.  None of these things occurred.  Just a very quiet revelation at exactly the correct moment when I was ready for the answer.  At the conclusion of the prayer, I promised the Lord I would be baptized as soon as possible.  (This occurred at Toul AB, France, our Base of assignment in Europe)    

As soon as I could, I was interviewed by the Branch President and he passed me. Then on a Sunday afternoon, I went to the home of the District President who lived on a Base.  His name was Lt. Boyd, an Air Force Officer who was from Utah.  He asked me every question and at the conclusion, made this statement, “Brother Butler, you have answered all the questions correctly, and this is fine. But even more important, are you willing to live all the commandments as you understand them?  Because if you aren’t, then do us a favor and yourself a favor and walk out the front door, and there will be no hard feelings.  This young man surely blessed my life by being so direct and to the point.  I am sure his last name was Boyd, but I could be in error on this.

Friday, 5 July 1957, Slippery Arthur and Eugene had flown two F-86H aircraft from Sembach Air Base to Frstenfeldbruck Air Base that is west of Munich, Germany.  Slippery was a First Lt. in the 428th Squadron who was from Illinois and a very sharp pilot.  We were undoubtedly flying low-level navigation.  We had filed a clearance to go from there to Ramstein Air Base that afternoon.  While sitting on the ramp in these two Birds awaiting the clearance, a young German boy signaled to me if it were okay for him to approach my aircraft and climb the ladder leading into the cockpit.  As there was nothing classified within the cockpit of our aircraft, I immediately motioned for him to come out on the ramp and climb the ladder. 

When he had ascended the ladder, I took the glove off my right hand and we shook hands.  He told me his name, which I have long forgotten, and then he asked me if I were allowed to tell him about the things in the cockpit, to wit: Everything that was used to fly this Fighter & how it was operated.  He spoke perfect English.  I inquired how long had he been speaking English, and he said six months only.  I asked him where he had learned English and he told me it was from being with the G.I’s.   I already knew this as he used all the lingo that is peculiar to the military and specifically the Air Force.  We became immediate Friends.  He told me his goal was to emigrate to the U.S., then become a naturalized citizen. And when he was old enough, to become a Fighter Pilot for us.  He possessed the most beautiful personality, was extremely charming, well built, looked the picture of health and I knew he was one sharp young man with a keen intellect.  What I should have done was to have him write his full name, his address, plus his phone number where I could reach him, then give him my name and full address.  If I had done this, I could have been of inestimable assistance to him, even becoming his sponsor and his lifelong Friend.  And with Eugene knowing people in high places that could grease the skids for him, he would have made it. And perhaps he did, although I never saw him or heard from him again.  I honestly feel, in retrospect, that I lost a golden opportunity to be of genuine service to a most deserving young man.  His manners were impeccable, he used very wonderful language in his discussion with me.  I had lots of time to explain the aircraft to him, and urge him to pursue his worthy goals, then we shook hands and he returned to the ramp where I first saw him. I hope and pray that he was able to achieve his lofty goals, as he surely deserved it.

Soon, the clearance came through for Slippery and me to fly to Ramstein.  We started the engines, switched to the proper channel to taxi and headed for the runway.  While taxiing my Bird, I noticed that the brakes were dragging somewhat.  So I told Lt. Arthur that on takeoff, if he overran me, to go right ahead and pass me on the runway, and if I didn’t have to abort, I would catch him in the air, otherwise he could return to Ramstein on his own.  

We took the runway with him on my right wing, we ran up the aircraft to full military power for takeoff, I glanced at him, and he was nodding he was ready for takeoff.  We started the roll, and almost immediately he passed me like I was standing still.  I could tell the brakes were really holding me back, but I did pick up lots of speed and wanted this Bird to get airborne as early the next morning, I was to be baptized at Landstuhl that was located a few feet from where we would land these Birds.  The aircraft was going like mad, but just wouldn’t get airborne. At the point of no return, with the stick in my gut and all three landing gear still firmly on the runway, I jerked the throttle to idle.  Guess What??  The aircraft literally jumped into the air at least 35 feet above the runway.  As soon as it left the ground, I shoved the throttle to the firewall, the engine responded immediately and soon I caught Slippery and flew his wing to Ramstein.  Normally, I wouldn’t have continued this crazy takeoff for anything, but would have aborted early.  Slippery landed first as he was leading, then a few seconds behind him, I landed.  The aircraft was perfectly normal on the landing and the rollout to the end of the runway.  While taxiing in, I noticed that each time I applied any throttle, the brakes would be on.  Luckily, our senior ranking noncom parked me.  I told him my strange experience.  He then said that a valve in the braking system had failed.  Instead of opening all the way when I applied power, it actually closed.  This meant with full military power, this valve was telling the brakes to be on all the way, and they were.  This explained the reason for the aircraft jumping in the air like mad when I reduced the throttle to idle.  And thank goodness, the engine responded when I jammed the throttle all the way forward as the aircraft jumped into the air.  Well, the Lord wanted me to be there for my baptism, and I was.    

Well, Saturday morning 6 July 1957, Brother Fred C. Crandall, an Army Dentist, baptized me in the font at the Landstuhl Chapel.  This Base is located right across the runway from Ramstein AB near Kasiserslautern.  I asked Brother Crandall and the District President if they wanted me to take the Missionary lessons, and both of them said, “No.”

The next morning at Vogelweh where we attended Church, Brother Crandall confirmed me a member of the Church.  I was very happy that the Missionaries were in Church that day as they assisted Brother Crandall in my confirmation.  Elder Gordon Bretzing had been our Home Teacher in Phoenix along with Brother John Sarager, and he was there in Vogelweh to help confirm me.  He was always one of my heroes and a great young man who came out of a marvelous family.  Even if his dear Mom was scared to death of Jets.  It has been more than 43 years since I became a member of the Church.  I still remember vividly the beautiful experiences that I had in the Church in Europe.  If I had been really thinking, perhaps I would have asked them to baptize me on the Fourth of July.  Wouldn’t that have been cool?  And I most definitely would have asked Elder Bretzing to confirm me.

The very next Sunday was District Conference and President Theodore M. Burton, the West German Mission President presided over this Conference.  They invited me to speak in the main session of this Conference, and I had prepared my address all week. Like any good Air Force Officer, once I knew it by heart, I typed it word for word, every bit of it.  

As I entered the early morning Priesthood Session, a man by the name of Brother Anderson, a civilian who worked for the Military, met me at the door, and asked, “Brother Butler, are you prepared to speak in this meeting?”  “Yes Sir, I have my address right here in my hand.”   He then said, “No, I realize you are going to speak in the general assembly, I want you to speak in this Priesthood Meeting.”  I gave some obscure remark that I just didn’t speak off the cuff, which he just ignored.

Brother Anderson, who I learned later was the Servicemen’s Coordinator for the West German Mission, conducted this meeting, but President Burton and all the leaders of the Mission were in this Priesthood meeting.  Right after the opening song and prayer, Brother Anderson stated that he had called on several Brethern to speak in this meeting and that none had anything prepared, but would just speak to us as the Spirit dictated.

Brother Anderson then explained that most times, talks given from the heart were much better than those that had been carefully planned well in advance.  He told us that a few years earlier, he was assigned an important topic and he researched all the materials on it, planned it very carefully, wrote it entirely and exactly as he wanted to give it.  Then practiced on it for a long time, and the day he delivered the speech, he thought it was letter perfect.

Right after his delivery, the man in charge of the meeting walked up to him, and remarked, “Dan, may I tell you something?  There were only three things wrong with your speech:  Number one, you read it.  Number two, you read it poorly, and Number three, It wasn’t worth reading in the first place.”  Brother Anderson then told the huge congregation that he was sure we would enjoy this morning’s speakers. He also told us that every member of the Church should be able to stand at a moment’s notice and deliver an interesting, informative talk on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I did lots better than I thought I would.  And it came quite easy for me, too.  Then I also spoke in the main session, and I knew my speech so well that I surely didn’t read any of it, just used it for reference and I felt good about it, too.  President Burton, who would eventually become a General Authority in the Church interviewed me to become a Deacon, and I passed.  In 1957, each adult male convert went through the entire Aaronic Priesthood, that is Deacon, Teacher and Priest before being ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, and so did I.  Many years later in about 1989 or 1990, a man from the High Council of our Stake was the main speaker in our Fifth Ward Sacrament Meeting.  Right after the meeting concluded, I asked him if he had been the Serviceman’s Coordinator for the West German Mission under Elder Burton, and he replied, “Yes.”  Then I related to him the story of his famous speech.  He asked me how I could remember a story from 1957, and I told him it was easy.  Gee, Brother Anderson was the head of the English Department at BYU.   No wonder he is such a great speaker.  He retired many years ago, and I seldom see him, although he still resides in our Stake.

Our squadron had a perfect record of flying there in Europe.  The only incident was a blown tire one night by one of our pilots on landing at Sembach.  Besides the ruined tire, there was no damage to the aircraft.  We flew in all kinds of weather, but we were professional, and we did our duty.  One day, we put 25 planes in the air in the same formation.  This was every Bird we possessed and they were all in commission.  It was an enviable record.  I give all the credit to the fine pilots and crew chiefs who took care of the planes for us. It is one thing to fly Fighters in the desert under clear skies and lots of visibility, and completely another thing to fly Fighters in Germany & France where extremely low clouds and restricted visibility are a way of life.  But we trained our pilots well, and they could fly in all kinds of hazardous weather and survive in the process.  Again, I was very happy that I had graduated from the Air Force Instrument School in Panama City in 1951.  We were always positive about flying weather in the F-86H.

While in Germany, I purchased lots of fine china for the family plus lots of other things.  Back then, a set of the finest Rosenthal China that had 12 of each dish one needs plus many extra platters, bowls, etc. was $99 U.S. This set of fine china consists of 95 pieces total.  I also purchased a whole lot of Hummel figurines that were really inexpensive, but Mrs. Snyder, the clerk forgot to ring them up and asked me if I still wanted them when I picked up the merchandise.  I told her I just didn’t have time.  Gee, what an error.  They are worth a mint now. We still have most of the merchandise I brought home, and Jane was well pleased with the China, cut glass bowls, goblets, etc.

Well, our tour was over, it was time to go home to Clovis, New Mexico.  Before leaving Europe, I was tempted to buy a Mercedes-Benz 220 SL, four-door sedan that cost exactly $2400 in 1957.  (The VW Bug was $1100).  It cost about $300 shipping by surface vessel to New Orleans to get a car home.

All too soon, Big Shaky (The Huge C-124 Cargo plane with 4 engines ( If you don’t like the name of “Big Shaky,” you can call it “The Crowd Killer” as it hauled so many, many troops at one time at a very slow speed) arrived on the ramp, and we all boarded this Big Bird, and soon we were on our way home.  We stopped in the Azores for fuel, and I think one more time in the U.S.  On the way home, I remarked to Lt. Blunck, our Squadron Adjutant that my son, Haynes would ask me one of two questions---(1)  “Where have you been?” or (2) “What did you bring me?”  Upon landing at Cannon AFB, Haynes asked me the latter.  A Brother in the Church walked up to me while on the ramp and he was holding a little boy in his arms.  After greeting him, he asked me if I wanted to hold the little boy.  In dismay, I asked, “Is this Carl?”  It was, but he had changed from a small baby of about 13 months to a little boy of 19 months.  What a huge difference 6 months made in the life of this little boy.  The rest of the children, Hal, Haynes and Leslie had not changed very much at all, and I immediately recognized them.  Haynes was the little boy who changed Bill Ragon’s name to Ragon Bill forever to all of us who knew him well!

 As soon as we landed, they informed me that I would be going to 12th Air Force Headquarters located at Waco, Texas as an Operations Officer.  I need to state here that Colonel Franklin H. Scott was on my Regular Officers Selection Board and he did have enough decency to make sure I was selected.  This is vastly important to a career officer.  Unless one screws up, he is guaranteed more rank and will always be retained until retirement.  Not so with the poor Reserve Officers.  I saw too many of them thrown out of the Air Force just prior to the guaranteed cutoff date of 18 years of service.  How unjust this system really is.  

 A few years later than 1957, while attending an Alcoholic Seminar at the University of Utah, I learned why Colonel Scott and all other drunks I knew in the Air Force just couldn’t trust me, and always felt very uncomfortable in my presence.  First, they felt intimated in my presence as they secretly envied any person who is a non-drinker.  Secondly, they knew at parties when they were ranting and raving in a drunken stupor, that the next morning, the non-drinker would remember everything that transpired and they wouldn’t.  A woman who was a Psychiatrist specializing in alcoholism told me this while I was talking with her between sessions at the seminar.  At least, I now felt that I understood drunks much better, and actually realized why I was treated so miserably by them in the Air Force.  My favorite joke I learned at this seminar is:  “One drunk asked another how much he drank each day and he replied. “About a fifth.”  The first drunk replied, “I spill more than that.”  When I was in the Glendale Ward, the Bishop asked me if I would attend this Seminar as the Church paid for the cost of it, except for the transportation there and back and the food.  This was a great experience for me.  When I asked Colonel Simpson, my boss at Luke if I could attend this seminar, he replied, “Why on earth would you want to attend a seminar of this nature, you don’t even drink?”  When I told him it was to help others, he thought it was a great idea.  Would you believe that immediately upon return from this seminar, he told me that I was the new Commander of the 4515th Squadron, as he had to relieve the present Commander due to his heavy drinking.   This seemed ironic to me. 

After returning to Cannon AFB, New Mexico in September of 1957, I never returned to work in my Squadron, as I had been relieved of duty so I could prepare to depart for Waco, Texas in October.  Naturally, Jane and I had several things to accomplish such as pack, put our little home on the market, take our children out of school, and actually get on the way.  We had purchased a home right away after we arrived in Clovis, but when we first selected it, only the ground was there, but soon, they laid the foundation, built a frame stucco home for us that was typically a New Mexico home with a rather dark color.  My Dad always told me that the frame stucco was the best house for New Mexico as the wind couldn’t come through it.  And how the wind did blow in Clovis.  We actually lived in three homes there.  A little rental at 722 Rencher that we paid $75 per month, Mrs. Berry, a rich lady who rented her home to us in an excellent part of town which we rented on a temporary basis as our new home was going up rapidly.  I think our last address was 3113 LaFonda in north Clovis on the border of the town at that time. 

The down payment was $100, which included all the closing costs, and the entire house was $5,500, I am sure, with the payments PITI of about $55 per month.  We had a large garage, 3 nice bedrooms, 2 baths, a large kitchen with lots of space for the dining room table and a very comfortable living room that was on the front of the home.  All rooms had large tiles of about one foot square. We later purchased nice carpet for the living room.  The washer & dryer were in the garage, and we liked this location for these.  The weather in Clovis can become very cold and one time, we were snowed in for three full days with drifts up to our living room windows.  We thoroughly enjoyed this time alone, the phone did not ring, the kids were thrilled, and the only food we ran out of was butter, which was no big deal.  We were sorry to see the end of the bad weather, it was a free vacation from work and the kids’ school.  Our children surely enjoyed this forced stay in the home, and they got along especially well together.
  
 
ASSIGNMENT TO WACO, TEXAS

Well, on 13 October 1957, we drove our large bronze colored Olds Station Wagon (Yes, I sold the Cadillac, which was just dumb as it was a nice car) out of Clovis southeast headed for San Angelo, Texas.  (We purchased the Olds in Hereford, Texas.  Why are car fanatics so insane?)  My wife knew I was in regard to always buying brand new cars for no reason at all.’  I said to all the children that if they behaved well in the car on the way to San Angelo, that there was an excellent restaurant there called Sam’s Chicken House and we were going to eat dinner there regardless how late it was when we arrived.  I didn’t even think anything about it, but Carl could carry on a conversation at the early age of slightly less than 20 months.  The reason I remember this so well is that all the way there, he kept asking if we still planned on eating at Sam's Chicken House, and each time, I assured him we were.  We arrived in San Angelo and went right to the restaurant, and we had one wonderful meal, to say the least.  Jane loved fried chicken more than anybody I have ever known.  Our children behaved well on most trips we took, and especially on this one.  Our oldest son, Hal was 10 2/3, Haynes was six plus a few days, Leslie Jane was 4 2/3, and Carl was 1 2/3.  Gee, that sounds like a long time ago, and of course, it is.  In October 2000, it was 43 years ago.

The next day, on the 14th of October, we arrived in Waco, Texas.  We spent several days looking for a nice rental that we never found and our little Motel where we stayed was pretty miserable.  But on Sunday after we had been to Church, we visited a home that was one of the Parade of Homes for Waco that year.  Bill Taylor, the builder of the home was sitting in this empty house with a chair and a small card table, just waiting for a potential buyer to arrive.  He showed us the home that was what I would call an English Colonial with lots of used brick and very pretty painted wood on the outside.  The lot was huge, especially in depth and it was very well landscaped with trees and bushes galore.  The one car garage was on the front and there was a driveway that led around to the back of the house and there was a carport for one car right behind the garage.  The kitchen and den were lovely as it was decorated as a Parade of Homes should be.  It had three very pretty, fair sized bedrooms with lots of storage space, and even an entryway which led to the living room, the hallway and den. The home had genuine hardwood floors throughout.  This home had two beautiful bathrooms with colored fixtures.  Each bathroom had different colored fixtures and also very nice wallpaper. 

We asked him a few questions, Jane said the home was lovely and she really liked it a lot.  Excellent neighborhood for schools, close to work and far better than many homes that were new and most were more expensive, and it sat up from the road somewhat, and of course, the home had never been lived in before.  I asked Bill how much he wanted for this home and he said with a huge down payment, it was $19,500 and with no down payment, it was $20,000.  I would guess it had about 2,000 square feet of living space, but could have been slightly less or even slightly more.  It was heated with natural gas and had refrigeration to cool it in the summer.  It surely was almost perfect for our family.

As Jane and the kids seemed to really like this brand new home, I said to Bill, “Sign us up.”  And he said, “Just like that.”  “Yes,” I replied and wrote him a check for about $250, I think and signed the contract he wrote for us and asked him when we could move in.  He asked if tomorrow was okay, and we agreed.  When we left to go to dinner, he said that he had never seen anybody make up their minds so quickly on buying a house of this size and price.  I told him we did everything rapidly.  What I didn’t tell him was that all of us had gone through innumerable homes for rent and for sale, and we thought most of them were dumps.  

This home was a dream come true for us.  It was simply beautiful and all of us enjoyed this home so very much.  And everything worked, and this was our very first dishwasher and also garbage disposer, too.  We had good neighbors and plenty of kids to associate with ours.  The monthly payment was about $140, or so.  We were thrilled about everything concerning this new home. 

In my job in Operations, it was my duty to allot the flying hours for all the Bases in our Command, and there were quite a few, plus allocation of aircraft, etc.  It was a busy job and I had several officers working for me.  12th AF Hq. was housed in a large Catholic school complex that consisted of two main buildings.  However, these buildings had never been used as a high school, only the Air Force had ever occupied it.  We were able to get our flying time at James Connally AFB, which had been a UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) They had lots of facilities for us, and getting a cross country to go anyplace we wanted was never a factor as we had to log a certain number of hours each year to maintain our proficiency.  So I flew where I wanted including General Conference, etc.  We probably had a more stable family life in Waco than at any other place, except Del Rio in later years.  I was home most nights and worked an average of eight hours a day, which was a lot less than I had become accustomed to working.

The very first day Haynes was in school in Waco, the Principal called me about 1100 hours and stated that Haynes could not attend this school any longer.  I asked him what Haynes had done to get kicked out of school the first day of class.  “He has done nothing wrong at all, but he has to be six years of age as of 1 September and his birthday isn’t until the 27th, therefore, he can’t attend this school, so please come right now and take him home.”  Gee, this was a big surprise, especially to Haynes as he had started the first grade in Clovis and was doing fine.  

Well, Jane and I discussed this problem that same day.  We learned that there was a really nice little private school in Waco that was called "“Jack & Jill School." It was operated by a very nice lady and lots of Air Force kids were there.  It cost only $15 per month per child, so the decision was made to send both Haynes & Leslie as Leslie was more than ready to begin school.  They both enjoyed this school a lot, so this is where they attended.  I am sure Haynes was in the first grade and Leslie in Kindergarten.  Hal was okay in his school, and he always did fine in all his schooling.  Carl was too young, so he was at home. 

I forgot to mention this, but while we were in Clovis, a couple from Hill AFB, Utah, members of the Church, came to Clovis as he was an auditor employed by the Air Force and he was at the Base.  Sister Ivie, I believe her first name was Ruth started a little Pre-school, and Haynes wanted to attend this so we enrolled him.  Brother Ivie’s first name was Leon.  Haynes just loved Sister Ivie and she was excellent with little kids.  The very first day of school, Haynes came home and proudly announced,  “At Church, it is Sister Ivie, but at school, it is Mrs. Ivie.”  He loved to learn, especially when teachers were kind to him.  Aren’t we all this way to some degree?  I think so.

We met Kendall & Barbara Jones at Church.  He was a new Dentist who had graduated from Northwestern University in Chicago and had a two-year commitment with the Air Force and was stationed at James Connaly AFB.  They were younger than Jane and I, but we became excellent Friends with them and often had dinner together, went to the movies(Our favorite movie in Waco that we attended with Kendall & Barbara was “The Bridge On The River Kwai.”) and of course we were at Church together all the time.  Our Bishop in Waco was Bishop Taylor and he and his family were from Southern California.  He was my first regular Bishop in the Church and he was highly effective as a Bishop.  His counselors were Roy Bertrand and Dr. Cripe.  Roy owned and operated a very nice restaurant plus other properties and Dr. Cripe was a Chiropractor.  All three of these Brethern were a great Bishopric.  We still see the Jones family now and then.  They settled in Las Vegas for many years, but now live in Henderson and Kendall is retired.  He served as a Bishop, High Councilor, Stake President, Regional Representative and was head of the Temple Committee for the Las Vegas Temple.  He gave much, much service to the Lord, and so did Barbara.  While Kendall was working to get situated in his practice, I would fly him to Vegas in a T-33, and we always had much fun flying together.  And his friends in Vegas always showed us a terrific time when we were there.

When I had been at Waco for a few months, Lt. Colonel Deward Bower arrived to work in Operations with us.  The officers who didn’t know him resented him because he was sent from Air Training Command, and all the jocks thought of him as not being a Fighter Pilot, but strictly a training commando as we referred to those poor guys who were teaching the young men to become pilots.  What they didn’t know was that Col. Bower was one of the finest Fighter Pilots in the Air Force, had lots of experience and had been the Air Force Gunnery Champion at one time.  I first met him when he and I went through the Air Force Instrument School at Tyndall AFB in 1951. 

 Well, he said very little, but one morning came to work as a Full Colonel and now he was the boss over all the huge operations section where I worked.  Boy, did they change their tune in a hurry.  My office space was right outside his door, so I saw him all the time.  He must have been laughing to himself when he became the boss of all those critics who looked down their noses at him when he first arrived.  He was one splendid boss in every respect.  Later on, he told me that he was headed for Luke as the Group Commander and asked me if I would like to be one of his Squadron Commanders.  Gee, I would Kill for this job!!  He told me to say nothing to anybody and as soon as he was settled out there, I would receive my orders.  As always, he kept his word and one day, the orders arrived transferring me to Luke.  While we were in Waco, we traded the Large Olds Station Wagon for a little English made Hillman.  A strange, but reliable, miniature car that we drove a lot.  Then we purchased a new 1960 Biscayne Chevrolet, 4-door, really light yellow in color for $2,000. This was one large auto.

While I was still stationed at 12th Air Force Headquarters in Waco, Marshall and Shirley Ivey had moved to Albuquerque, as I am sure he was now working with my brothers Bill, D.D. and I think Paul, too.  One week when I was planning a cross country out west, I called Marshall on the phone and asked if he would still like to fly with me in the T-33 aircraft.  Even though he was now out of the Air Force, he was still in the Air Force Reserves that made him eligible to fly in military aircraft.

He said that he would really like to do this.  Before I departed James Connally AFB for Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, I made sure there was an extra chute, helmet, flying suit, gloves, etc. so he would be suited up correctly. 

 On most of these flights, they are normally less than one hour in duration.  When I landed at Kirtland, I instructed the refueling crew to leave the tip tanks empty, and to just fill the internal tanks, which they did.  Marshall was at the aircraft to meet me, and it was really nice to see him again after quite a long absence.  He told me that he had a cold and didn’t think he should fly with me.  But I told him we were not going very high, that I would not wring him out unless he wanted an acrobatic flight, and that he was also flying with the most proficient and safest Fighter Pilot in the entire Air Force, and that he would really enjoy this flight with me.  But he just didn’t want to go.  I have never known if somebody told him not to go, or if he was scared to fly in a fighter, or what.  When it was evident that we weren’t going, I told him that if we didn’t take that flight together, he and I would never fly together in a Jet belonging to the Air Force .  Not tomorrow, and never in the future.  I was impressed to tell him this.  Also, I was extremely disappointed that we could not fly together, as I had surely wanted to do this for him, and looked forward to it for a long time.  As life at best is quite ironic, after I departed Albuquerque on this trip, I would never see Marshall again in this life.  Keep tuned for the last episode in this worthy young man’s life.

 
 
THIRD ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE AFB

Jane and I became very busy getting everything ready, and on 14 October 1959, exactly two years to the day that we first arrived in Waco, we drove away from Waco, Texas headed to Arizona. We stopped the first night in Abilene, Texas to see my great Friend, Bob Goodwin, who I had met while stationed at Sembach Air Base, Germany.  He was a member of the Church, and the first day I met him, I wasn’t, but soon was baptized. We became instant Friends.  His Mom & Dad lived in Provo and we had met both of them as I promised that when we were at General Conference, we would make their acquaintance. He was stationed at Dyess AFB, near Abilene.  We took him to dinner and had a wonderful time talking with him.  He always gave me credit for getting him active in the Church again after he had suffered some bad things there in Germany, mostly due to his own fault.  But he is a great person, and I still have contact with him and I see his dear Mom who is still alive and lives in Provo still.  While in Germany, I flew him a lot in the T-33, as he promised me that if I would let him fly in the aircraft with me, he would always go to Church with me.  He kept his promise.  I always dearly loved his strong, positive attitude and his tremendous excitement about flying. 

We left the next morning and either stayed that night in El Paso or Las Cruces, New Mexico.  I just can’t remember where.  I am quite sure that Mama had left Las Cruces by now and was living with Betty in Mission Hills, California, but I am not positive of this. Anyway, sometime during the morning of 16 October 1959, we stopped in Fairacres, New Mexico and inquired at the post office where Mrs. Poole was living.  She lived in a little apartment immediately west of the post office.  Her son, Fate Dickerson had built this place for her.

Except for her extremely white hair, she looked pretty much like I had seen her in about 1944 or 1945 when I visited them on the farm after my graduation from flying school at Eagle Pass, Texas.  She greeted us with open arms and I introduced her to Jane, Hal, Haynes, Leslie and Carl who was now 3 years plus 8 months, almost.  We really had a grand time and an extra nice visit with her.  This was the first time our children had ever seen anyone dip snuff.  Their mouths flew open in amazement.  Dipping snuff is not very pretty to view, in fact, it is gross if one has not witnessed it before, but it was most interesting to them.  We talked about old times, and she was still plenty sharp mentally, but was now 85 years of age.  When I first knew her, she was just 60.  Finally, I told her we had to be in Phoenix today, and that we would see her again.  And in her great wisdom, she replied, “Not on this side of heaven, you won’t.”  She was always right.  In 1961, at the age of 87, she slipped through the veil and is buried next to Charlie Poole, her husband in the Masonic cemetery in Las Cruces.  She did more fine things for me than I can even remember and was a great teacher, example and true Friend to me from the first day I ever met her.   Victoria  Dickerson  Poole was indeed, one of the great ones of the earth.

Mrs. Victoria Poole was the most blunt person I have ever met.  But she didn’t have an enemy in the whole world.  When folks came to visit us, sometimes they remained too long.  As they were leaving, she would say, “You’ins come back to see We’ins.  When you are gone, it is going to be lonesome around here, but it is going to be a sweet lonesome.”  Nobody I have ever asked has ever heard this saying, but I remember well her stating it on occasion.  One boy once told me he knew about it, but I could tell he was fibbing just slightly.  When she would meet somebody, she might say, ‘John, I don’t know  if I am going to like you or not, but I will try.”  Invariably in a week or so, if she saw the person, she would state, “I like you, you are alright.”

Mrs. Poole and my dear Mother were always close, abiding Friends, and to the day my Mother died, she still referred to her as Mrs. Poole, and to her other close friend, Callie Freeman, as “Mrs. Freeman.”  Mama would never allow any of us kids to call grownups by their first names, but always Mr. or Mrs. And their last name.  I am still hung up on this, except with my very close friends or if they are much younger than I.  Everybody called Clint by his first name as he would not answer to any other, except “The Big Jew,” of course.

After leaving Mrs. Poole’s that sunny day in October 1959, we drove to Phoenix and found a place to rent in Maryvale in West Phoenix until our new home in Capehart Housing at Luke would be finished in March.

When I reported to work at Luke AFB, Arizona, Colonel Bower said to me, “I realize how much you want to Command one of the gunnery squadrons, and you are fully qualified to do so.  But you and I are the only two pilots on this Base who are graduates of the Air Force Instrument School, so I want to make a deal with you.   (We both attended the same class of this school at Tyndall AFB, Florida in the summer of 1951)  I will assign you as the Commander of the Instrument Squadron.  (It was the 4511th Combat Crew Training Squadron)  Then as soon as I can, I will transfer you to one of the Gunnery Squadrons.”  Well, this suited me just fine, as training jocks to fly the F-100 Super Sabre, manufactured by North American Aviation Corp. was a genuine challenge, as this bird was especially difficult to fly correctly, and on instruments, it was even more interesting.

Every student at Luke AFB flowed through the Instrument Squadron twice:  Shortly after they arrived on the Base, we trained them in the T-33 Lockheed aircraft which most of them had already flown in regard to Instrument training.  After an extensive course in the T-33, we sent them back to their Gunnery Squadrons where they learned to fly the F-100.  Then near the end of their gunnery training, they again returned to the Instrument Squadron where we flew them in the F-100.  This was the most technical part of their training and was also very exciting and tiring to fly this bird on the gauges, as instrument flying is known.

Being the Commander of this Squadron was a real challenge and also helped my Air Force career immensely.  In addition to all the students, each pilot on the Base, including all the Instructors were administered their written and also their annual flight tests to renew their instrument ratings in our Squadron.  One day at lunch, a friend of mine by the name of Colonel Brown who was an Ace in WW II said to me, “ Major Butler, you sign all the instrument cards on the entire Base for all the pilots-----But who signs yours, Brigham Young?”  “You got it right, Colonel,” I replied with a chuckle.

While we were living in Glendale, Arizona on this particular tour at Luke AFB, Arizona, a little incident occurred which I shall remember always.  I had sold a 1959 Cadillac to a man and the only way I could make the transaction was to take a 1955 Cadillac in trade, which I was happy to do, as I could work on the 55 a little, then make a nice profit on it.  While we were driving it around, there was a huge parcel of private ground north of Glendale.  While cruising on this private land, Haynes asked if I would teach him to drive a car.  After explaining what I wanted him to do, we put him behind the wheel.  He started the car, released the brakes and drove it quite well.  In fact, I was very surprised how very well he could handle this Huge, Mammoth automobile.  It weighed in excess of two tons, I am sure.  The year had to be 1961, as we didn’t move to Glendale until Theresa was a few months old, she was born on 6 February 1961, and I left for Korea in early 1962, so I am positive the year is correct.  This meant that Haynes was ten at the most.  Well, he had several driving lessons in this car, and each time he made a lot of progress.

Well, late one night, no, make that early one morning, the phone rang, and I was sure it was Luke calling as I was accustomed to receiving calls from them at all hours of the night.  It was Not Luke, but the Sheriff’s office on the line.  He asked, “Major Butler, do you own a 1955 Blue Cadillac?”  I did, and I told him this.  He then asked me where it was.  I said to him that when I retired for the night, it was in the carport.  He then told me a young boy had stolen this car, had wrecked it, but he was not hurt, and to please go to the location of the wrecked car which he gave me.  As soon as I hung up, I asked Jane to look in Haynes’ room.  I knew he was Not at home, and sure enough, he wasn't. 

 I jumped in our other car and drove to the scene of the crime.  There was the Sheriff’s car, lights blazing like mad, then the wrecker with all its lights blazing like mad, too, and the 1955 Blue Cadillac on its nose in a narrow but deep ditch, and the car was totaled.  When I first saw Haynes in the back seat of the police car, he looked so forlorn, so very little, very sad, very still as he stared straight ahead, but I knew he wasn’t hurt physically.  I felt very sorry for Haynes and for the predicament he was in at this time in his young life.  The Deputy asked me if I knew the young man in his vehicle, and I told him it was my son, Haynes.  The Deputy then told me that when he saw the Cadillac run a stop sign, he knew a drunk was behind the wheel.  The Deputy put the flasher lights on him, the Cadillac took off in a hurry, and was weaving, so the Deputy was absolutely sure he had a drunk on his hands.  Haynes had way too much speed for a ninety degree turn to the left over a narrow bridge that rose up to a peak at the midway point. 

 The car was far too large for this maneuver, so Haynes took out the right side of the bridge by breaking it off, then the car plunged in the ditch, the nose dropped down dramatically, hit the water and the opposite bank coming to a very abrupt stop and of course, the car was totaled in the process.  The Deputy immediately ran to the wrecked car, asked Haynes if he was okay, and he wasn’t hurt at all, which is a miracle in itself.  The Deputy almost fainted when he saw this very small, defenseless little boy behind the wheel.  He got him out of the car and away from it in a hurry in case it began to burn.  Then this is the story that Haynes told him:  “I am a paper boy and I was preparing my papers to deliver them.  A Mexican man walked up to me, put a gun to my head and told me to get in the car and drive it away.  I was too scared not to do what he said.”  WOW!! What an imagination Haynes possessed.

Later, we took Haynes to Juvenile Court in Phoenix.  The Judge told us that normally, he would make a boy who drove a car illegally wait a year or two after age 16 before he could apply for a license.  But he said that Haynes wouldn’t even be eligible for a driver’s license for about six years.  He then said to Haynes.  “If I let you go, will you promise me that you will never drive another vehicle until you are 16 and have a valid license?”  Haynes readily agreed to that stipulation, so we walked out of that court very relieved and also happy for the end result.  As most of you know, anytime an unlicensed person drives a vehicle and wrecks it, there is no insurance to cover the vehicle or any damage to persons or property, either.  

When we eventually moved out of Glendale, the wrecked side of the bridge had never been repaired and nobody ever contacted me in regard to this. If they had, I would have gladly paid for the damage to the bridge. For a long time, Haynes was totally embarrassed about this episode in his life, but gradually, he would tell folks about his wild, wild ride in the 1955 Cadillac, his off the wall explanation to the Sheriff’s Deputy, and everyone would laugh about this unbelievable story.  One thing about Haynes, you better be prepared for the unexpected, as he was full of surprises and he never lacked in imagination, either.

 
 
LT. ERNEST E. VAN ALLEN, MY MOST CHOICE  & FOREVER FRIEND

 

Included in this Life History is a flying story about the very finest Friend I ever knew in the Air Force.  The reason for including this story at this point in time is because I met him early one morning in my Squadron when I was the Commander of the Instrument Squadron in 1960, about a year after my arrival at Luke AFB, Arizona after being stationed at 12th AF Headquarters in Waco, Texas. His name is Lieutenant Ernest Edward Van Allen.  During my almost 28 years association with wonderful individuals in the Air Force, Lt. Van Allen is my favorite of them all.  He truly possessed all the worthy, noble attributes of greatness.  Please read this story about him, and if you do, I am sure you will agree with me that he was next to perfect in the short life he lived here upon this earth.

During the year of 1960, in the Autumn, I was at work early one morning before dawn, probably about 0600 hours.  I was walking as rapidly as my legs would carry me from the Operations Office to the other part of the building.   In my mad rush to get there, I rounded a corner of the hall to my left on the wrong side at full throttle; and I plowed into one of the new students who was going the opposite direction.  He was on the correct side of the hall.  He went flying to the floor!!!  I put out my right arm to help him to his feet and he immediately started apologizing for our collision.  Noticing his Nametag, I said, “I’m terribly sorry, Lt. Van Allen, it is completely my fault.  Are you Okay?”  “I’m fine, Sir.”  Then I asked him if he were in the brand new class as I had never seen him before in my life.  He replied that he was in the brand new class.  I then told him that inasmuch as I had crashed into him and had knocked him down, the least I could do would be to fly most of his Instrument Missions with him, both while he was with us in the T-33 Aircraft and again when he would return in the F-100 Aircraft.  He stated that he would like this very much and would look forward to flying with me.  We became instant Friends.  

(Editor’s Note: I have a strong testimony that we never meet those who will become our very close, abiding Friends by accident.  Why?  Because the Lord fully intends for us to become acquainted with one another, then to be of much, much assistance and do everything within our power to be the kind of Friend to that individual that the Lord expects of us, always and always)

In time, I would discover many noble attributes about this young man.  His full name was Lt. Ernest Edward Van Allen.  He was a staunch Catholic who had gone through all his education in the Catholic School System. This meant that he was extremely well disciplined.  He was of Dutch heritage and his father was a long-time employee with General Electric in Schenectady, New York.  Ernie attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for two years to become an Aeronautical Engineer. Prior to this, he graduated from St. Columbia’s High School in 1955. He received his Air Force Basic Training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. 




He then graduated at Keesler AFB, Mississippi, near Biloxi in Electronics.  Beyond any doubt, he was the best Pilot I ever flew with, Loved flying with a passion, and his personality was exactly the same 24 hours a day.  I never remember him being fatigued, even after an extra-long cross-country flight under the hood or in bad weather.  He was absolutely fearless, possessed exceptionally High Self-Esteem, always without exception.  He was always positive, had a wonderful sense of humor, was never late in reporting for duty and he could charm a snake.  I am confident that he never had an enemy in his entire life.  The day I first met him, he was age 22.  He was born on 15 June 1938.   He was about five feet, nine or ten inches tall, probably weighed about 145 pounds maximum and was always immaculate in his appearance and exceptionally well-groomed.  He was extremely handsome, with a genuine smile.  He was a slim person, with excellent posture and just never used a slang word in his huge vocabulary.  I could never believe how much energy, stamina, strength and endurance he possessed.  And he was as bright as anybody I ever knew.  He had dark hair and was of medium complexion.  He was a most interesting individual with whom to associate.  He was always asking me about President David O. McKay who was the President of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints. (Mormon)  For example, one day he asked me if I had read the newspaper article about Pres. McKay and when I replied that I hadn’t, he told me he would bring me the article, and he did.

I learned from his Friends that on Sunday mornings in the BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters) where he lived, he would awaken all the Catholic Students and invite them to attend Mass with him.  He said little about his parents, but I did learn that he had one younger brother, Robert who was  four years younger than Ernie.  His parents were LOUIS ERNEST VAN ALLEN and SOPHIE PAULINE MALIK VAN ALLEN and they lived in Schenectady, New York.  They were married on 27 September 1934.
His paternal Grandparents were Stephen and Irene Van Allen who lived in Schenectady.

When Lt. Van Allen and I flew together in the Air Force, I was positive that he had to be a college graduate and also that he had flown the T-38 Advanced Trainer at Vance AFB, Enid, Oklahoma where he attended Undergraduate Pilot Training School.  Many years later, I would discover that he actually flew the T-33 Trainer at Vance AFB. At Spence Air Base, Georgia during Basic Flying, he flew the T-28, a large, single engine trainer that was made by North American.  Both of these birds really helped him tremendously in learning how to fly the F-100, also made by North American Aviation Corporation.  Secondly, the necessity of being a college graduate to enter Undergraduate Pilot Training occurred after Ernie entered the program.


Well, as it worked out, I flew practically every Mission with him, both in the T-33 and the F-100.  The Instructor always carried a knee pad strapped on his leg so we could note errors plus other maneuvers which were performed in a Superior manner.  I just couldn’t find much wrong with any of his Instrument Flying, as he was a perfectionist.  He planned well ahead of the aircraft, knew how to report to all the Stations correctly, had an uncanny memory, and could figure fuel, ETA’s, and lots of other required things in his head, and was never rattled, even a little, either on the ground or in the air.  In short, he just had it all.  He was truly an amazing Fighter Pilot and a Wonderful individual.

He was an accomplished speaker with excellent diction and expression and coined all his phrases in a superb manner.  In addition to all the worthy attributes mentioned above, I know that he didn’t smoke, or drink, or swear, that he was pure in thought and in deed.  He had many Friends, never met a stranger, and was one of the most righteous young men I have ever known in my entire life, even to this day.  If ever I have known a Perfect individual, it has to be Lt. Ernie Van Allen. 

 The program called for each student to fly an Out-And-Back in the T-33 and at least one in the F-100.  When Ernie and I took the Out-And-Back in the T-33, there was a friend of mine who lived in Sacramento, California, so being the Squadron Commander, we flew out to McClellan AFB  late in the day so we could stay overnight.  Then early the next morning, we flew back to Luke AFB.  The student always flew in the back seat of Fighters as the Instrument Hood was located there, and except for brief periods of rest time, he flew the aircraft either under the hood or in Weather.  It needs to be stated that flying under the hood is actually easier than flying in weather.  Under the hood, he has the lights on, as it is quite dark in his cockpit, even in bright sunlight.  But in weather, clouds come whizzing by, there are many different levels of light in the cockpit, and also other things that distract a Pilot who is flying the Gauges.  So anytime we  were in weather, we had the student remove the hood, as we wanted him to get all the actual weather time he possibly could.  Also, due to all the distractions in weather, he had more of a chance to get vertigo and this is really terrible for any Pilot in weather conditions.

I still wonder where all his enthusiasm, vigor, endurance and stamina came from.  He had to be in Superior health, I am sure of this.  But even more amazing, he was never moody, and had exactly the same personality and countenance in the hundreds of hours I spent with him.  He was never discouraged or disgruntled, his manners were always perfect, and he was truly a gentleman of the highest caliber possible in any human being.

The definition of a normal Out-And-Back is a Flight from your home Base to another Air Force Base.  You land there, refuel, have something to eat, file a new flight plan, take off and fly back home the same day.  Thus it is called an Out-And-Back.  It is also a very long day.  Flying Instruments is surely hard work as the experts told us that the Instrument Pilot reads and interprets hundreds of gauges each minute of flight.  It surely is hard work and also most precise!

When the time came for Ernie’s  Out-And-Back in the F-100, we decided to fly from Luke AFB to Hill AFB, Ogden, Utah.  At this point, it should be noted that Lt. Van Allen had no difficulty at all from the very first time he flew Instruments, both in the T-33 and in the F-100.  I attribute this to the fact that he had quickly learned to fly the F-100 during Transition, Formation Flying, Night Flying, Air Refueling and in all his Gunnery Training, both Air-to-Ground and in his Air-to-Air Gunnery.  I well remember his first flight in the F-100 flying Instruments.  It just seemed that he had already done this over and over.  Flying the F-100 for the first time on the Gauges is no easy thing to accomplish, due to the Bird being so very touchy on the controls and it wasn't an aircraft that would fly itself for even a few seconds on its own.

We discussed the entire Flight to Hill and return, and we always instructed the student exactly what kind of approach would be made at the destination and also back at Luke when we returned, plus all emergency procedures, etc.  When we had completed the briefing, I asked him if there were any questions, as this was part of the briefings---That is to make sure the student knows exactly what is planned from takeoff to landing.  He replied, “Sir, I have one question.  When we arrive over Salt Lake City, may I remove the hood so I can see Temple Square?”  That was his only question.  “Of course, that is no problem.”  

The takeoff was normal, with Ernie making the T.O. under the hood, which was performed in a flawless manner, with everything executed exactly right and so smooth I just couldn’t believe he was such a Tremendous Pilot with the small number of hours he had in the F-100.  In my opinion, everything he touched turned to gold.  We were assigned to an altitude of between 30,000 and 39,000 feet in those days and in most aircraft, the higher it flies, the more difficult it is to control on instruments.  By the time we were over Sandy, Utah which is a few miles south of Salt Lake City, Flight Control had descended us to 20,000 MSL (Mean Sea Level).  I asked him to remove the hood so he could see all the Salt Lake Valley.  When we arrived just short of Temple Square in Downtown Salt Lake City, I rolled the aircraft upside down so he could get a panorama view of not only Temple Square, but the entire downtown area.  He stated that he had never seen Temple Square before, and it was even more beautiful than he had expected.  He really appreciated that I had rolled the Bird upside down in his behalf.

Right after this, he put the hood back into position, took control of the aircraft and flew it to Hill AFB, where he executed the letdown and then shot about three GCA Approaches with his usual excellent performance.  After we had landed, he asked me some more questions about Temple Square and Salt Lake City, etc.  The flight back to Luke was normal in every respect, and by the time we landed, he had flown close to five hours of instruments that day.  Did he look fatigued?  No, he looked exactly as he did when he reported to the Squadron much earlier that day for our two flights.  He was one Happy Fighter Pilot with extremely high self-esteem, but I must add, he was never Arrogant or Presumptuous like most of the rest of us.

When he was about three-fourths through the F-100 phase of Instrument Flying, one day he asked if we could use some of his remaining hours to fly to Vance AFB which is located near Enid, Oklahoma.  Ernie graduated from Vance where he had undergone his UPT School.  (Undergraduate Pilot Training).  He told me that while stationed at Vance, he had met a girl there    and she and her dad had invited him to return and he knew this would be his only opportunity of seeing her again.  I explained that we could go on Friday afternoon, remain overnight, then Saturday morning, we could return to Luke.  This pleased him a lot.  As this would be the longest flight that he and I had ever made during his training, this was an excellent opportunity for me to determine if he would at least show a slight amount of fatigue as he would be flying the aircraft under the hood or in weather all the way to Enid, Oklahoma.  True to his personality and his great endurance, he did not become even a little bit tired, and the entire flight was simply perfect.

After we landed at Vance AFB, we went to the Officers Club as we were both hungry.  Just after we started eating, the girl and her father arrived.  Ernie, not wanting to delay them, introduced both of them to me and they left for town.  The next morning as Ernie was filing the Flight Plan back to Luke for us, the girl asked me in private why I did not accept their invitation to spend the night at their residence.  (They, meaning she and her Dad).  I had to explain that I just didn’t know I was invited, so she then asked me if I would have liked to be their guest in their home if I had known, and of course, I would have been delighted to visit them.  I never mentioned this to Ernie as I knew he would have been embarrassed, at least I thought he would have.  The girl then said that she just knew that Ernie had forgotten to ask me ahead of time.  After knocking him down in the hall when we first met at Luke AFB, I surely tried my best at all times to be extra nice to him, and this was one of the most pleasant things I ever did for him.  The flight back to Luke AFB was without incident.  Over Albuquerque, New Mexico area, I told him to take a little break so he could remove the hood and see some of the most beautiful scenery there is in New Mexico, in my opinion.  He always enjoyed the Wide Open Spaces of the West, and would comment on how Huge it was in all its Grandeur.  He never took advantage of our Tremendous Friendship, but just worked even harder to be the “The World’s Greatest Fighter Pilot” without any guile at all.  What a Wonderful example he was to me and to all with whom he associated, always without exception!! He was my Ideal and my Hero!! 

Lt. Van Allen had always wanted me to get to know his parents and his brother, Robert who lived in Schenectady, New York   I was anxious to meet them, especially to let them know how Super well their son and brother was doing at Luke AFB in the F-100 program.  To my surprise, one day he asked me if I could get a personal cross-country in the T-33 and we could fly back east and stay with them for a weekend, or even a few days as the Christmas Season of 1960 was approaching and we would be on vacation at Luke in regard to Student Flying during that period of time.  I was very happy that he asked me to do this because I was thinking the same thing, but didn’t want to mention it to him, especially if for any reason, he didn’t want to go.  I told him that Colonel Bower would surely approve us going, but I also knew T-33’s were in short supply at this particular time, so I would talk with the Old Man.  Colonel Bower was really nice to me and said he wished there were sufficient T-Birds to satisfy the local demand at that time, and if the weather held out back east and we would be back on time, there was no problem at all.  However, due to ice and heavy snow in New York in December, he felt that he just couldn’t approve the Cross Country.  

I had to agree with him, in spite of the great desire I had to meet Ernie’s family and get to know them.  I also knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity of ever getting to know them.  Both Ernie and I were really disappointed, but he fully understood and agreed with Colonel Bower.  I knew right then that I would never be afforded the unique opportunity of meeting his parents and his brother, Robert.  Time would prove me to be partly incorrect in this assumption, but over 38 years would transpire in the interim.

Well, 1960 was soon history, and in the near future, Ernie had completed all his training at Luke and then it was time for him to go home on leave, then report to Nellis AFB at Las Vegas, Nevada for what we called Top-Off Training.  There, he would still fly the F-100 some more doing the exact type of training he had received at Luke.  This would give him more hours in the aircraft.  Let’s face it, Fighter Pilots needed all the Flying time they could garner in that Unforgiving and Strange Bird!!!

When he had graduated from Luke and ere he left to drive home to Schenectady, New York, he came to our home on Base at Luke. It was Sunday evening.  We had just arrived home from Sacrament Meeting in Glendale and in that era, Sacrament Meeting was in the evening.  We all visited for awhile, then all the children went to bed.  (Hal, Haynes, Leslie, Carl & Theresa) and finally my wife, Jane retired.  Ernie and I had a marvelous visit and he stayed and stayed.  We drank up all the hot chocolate and ate all the cookies.  At this time, I had been a member of the LDS Church for less than three years and I admit that I wasn’t very smart about a lot of things.  I kept wondering why he was staying so very late, as he knew I would be flying early the next morning.  I kept struggling in my mind what question I could ask to motivate him to tell me what he wanted to say.  Finally, in desperation, and also having the experience at other times in my life with young Fighter Pilots, I finally asked him if he had sufficient funds to get home on, and he smiled and replied, “Yes Sir, I do.”  What a dumb question! 

Finally about midnight, he said he must be going.  I walked out to his new 1960 White Chevrolet Impala Ragtop and we spent a few minutes telling each other Goodbye.  This was very difficult for each of us, as from the moment when I knocked him down in our Squadron Building in my utter haste, we had become extremely close and abiding Friends.  We were Splendid Friends who revered each other. He always knew that I gave him the very finest training of all, that I had done my very best to set him a perfect example in being an honorable Air Force Officer and a Gentleman.  And I knew he was my very finest Friend and that we not only had the utmost respect and esteem for one another, but that we really Loved each other and would always remember each other through the end of our days here on this earth and beyond, too.  In retrospect, Lt. Ernest Edward Van Allen was my Absolutely Finest Friend I ever had in the Air Force.  Although that was over thirty-nine years ago, I still know he was extremely close to being perfect.

A few months later, my wife, Jane and I were in the Glendale cemetery at the dedication of the grave of a little boy we knew.  The date-----One August 1961, our eleventh Wedding Anniversary.  After the services, an Officer I knew walked up to me and asked, “Major Butler, have you heard about Ernie Van Allen?”  “What about him,” I asked, and he replied, “Today in North Africa, Ernie was killed in the crash of his F-100.”  He had no other details of the tragedy.  This terribly bad news hit me just as hard as though one of my own children had been killed!!  I was in total shock!!! It came so unexpectedly, and in a cemetery, with such utter suddenness and also disbelief.  I had his home address, so I soon wrote his parents in New York, and for a long time, his Dear Mom, Sophie wrote to me.   It was always such an honor to hear from her.  Most parents who have lost sons in the Military must think that we  write them because it is our duty, so finally, they cease to write back.  I was positive the Van Allens were gone, as they were older than I.  But I was sure Ernie’s brother, Robert was still alive.  How wonderful it would be if I could meet him and tell him about innumerable worthy qualities that his dear brother possessed in great abundance.  In due time, this would become a reality!!

Approximately one year after I saw Lt. Van Allen for the last time in this life, I was pondering about my Tremendous Friend, when like a bolt of lightning out of a heavy storm, I suddenly knew why Ernie stayed most of the night the last time we were together. It was so clear that I wondered how I could have been so dumbfounded that late Sunday night. He wanted to know more about the Church, it was that simple, but especially sublime!!  But why didn’t he ask??  Then years later, my brother, John Butler who had been a lifelong Catholic until he joined the LDS Church shortly after arriving in Logan, Utah to be with us, explained it very simply.  After telling him the complete story of Lt. Van Allen, he smiled and very quietly said, “As a practicing Catholic, he couldn’t ask you, but if you had said to him, “Ernie, I bet the reason you are here right now is that you desire to know more about the LDS Church, don’t you?”  Then he would have said, “Yes”, and it would have been a simple thing to ask him to call me when he was at Nellis for the next phase of his training.  Then I would have called my Good Friend, Kendall Jones who lived there and did lots of Missionary work, and Ernie would have had the Missionaries at his door almost immediately.  I learned a painful lesson in this----Anytime I am even in doubt, I ask the person.  If it that isn’t it, I go on from there. 

Years later, I learned that when Ernie arrived in England, he was assigned to the same Squadron as my Great Friend, Neal Christensen. It was the 77th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing, APO 120, New York, New York.  The Base was Wethersfield.   He filled me in on all the details.  Ernie was in North Africa for Gunnery Training.  On the range that fateful day, his aircraft refused to expend the ordnance that it carried.  The rules were for the Pilot who could not expend the ordnance to leave the range, orbit at a certain point, and when the rest of the flight was returning to Wheelus Air Base, Libya, they would pick him up at the orbit point.

But Ernie had crashed while orbiting and the Arabs had stolen so much of his F-100 that had crashed, it was impossible for the Accident Team to ever determine why he crashed.  He had a wonderful reputation there in England and Neal told me everybody was so highly impressed with this sterling young man, and all held him in the highest esteem and respect.

This story was originally written in mid 1998.   Since then, I felt that I really needed to know more about my Splendid Friend and fellow Fighter Pilot.  But try as I might, I couldn’t even determine his date of birth.  To condense my vain attempts to learn more about him, I went through an entire series of unsuccessful attempts, only to end up with nothing.  Finally, the New York State Library in Albany sent me a list of professional genealogists.  The first name on this list was Betty Ennis Bradway of Schenectady, New York.  I called her and although she is now retired, she promised to help me.  The very next day, she discovered the phone number of  Ernie’s Dad, even LOUIS ERNEST VAN ALLEN.  Betty called the number in Lake Luzerne, New York.  Guess what?  He is still alive and is now age 88.

After several calls to Ernie’s Dad and his younger brother, Robert, Eugene decided to fly to Albany, New York, drive to Lake Luzerne on 20 Sept.1999 and visit with Ernie’s family for a few days  We surely had a wonderful visit during this time, and they were so very kind and gracious to me.  It was my special privilege to meet Ernie’s younger brother, Robert Louis Van Allen. His dear wife, Joan died unexpectedly several years ago. I met their son, Robert Ernest Van Allen, age 33, and his two little children, Taylor, a girl of age 4 and young son, Brendon, age 2.  Ernie’s brother has two other children, Aimee, who lives in North Carolina and Bryce who lives in Florida.  Ernie’s Mom died in Hadley, New York on 27 September 1984 on his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary when she was 65.


   Then on 25 June 1988, Ernie’s Dad married a very choice lady by the name of  Muguette Gabrielle Leblond Leclerc. She and her first husband, Paul Leclerc had lived in Maine for many years, then retired in Lake Luzerne. Shortly after they had built a very beautiful retirement home, her husband died of a sudden heart attack.  Ernie’s Dad and Muguette met in the Catholic Church they both attended and were married by their Priest.

During this visit to New York, I learned many more great things about Ernie, my Fighter Pilot Friend.  He was the Outstanding Graduate at Vance AFB, Oklahoma, Class 60H.  This didn’t surprise me at all.  All his noble attributes that I was aware of were confirmed by his Father.  His beautiful White 1960 Chevrolet Impala Ragtop was never shipped to England and about two years went by and his Dad sold the vehicle.



My Tremendous Friend, Lt. Ernest Edward Van Allen is buried in Schenectady next to his dear Mom in the Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in a very peaceful and beautiful location. 

After pondering on Lt. Van Allen’s tragic accident on that fateful day, 1 August 1961, about 58 miles west of Wheelus Air Base near Tripoli, North Africa for lo, these many long years, I have come to a conclusion.  After carefully considering all the facts and having such an extremely close association on a professional basis with this outstanding young man who I knew so very well, and by a most careful elimination process, I am firmly convinced that I know exactly how Lt. Van Allen died in the crash of the F-100D he was flying.

First of all, if his air conditioner had failed, resulting in a very hot cockpit, he would not have remained at the orbit point, but would have headed straight for Wheelus Air Base and would have jettisoned the canopy to remain cool.  Secondly, had the Aircraft experienced a major malfunction at the orbit point, he would have ejected because he was too sharp a Pilot to remain in an Aircraft that was out of control.  Remember, he was in perfect health with more energy, stamina, and endurance than anybody I ever knew In my long career as a Fighter Pilot.  In my professional opinion, while orbiting, his oxygen system failed which caused him to experience hypoxia (Lack of oxygen).  He became unconscious without ever having any symptons of hypoxia that most of us experience. (Example:  When I have insufficient oxygen, I immediately develop a severe stomach ache.  And when I remove a glove from my hand, all my fingertips are blue denoting hypoxia.)  But Ernie undoubtedly had no symptons at all when he was suffering from hypoxia.  Thus, almost the moment he became unconscious, the aircraft would drop off on one wing, the nose would go into a dive and the faster the Aircraft dived, the steeper it would become.  I am firmly convinced that he was totally unconscious when his Aircraft hit the ground.

Shortly after Ernie died on the desert of North Africa, Major General Henry Russ Spicer was flying over North Africa at 35,000 feet in an F-100D when he became unconscious.  As his Aircraft dived toward the ground, he regained consciousness in time to pull the Aircraft out of its rapid dive, then made a landing at Wheelus AB there in Libya.  But so many of his brain cells died while he was suffering from hypoxia, he never flew another Aircraft solo for the remainder of his life. General Spicer was the Commander of the 17th Air Force in Europe when Ernie died and he wrote a very beautiful letter to the Van Allens expressing his sorrow over Ernie’s tragic death.  It was my good fortune to have worked for General Spicer twice in my career, first at Howard Field, Panama, then years later at Williams AFB, Arizona.  It is evident that neither Ernie nor General Spicer had any symptoms of hypoxia.  The higher altitude that General Spicer was flying undoubtedly saved his life, even though he never had good health for the remainder of his days on this earth.  When my tour of combat in Vietnam was completed, I arrived at my home in the Phoenix, Arizona area on 4 December 1968.  General Spicer died in Tucson, Arizona that same day.

I know in my heart that I will see Ernest Edward Van Allen on the other side of the veil, that he will tell me exactly what happened to him on that tragic day, even the first of August 1961.  And we will be together again doing whatever the Lord assigns Former Fighter Pilots to do in that Great Beyond, and I have absolute Faith that whatever it is, my Close Friend and Comrade and Fellow Fighter Pilot, Ernie will be Flawless in everything he does.  If the Lord ever asks Eugene if anybody on this earth ever told him to live the Gospel, I can readily reply,  “Yes Sir, my Great Friend, Ernie Van Allen, by his perfect example and his tremendous influence upon me, always without exception.” Although this story was written over thirty-eight years after it occurred, it seems as though it were only yesterday, it surely does, indeed.

HIGH FLIGHT
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds---And done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of---wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.   Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew,
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed  sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Last known picture of Lt. Van Allen


 









 
The Fighter Pilot’s Office





 
F-100D – Combat Configuration
 
























Old Glory
 
THIRD ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE AFB (CONT.) 

We had very young, but well qualified Instructor Pilots in the Instrument Squadron at Luke and our accident record was flawless.  All the Squadron personnel behaved themselves off-duty, and we were the most respected Squadron on the Base. This makes any Squadron Commander mighty happy.  I don’t know how the quality of the flight instruction could have been  better, either.  We often had well known dignitaries visit us and they were always impressed.  Senator Barry Goldwater renewed his green instrument card with us each year as he was a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and kept his flying proficiency current for many years.  He was easy to get along with, never asked for any favors, and would not even take a break while flying instruments in our Squadron with an Instructor Pilot in the aircraft with him.

As a family, we experienced our first major disaster in early January 1960, if my memory serves me correctly. At this time, Haynes was eight years of age.  Haynes went to bed one night when we lived in Maryvale, which was about 58th Avenue, just south of Indian School Road in Phoenix.  The next morning was Saturday, he didn’t awaken, but he was a late sleeper, so we thought nothing of this.  I was attending meetings in the Stake Center all day as we were having Quarterly Stake Conference starting that day.  We were in the Phoenix North Stake as we were attending the Glendale Ward and Evan Mecham was our Bishop.  Late that day, I called home and Jane informed me that Haynes was still asleep.  I told her that I was coming right home.  

When I arrived home, he was still asleep, so I put him in the back seat of our car and took him to the Base Hospital at Luke.  The Physician on duty examined him and he couldn’t awaken him, either.  This was late at night when this transpired.  He finally told me to take him home, and if he weren’t awake in the morning, to bring him back.  Then I asked, “What about his high fever?”  He apologized and told me he had forgotten that.  He kept him in the hospital for the night. 

In a few hours, I went back to the Base Hospital to see Haynes. He still hadn’t awakened.  But I think sometime that day, he did wake up, and Jane and I spent most of the day with him in his private hospital room on the Base.

I think that I called Silas L. Fish, Jane’s Stepfather who had married her Mom, Irene Wilkins in about 1956 when we were stationed at Clovis, New Mexico.  After explaining that I felt we should give Haynes a blessing, he stated we should all fast for 24 hours and then he and Irene would meet us at the hospital.  We all fasted, Silas & Irene arrived at the hospital, and after I anointed Haynes with the consecrated oil, Silas gave Haynes a blessing which essentially went something like this:  “Haynes, the doctors don’t know what is wrong with you, but soon, they will call in a Specialist from Phoenix and he will diagnose you correctly and then you will receive the proper treatment for what is wrong with you.  You will be here in this hospital for a long time, in fact, so long that you will have to learn how to walk again.  You are going to come very close to death many times ere you get well.  But you aren’t going to die.  You are very, very ill, but in time you will get better, then you will learn to walk again, and eventually you will be discharged from the hospital, and after you go back to your home, you will be returned to your full strength and health again and you will grow to full manhood.  You will surprise even your physicians in your recovery in the short time you will recover once you go home from this hospital.”

Silas Fish was NOT a Physician, but had been a high school principal in Snowflake, Arizona for a very long time.  He was the Patriarch of the Phoenix Stake at this time, and worked as an Accountant for a firm east of Phoenix.  But he was one of the most Spiritual individuals I ever knew, loved the Lord and lived extremely close to Him.  There is no doubt that the Lord was telling this good man exactly what to say in the blessing.  Well, Haynes did come very close to death many times.  Sure enough, a Specialist from Phoenix came to Luke to examine Haynes, looked at all the tests, then diagnosed him as having Rheumatic Fever.  Back then, it was a lot more dangerous than it is now, as they didn’t know as much about this disease as they do now.  Each afternoon around 1400 hours, Haynes’ temperature would rise above 105 degrees, and this is why Silas said he would come very close to dying many times.  At first, the Physicians cooled him down with ether, but this almost killed him due to the terrible odor.  Then they started using ice, and although this was very painful to him, it was a lot better than ether and also seemed to cool him down better.  One Saturday afternoon, I took him to X-ray and on the way back I asked him if he would like to stop for a minute and look at the airplanes sitting on the ramp, and he told me he did.  I knew he said this only to please me as he was just too ill to be interested in anything.  One toy that helped entertain him was a little duck that would duck his head repeatedly if you put a glass of water under his bill.  This duck made lots of movements and Haynes liked this.

As soon as Colonel Bower was notified that Haynes was gravely ill, he told me to forget about the Squadron and they would take care of everything until Haynes recovered.  Talk about a great boss!  I did drop by about once a day, but flew no missions and was only there a few minutes at a time.  Jane and I took turns sitting with Haynes, and when he was so very ill, we were there 24 hours a day.  That is a very difficult thing to do, especially when you feel so utterly helpless in regard to your child.  Jane did just super under all this stress, but I know her heart was really aching for Haynes and all his misery.  Throughout this entire ordeal, we received much support from the members of the Glendale Ward, the Air Force personnel, including the entire hospital staff.  And the nurses were just grand to Haynes.

In the weeks that followed, Haynes started to get well. And he had to learn how to walk again, which he did due to his keen desire to be well again.  The nurses would take him with them in his wheelchair to see other patients and they told me he was their assistant.  And perhaps he was as I am sure he was good for all the ill patients as little kids always impress adults.

Then one day, they released Haynes.  At this time, he had a very fine Chinese Physician who was taking care of him.  He gave Haynes a huge bottle of pills, told him how many to take each day and warned him that he might be on pills the remainder of his life, but in any case, for at least five years.  Then he told Haynes that he wanted to see him in 30 days.  After Haynes had been home for a couple of days, he wanted to go visit the nurses he knew, so we took him over.  Then when he was ready, we took him home.  He never asked to go back again, as I am sure he really felt this was the correct thing to do at this point in his recovery.  Sure enough, in exactly 30 days, we took Haynes back and the Chinese Physician examined him and said: “I just can’t believe it, Haynes, but you are completely well.  No more medicine.  It is a miracle!”  And indeed, it was !!  Through the Lord’s chosen Servant, Brother Silas L. Fish, the promise was fulfilled.  

I have used this story in many Priest Quorum Meetings in regard to the healing of the sick and the blessings of the Lord to his people.  Haynes never again had any symptoms of Rheumatic Fever.  We learned later that his little friend who lived next door to us in Waco, Texas also had Rheumatic Fever the same time Haynes did, so I am sure they were exposed to the same elements that made him ill.  This little girl was named Debbie and her Dad was Earl, a railroad man.  Earl was in the front yard watering one Saturday afternoon, and Haynes in a loud voice exclaimed, “You want to know something, Debbie, if you smoke, you get cancer and when you get cancer, you die!!”  Well, Earl threw down the hose, left it running and went into his house.  This might not have been the most tactful thing for Haynes to do, but that is what we taught him, and I always left it up to the individual to defend himself, as I didn’t really know what to say.

While I have you back in Waco, Carl always loved all the animal kingdom.  One day in our yard, a bee stung him and his Mom immediately killed the bee.  Carl had not cried to this point, but really started after Jane had killed the bee.  She asked, “Why are you crying now?”  “Because you killed my bee, that is why.”  And he really felt that this bee belonged to him, and I guess that it did. One of Carl’s favorite sayings was this:  “Railroad crossing, Look out for the cars, Can you spell that without any R’s?  Yes, T H O T.”  We always laughed when he pulled this on us.

I want to state that at this point that Hal, Leslie and Carl really gave us wonderful support during all of Haynes’ illness, and never complained that their Dad & Mom were gone a lot.  By the time Haynes came home from the hospital, we were living on the Base on Sioux Street in Capehart Housing, just to the east of Luke AFB.  It was a brand new home when we moved into it on 14 March 1960.  This home had only three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a very nice living room that was made for entertaining.  We enjoyed our neighbors there.

When I returned to work in my Squadron, everything was going nicely, and they kept it spotless, including the yards.  When I first took over this Squadron, a Drunk had just been fired, and the building was in dire need of much tender care, and so were the yards.  Rollie Moore, an honor graduate in Civil Engineering, I think form the University of Colorado, was one of my Instrument Pilots.  Gee, was I ever happy when he told me he liked to build new things, beautify and upgrade buildings.  He was a real blessing to me, he surely was.  And he could do anything, including being one of the best officers to brief on flying I have ever seen. He was an artist with a piece of chalk in his hand and everything looked like it was in three dimensions on the blackboard. I don’t know how he did that, as none of the rest of us could!!  First, we built a fence around the entire building.  We were just across the street from Base Operations & we wanted everybody to see the beautiful surroundings we were about to have.  Also, it made it easy to file clearances as the Instrument Squadron flies more cross-countries than all the rest of the Base put together.  The back of our building faced another street, but the yard on all four sides looked extremely nice in a short time. 

The first few days I started in the Instrument Squadron, I had several calls from vendors in Phoenix who sold us pop, coffee, doughnuts, sandwiches, etc.  The former Commander, Major Botvidson didn’t believe in keeping track of anything, so everybody just ate and drank free, and to hell with the poor vendors where all the goods came from in the first place.  Gosh, we owed hundreds of dollars.  I told each of them they would be paid in full within two days, so please don’t cut us off.  This really made them happy.  A new Commander who was going to pay them!  Immediately, with the Lounge Officer (One of the squadron pilots) we figured how many Instructors we had in the Squadron and decided that we would borrow X number of dollars from each of our permanent party officers that included all of us.  By doing this, we would have plenty of funds to bail us out.  Then when we started making money that would be immediately, we would pay back all the money we borrowed.  We started with the lowest ranking officer first and Eugene would be paid last.  It was NOT the Lounge Officer’s fault that this happened.  The old Commander told him to quit collecting money for the coffee fund and not to worry about all the other food that was eaten each day.  And this included all the students who were there by the hordes.

Immediately, things looked up.  Rollie Moore and his helpers, including some students, built a very beautiful, clean lounge with a wonderful waterfall, a nice bar and just a great place to relax and enjoy the place.  Back then, we charged the coffee drinkers a dollar a month, including all the coffee drinking students for the coffee they consumed, and this made a profit for us.  We then took over the drink machines which previously were coin-operated, and put all the drinks, doughnuts, sandwiches etc. on the honor system and we made money like mad.  Soon, all the officers who loaned us money were paid back, including Eugene.  The Lounge Officer, who was a very short Captain from Louisiana was enjoying his extra duty because he now had a Commander who fully supported him in his job.  Colonel Bower was elated that the entire Squadron improved dramatically almost overnight and of course, this made him look better in the eyes of the Wing Commander.  When a highly qualified officer takes command of any Unit that has been run by a drunk, he really looks good immediately.  The yards are greatly improved, the place gets painted, spruced up, the officers even give more attention to their uniforms, boots, haircuts, shave each day, start taking lots of pride in the organization, and believe me, the flying safety improves too, which goes without saying.  

Many of these Instructors in this Squadron went on to great things.  Many of them attaining General rank.  I was always happy for each of them who did well.  In case you are wondering where all the money comes from in these improvement projects, it is easy to explain.  First of all, you con or steal all you can from the Civil Engineering Division on the Base.  I don’t really mean steal, just convince them to give you materials they have on hand, and when they won’t, use your influence with the man who heads the Base, that you really need his help.  Then as you make bucks with the Lounge Fund, you purchase in town all the things that Civil Engineering just doesn’t have.  It all comes together, and soon, the Lounge Fund is one rich asset to the Squadron.  Then you start having picnics, parties and purchase gifts for departing members and those who need remembering in times of distress, all from the profits of the Lounge Fund.  At one time in another Squadron at Luke, we were so rich, we almost purchased a car for the Squadron, but decided that perhaps this might not set well with other units who were struggling with funds of this type.  Everything we did was strictly legal and honorable, and maybe purchasing a huge staff car would not be looked on by the auditors in a favorable light.

A few months after Botvidson was fired from the Instrument Squadron, Colonel Bower felt sorry for him and put him in command of the 4515th Combat Crew Training Squadron.  They were in the same building where I had spent two tours on previous assignment to Luke, and this was my favorite building on the Base.  Not that it was any better, in fact, it was not, but I had spent happy times there.

Colonel Bower, keeping his promise to me, went on leave, but instructed  Lt. Colonel Pappy Heyl to inform me that I was soon to become the Commander of one of the Gunnery Squadrons.  I just knew it would be the 4514th, as they were right next door to us and they were a pretty decent Squadron.  I  will never forget when Colonel Heyl called me at home and said the Old Man was transferring me to a Gunnery Squadron, the 4515th.  The 15th, I gasped!!  But I immediately recovered from my utter dismay and total shock and said to him, “The 15th.  Y E S!!!  I would look so good taking over from Botvidson again, and we could accomplish wonderful things down there.  Then he surprised me and said, “We know you want to take Rollie Moore with you, so you can start a new building program and Colonel Bower said to tell you Rollie Moore is going with you.

As soon as I could, I told Rollie Moore the good news, and he was elated.  We would have lots of hard work to accomplish, and we knew it.  Can you believe that  poor,old, drunk Botvidson never learned a thing.  When Rollie and I went there to look at the building, the Sergeant turned the lights on in the Lounge, and we saw about a thousand cockroaches run for cover.  I said to this sharp young Staff Sgt. by the name of Ostendorf  to close the lounge immediately.  He asked what we were going to do for a lounge.  We are going to get rid of all the bugs, clean up the mess and start a vast renovation project, and this place is in for much, much improvement.  Sgt. Ostendorf just loved having Rollie Moore and me in the Squadron as he was an extremely sharp young man, but had absolutely no support from Botvidson.  Yes, the Squadron was deeply in debt for pop, coffee, doughnuts, sandwiches, etc. With the help of the Lounge Officer, who was also a great young man, we borrowed funds again from all the officers, paid all the past due bills, and then started making money like mad in this Squadron just as we had done in the 11th Sq.  This time, we found a talented Captain in the Squadron who was an excellent artist, and he painted all the murals on the walls from four feet above the floor to the ceiling and even used some of the pilots in the Squadron in his paintings.  And Rollie Moore outdid himself with the waterfall, it was simply elegant.  The parachute section needed lots of help, so it was completely renovated.  The main civilian and the enlisted men who were in there were mighty proud of their new surroundings, which didn’t take very long to do.  Rollie Moore and I found that all the Personnel welcomed us with open arms as they were told ahead of time we would be coming and they knew lots of improvements were in the making.  Lt. Moore’s first name was actually Rolland, but everybody called him Rolllie.

Whenever any important visitors came to Luke AFB, be they Generals, Senators, Congressman, University Presidents, or whatever, they were always brought to our Squadron.  I remember on a later tour that I had in this same building, G. Homer Durham, President of Arizona State University, along with all the Deans of the different colleges at ASU spent an entire day in our squadron.  

Their main interest was to observe first hand how we taught Fighter Pilots to learn this profession well, and to stay alive in the process.  Colonel Hendry had all his Squadron Commanders in our building, along with Pres. Durham and his staff.  As Pres. Durham was a faithful member of the LDS Church, when Colonel Hendry introduced me, he pointed out that I was LDS, the same with Bob Erickson, the 14th C.O. and the C.O. of the Ground School whose name I can’t recall right now.  But having 3 C.O.’s  who were Mormon was not lost on President Durham.  That was a great day for all of us; they asked us thousands of questions, and were highly impressed with our training techniques, and we had the best Training Aids, as they were called then that money could buy.  Taxpayers money, that is !!  The lunch at the club was a very nice get together, and we did everything for Pres. Durham and his Staff we could possibly do, except fly them on Missions.  After Pres. Durham retired from ASU, he became a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

At this point in time, it pleases me very much to announce that Jane was expecting her fifth child.  On 6 February 1961, we had a very important alert to test our readiness and the whole Base was in turmoil.  Well, Jane picked this afternoon to drive herself to the Base Hospital in our little Hillman car.  

When Jane arrived at the gate, the Air Policeman on duty told her she couldn't come onto the Base as we were having an Alert.  When Jane informed him she was about to have a baby, he said to her, “Come on in.”  I am sure he didn’t want to become involved in the birth of a baby while he was trying to decide if he would allow the Mother to enter the gate.  So she sped right to the Hospital, and sure enough,  at 1602 hours on that sunny afternoon of 6 February 1961, THERESA ANNE BUTLER  first saw the light of day.  

 Jane was just elated that she now had a sister for Leslie Jane, and I know that Leslie was overjoyed about the new little baby. I didn’t learn of this blessed event for a few hours, as nobody called me to give me the Great news!!  The state of Arizona didn’t get the word correctly, so on the original birth certificate, instead of having her full name, it read “Baby Butler.”  But soon, we were able to get this corrected, and then her correct name appeared.  Jane had named Hal, Haynes and Leslie.  I named Carl and Theresa.  Carl after a good friend of mine who I helped train at Luke on my second tour there, his name was Carl Scott Miller.  And I named Theresa after my favorite and also Haynes’ favorite singer, even Theresa Brewer.  I am sure that Theresa has always enjoyed her name.  What about Anne?  I just think that it went so well with Theresa.  If I am incorrect, somebody can throw rocks at me.

 While I was the Commander of the 4515th Sq. my dear Mother, Maimee Burrus Haynes Butler died in Mission Hills, California on 14 June 1961.  She was living with my sister, Betty and her husband, Spurgeon  Smith in Mission Hills, California, near Hollywood.  She is burid in Val Hala cemetery in North Hollywood, California. 

When Mama died in California, Eugene, Jane, Hal, Haynes, Leslie, Carl and little Theresa were vacationing at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  For the first and the only time, we were pulling a huge, huge camper trailer that really slowed our Chevrolet a lot.  We had left the Grand Canyon that morning and were making our way west towards Williams, Arizona when a Highway Patrolman pulled us over, and I asked him if we were speeding.  He replied, “Of course not, are you Major Eugene Butler?”  “I am.”  He then said, “You are to call this number,” which I recognized as my sister Betty’s and I knew right then that my poor Mother had died.  As soon as we came to a pay phone, I called and sure enough, I was right.  

We drove home and Jane informed me that she wasn’t going to cross that huge desert until I had an Air Conditioner installed in the Chevrolet.  We had this done as soon as we arrived back at Luke, as they had a nifty one which fit on the floor between the driver and the front-seat passenger, and it worked well, too.  Poor little Theresa had become badly sunburned due to all the hot wind that blew into the car as we traveled along the highway.  We took her to Grandma Irene’s to stay while we went to Mama’s funeral in California. 

 Grandma Irene was very, very upset that we had allowed Theresa to become so sunburned as she was just a few months old.  But Grandma took excellent care of her and when we returned a few days later, she was much better.  The Squadron sent a beautiful floral arrangement to Mama’s funeral.  I told you that having a rich Lounge Fund was important, didn’t I?  Carl was almost five years older than Theresa, save 15 days.  As my Mother was born on 6 November 1886 and died on 14 June 1961, she was exactly 74 years plus 7 months of age plus a few days.  Mama died of diabetes.  In my opinion, had she not been stricken with this terrible disease, she would have lived a long, long time.  All she ever wanted was an honest husband who would make a decent living for her and the children, and except for her first husband, from the account she related to me years later, this never happened.  Her first husband died at a young age, I think it was her first one.

Just after Theresa was born and we were living in Capehart Housing at Luke AFB, Jane and I discussed moving to a private residence as we now had five children.  Hal was 14, Haynes was 10, Leslie was 8, Carl was 5 and Theresa newly arrived. (Year was 1961).  We knew that our little house on Base was not going to be large enough, especially with each child growing by the day---Take that back---by the hour!!  So I became quite busy in our quest for our own home, if possible, or in lieu of this, renting a wonderful place where we could live for at least a few years.  And we didn’t really give any thought of more children down the road, although I am sure this must have entered our minds on occasion.

 I have always enjoyed going through nice homes and wondering how I would have changed the floor plan.  Well, I also wanted to be close to work, if possible, so I spent most of my free time in the Litchfield Park area, about three minutes from the front gate at Luke.  I went through several homes there.  Some were for rent and others for sale, but just didn’t run across anything that really excited me.  Jane definitely didn’t enjoy going through homes, especially if they were occupied as she felt she was imposing.  I never knew the meaning of that word.  Eventually, I became acquainted with Roy Ross, a Real Estate Broker who I enjoyed associating with, as he definitely wasn’t pushy, and worked hard to find suitable housing for his clients.

Well, lo and behold, north of the small downtown area of Litchfield Park about a mile on Litchfield Road which ran right by the front of Luke AFB, and about 100 yards or so south of Camelback Road that runs east and west, on the west side of Litchfield Road, there was a Huge Mexican style home that was situated on 2 ½ commercial acres (Slightly less than 2 ½ normal acres).  It sat back from the road a good piece.  It was originally built by a rich Physician, we had been told; was later owned by a Goodyear executive, and then eventually a family by the name of Jarnigan owned this property.  I knew Mr Jarnigan’s brother, Marvin, as he was in our Glendale Ward where we attended Church.  Marvin and Eugene were Counselors to Bishop Melvin Huber at one time.  The owner of the house was not LDS, however.  He and his wife were wealthy cotton farmers who were getting old, all their children had left home, and their main pursuit was playing golf in the cool, eastern parts of Arizona in the summer.  They were anxious to sell their large home.  The price was $50,000, a steal even at that time.

 Before Roy Ross ever took me on the property, I just loved it.  There were many beautiful shrubs, lots of palm and citrus trees of every kind known in Arizona.  A large gravel driveway entered under a huge archway that had a metal elephant directly over your head as you entered the property.  The gravel driveway went north of the home and curved to the left in a 180 degrees turn to enter the spacious garage from the back of the home. This meant from the road, one would view an extra long home that ran from the south to the north, then a narrow breezeway then some more home.  This was a clever idea as you never knew where the garage was in this home until you were in the back yard, which was just Huge!!  Part of the back yard contained a large horse corral, complete with a covered shed for shade, and there was a large watering trough with cold water piped to it.  There was lots of desert in the back yard, although there were also trees there, too.  One just couldn’t count all the trees, mainly citrus and tall, tall mature palm trees.  Roy told me a family could have all the citrus they could use in season and then sell the rest of it for more than enough to pay the property taxes each year, about 600 dollars.

Inside starting from the south side of this beautiful mansion were four really large bedrooms, all carpeted, with two full baths.  In the master bathroom, there were built-in scales and equipment to measure your height as you stood on the scales; a large free standing lavatory, huge bathtub with overhead shower, and a separate shower, too.  This room was really huge.  Both bathrooms had beautiful colored fixtures that were in vogue then.  Next, the hallway ran north to the extra large, spacious Living room.  The ceiling in the living room was 16 feet in height, with small fixed windows at the very top to allow light to enter this beautiful room, both day and night.  On the west wall, was a really large fireplace made of  river rock from floor to ceiling.  It went with this room exactly right . Off the living room to the front of the home was a very large den that had a rich looking large gun rack on the west wall.  This room was surely beautiful in rich wood.  What an office this would be!!  

Just north of the extra large living room was the formal dining room whose ceiling was 8 feet in height.  It was really large, very formal and the dining room had a large window on the west side of the home overlooking the back yard.  North of the dining room was the huge kitchen.  West of the kitchen was another large room that had an upright freezer in it.  This room would have been our main dining room, as it was just beautiful with its large windows.  They called it a breakfast room.  Lots and lots of  room.

North of the kitchen and breakfast room was a breezeway that separated the house from the garage and maids quarters.  A door led into the maid’s quarters that consisted of a bedroom and a bathroom, both quite large.  In fact, everything in this house was simply Humongous, it was simply a Huge, Huge home from beginning to end.  There was not a small portion anywhere in this astounding home on the desert.  It had to be at least 5,500 square feet of living area if you counted the maid’s quarters.

I wanted this home so much, I even dreamed about living there.  One day, I asked Lloyd. Fish to go with me as I had the keys and he looked through the entire home.  He told me the house was extremely well built and had the finest of materials in it, and it would last forever. 

So this made me feel great.  Our family visited this lovely home many times and when Theresa was with us, she would stay in her little baby carriage, quite content to remain there.  The home also had a really nice screened playhouse that was on the roof of the building.  The roof was flat and had a very nice retaining wall that extended up about four feet from the roof, so it was very safe.  The only way you could get to the playhouse was from inside the home.  The entire property was just perfect for our family.

Another time, I asked Rollie Moore , the Civil Engineer and Fighter Pilot to go with me to the Jarnigan home.  He went over it with a fine toothed comb.  He went through the entire home, the playhouse, the garage and the maid’s quarters and the small basement that contained the hot water heaters, the furnace, and the huge air conditioner, all in perfect working condition.  To demonstrate how well this home was insulated, one day in August when the temperature was 110 degrees outside, we entered the home, the air conditioner was off as the Jarnigans were in eastern Arizona golfing.   Guess what?  The temperature inside the home was 84 degrees.  Most folks keep their home at 80 degrees in the summer there.  All the equipment that ran the home was in that little basement, well protected from the elements so they would last longer and also much more convenient to service.

When Rollie Moore had completed his examination of the home, he said to me.  “If you can purchase this wonderful property for fifty grand, grab it in a hurry and don’t lose it whatever you do.  Then I asked him how much trouble it would be to convert the large garage and maid’s quarters into a two-bedroom apartment that I would rent to married students and their wives who were in training at Luke.  He always carried 8 by 10 inch paper with him.  In free hand, he drew the present garage, bedroom, bathroom and storage area, then quickly showed me how to do it inexpensively, and I just loved what he came up with.  He didn’t touch the present bath and bedroom, but with a nice hallway, added another bedroom, kitchen, living room and other niceties.  He told me it would be a simple job to accomplish, very cheap to do, and that it would always be rented.  Then I told him if I purchased this property, I would add the student apartment plus build a very large beautiful swimming pool in the backyard, completely fenced and locked when we were not using it.  This would have been great for our family plus the married students living there.


This fantastic home was just about 2 minutes south of Luke AFB. You could hear the jets run up for takeoff, but this was my life and the noise was music to my ears, and still is after all these years.  I forgot to mention this, but oft times as I was in Colonel Bower’s office at Luke, the F-100’s on the runway, sometimes at least four of them, and when they lit their afterburners, the sound was deafening!!  He would remark, “There must be an airport close by.”  Indeed, there was.

I was very excited about purchasing this wonderful property.  Jane had slightly less than four acres of cotton land, so we offered it as the down payment.  It was more than enough for the down payment.  But Mr. Jarrnigan’s accountant said not to do it as the IRS could then accuse him of dealing in land and when they sold their farm in a year or so, the IRS would take them to the cleaners in regard to taxes.  Next, I told Roy Ross that if the Jarnigans would allow us to lease the home for two years, we would pay them $400 per month and we wanted credit for $350 per month as the taxes were just about $50 monthly.  The Jarnigans came back and said this was completely satisfactory with them, but they would still give us credit for the full $400 as they thought this was fair.  The only thing they requested was that Eugene was to purchase a policy that would insure the Jarnigans if we took off in the middle of the night and had wrecked their property, the policy would pay for the repairs.  They did NOT ask for any unpaid rent, or anything else at all.  I knew they were being completely honest and most fair with us.

I made the mistake of calling my old boss in the Insurance business, Rollo Norton.  He told me I could buy such a policy like this very easy, and the premium would be about $20 or $30 a year.  But then he added, “Eugene, don’t do this, they are requiring too much of you.  You are a professional officer with an outstanding record and they aren’t being fair with you.  So I never did purchase the most desired home for my tastes and the great use all my family would have gotten out of this “dream” home.  Even if I had considered Leslie’s lifelong dream of that time to actually own a horse of her own that she could ride and care for and share with her family, I should have jumped at this golden opportunity, now lost and gone forever.  What a terrible error I made!!!  One I would always remember forever.

 Now, why have I taken all this time to discuss a project that never came to reality??  Very simple.  A tremendous lesson in life can be learned in the story of this home: All of us are offered lots and lots of advice while we journey through this mortal life.  In fact, TONS of it!!  What is important in my humble opinion is simply this:  First, always take time to listen carefully and prayerfully before you decide to heed advice or to ignore it.  When I finally listened to Bill Ryan and was able to realize the logic of his argument of my taking all the tests that were necessary for me to become a Pilot, it made sense to me and I did it.  But I was too quick to listen to the advice Mr. Norton gave me, and let’s face it, what he advised begged for a logical conclusion, as it had none.  So this is my message for all my loved ones---Be extremely cautious in every bit of advice you receive from others, and especially when they aren’t aware of all the circumstances involved in your decision..…

After I failed to act on the Jarnigan  property as I should have, we looked some more, found the Alsobrook property in Glendale.  We purchased this home for $30,000 and moved there.  It was a lovely home, and Jane and all the children enjoyed this home tremendously.  Theresa had her first birthday while we lived there, and Grandma Irene was there to help celebrate her very first birthday.  I never enjoyed the fifteen minutes it took for me to drive to work, and especially when we had to return to Luke for any reason.  Carl became highly interested in baseball and soon was on a little league team and did very well.

To place some dates in concrete, I was the Commander of the 4511th Combat Crew Squadron (Instrument Training Squadron at Luke) from 16 October 1959 through 31 March 1961.  Then I was transferred at my request to the 4515th Combat Crew Training Squadron (Gunnery Squadron) at Luke from 1 April 1961 through 5 January 1962. 

This was a tremendous experience serving as the Commander of the Gunnery Squadron.  Incidentally, this was my third tour in this same building starting way back in 1945 when I left Foster Field for Luke Field due to my request to go to Luke.  We worked hard in this Squadron at this particular time and flying the F-100 was a real challenge, especially when you consider many of our students came to us direct from UPT where they had flown the most forgiving aircraft ever known to mankind, even the T-38.  Now they were faced with conquering the most vicious fighter and the most unforgiving, even the F-100.  A quantum leap, but most students made it successfully.

When I departed 5 January 1962, I had been at Luke on this assignment exactly 26 ½ months.  Not really very long, but we covered a lot of ground and gained a Ton of experience in this short space of time.  When I left Luke this time for Osan, Korea (K-8), Hal was almost 15, Haynes was 10 ¼, Leslie was almost 9, Carl was almost 6, and little Theresa was almost one.


 
MOST IMPORTANT ASSIGNMENT OF MY CAREER--OSAN

According to my official records, I arrived at Osan, AB, Korea on 6 January 1962 and I am positive that it was Sunday, as I arrived too late to attend Church on the Base.  The 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Itazuke AB, Japan had a nuclear alert pad at Osan and I was to be the new Pad Commander.   In this position, I had more responsibility than I ever dreamed possible.  It was a brand new job and with extremely high priority from the Air Force.  The Alert Pad was all fenced in with two really high fences.  We had much security on this pad, including dogs to prevent any unauthorized entry.  Each person had a special badge with picture, signature, etc. on it and nobody left the pad or entered without being properly identified.  When visitors arrived, regardless of rank, I had to go to the gate and personally escort them in and get them signed in at the gate.

The Pad was self-contained.  On the main floor of the operations building, there were the following:  Commander’s office, Operations office, the duty section where a duty officer was on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  His area had a gate that none of us ever entered, except on special occasions, a weather office, a large intelligence office, a huge auditorium that served as our briefing room twice a day, and at night, we had five different movies each week, and our own personnel ran these, and they were free to all our Troops. We also had a very nice snack bar, a Pilots lounge, and after I arrived, we built a brick wall and door to separate this lounge from the rest of the building and all the officers used this lounge to relax and read, etc.  It was well furnished with dark green carpet.  Also on the Pad were covered revetments where we parked all the F-100 aircraft that were loaded with nuclear weapons.  Each revetment held two aircraft, and there were two Security Policemen on duty all the time for each revetment.  We had maintenance buildings and a special weapons building where all the surplus nuclear weapons were stored, and also repaired as needed.  It was a very well planned Pad, lots of room, and extremely well guarded at all times.

All the pilots plus a Flight Surgeon who sat alert around the clock came to us each Thursday from the 8th Tactical Wing at Itazuke Air Base, Japan.  They stayed one week, then a new crew would arrive.  It was hard work sitting on alert all the time, and they also were allowed to fly while they were with us, which pleased them a lot.  I was the Flight Test Pilot, and we had many flight tests to conduct.  This was a fun job for me as most flights required an hour of flight time to complete.  Each flight, I always boomed the Base by diving the aircraft above the speed of sound pointed right at the center of the Base.  This was thrilling for the troops, or so they told me.  We held practice alerts all the time.   One kind of horn sounded for practice, then a different type for the real thing.  Naturally, all the time I was there, the real horn never sounded, except for very short tests, which were announced well ahead of  time so nobody would panic.

Besides all the pilots who were always on temporary duty with us, we had the Commander who was Eugene, Intelligence, Weather, cooks who ran the snack bar plus Maintenance, Weapons specialists, etc.  I was the Group Leader in the Church there from almost the time I arrived until I left in one year.  The upstairs of the Operations building contained all the sleeping quarters for all the aircrews and the Pad Commander.  I had a very nice room on the extreme northwest corner of the building.  A huge window of my room looked out over the ramp and part of the runway.  If I had to select one assignment of all the many places I was stationed which was the most important, rewarding and that helped my career the very most, it would have to be Osan, Korea.  I was my own boss, could change Air Force regulations and nobody ever questioned me enough to have them changed for my Pad; was almost always on my own in the decision making, always had the support of all the Troops, and really enjoyed working with all the permanent party personnel, the TDY personnel, all the Bomb Commanders (Pilots except when they were on alert on the Pad) and was always praised to high heaven by all the many Inspection Teams, including my old boss, Colonel Franklin H. Scott who led the last Inspection Team to be on my Pad ere I left for home.  He even admitted to me in private that he hadn’t been fair with me all the time I worked for him at Cannon AFB, New Mexico.  I let him know that I had always been a dedicated officer, and he knew this.  This tour was the highlight of my career with the possible exception of my combat tour in Vietnam that would come later.  I was a Major all during this tour.  When I was first promoted to Major, I was serving with the Chinese 4th Fighter Group on Formosa (Taiwan), but actually earned and was selected while at Luke AFB.

In June 1962, I asked my boss at Itazuke, Colonel Tote Talbot if I could take a leave to the U.S. and would purchase my own airline ticket both ways.  He readily agreed to this.  I went up to Seoul and purchased a  Northwest Airlines ticket, one of their special deals they were offering.  One day I boarded a DC-8 Airliner in Seoul and was soon back in Glendale, Arizona where my family was residing in the home we purchased when the decision was made to move out of Capehart Housing.  This was a very enjoyable time for each of the five children, Jane and Eugene.  While at home, the kids and I motored down to the lumberyard and purchased the materials for a nice playhouse for them, which we built in nothing flat.  While at the lumber- yard, a lady approached me and asked if all these kids were mine.  A total of five.  I thought she was going to get on my case because we were having so much fun shopping for all the materials required.  But this is what she said:  “I am very glad you are spending time with your young children.  They are very well behaved and I know all of you get along well with each other.  She went on to say that when her children were growing up, she and her husband worked really hard as they felt giving things to their children was the most important of all but they were wrong and once the children grew up, they didn’t even come see them.  She concluded by saying for us to keep doing things with our children and then when they grow up, they will still love you.  If I grow to be a hundred years old, I will never forget that dear lady in the lumberyard in Glendale on that beautiful day in June of 1962.

 Well, the days rushed by, soon, I was sitting in Los Angeles in my civilian suit awaiting the Airline to repair a broken aircraft so we could leap off for Japan and then Korea.  I was in a brand new lounge that was reserved for passengers of Pan American Airlines, only.  Sitting next to me was a woman who was surely overdressed and one who wore much, much expensive jewelry.  Finally, she turned to me and said , “I have no idea what you do for a living, but let me tell you about Air Force people.  They think they are so damn smart.  The Generals are mean, the Colonels are really stuck up, the Captains and Lieutenants are a rotten bunch, but the enlisted are the salt of the earth, but if you want to know who are the very worst of them all, it is the Majors.  They are just plain worthless.”   She paused for a moment and then asked, “What do you do for a living?”  I just couldn’t resist as I said to her proudly, “Lady I am a MAJOR in the United States Air Force.”  I thought she was going to die of a stroke.  She started making excuses, and I said to her, “That’s okay, you are entitled to your opinion.”  I thought all this was pretty funny.  With all the hundreds of folks in that lounge, why did she pick on me?  Then I recalled that when the steward in the lounge asked us what we wanted to drink, she told him, “Anything, just anything.”  I ordered a seven-up.  All the way to Japan, she put lots of distance between us.  Each time I visited the restroom, I asked her in a very cheerful voice, “How are you doing?”  But she never answered me once.  Her husband was a tech rep for Martin who made lots of missiles for the Air Force.  I would guess that she was a huge embarrassment to him.

I arrived back in Korea in great shape, especially when I discovered how wonderful Majors are.  We had several Servicemen’s Church Conferences in Seoul.  President Gail Carr was our 32-year old Mission President, in fact he was the first Mission President in Korea, and in those days, it was named the Korean Mission.  Their first child, Aaron was born in Seoul.  Elder Gordon B. Hinckley and his wife, Marjorie came there as he organized this Mission.  I will never know, probably, unless Pres. Carr who I still send Christmas Greetings can tell me, but when Elder Hinckley arrived, the Servicemen and the Missionaries were in about three days of meetings with the Hinckleys and these were excellent ones, too with most of us participating in them. A call to President Carr in Southern California where he resides finally gave me the answer :  Elder Hinckley told President Carr to include the Servicemen in everything in the Church in Korea.  He wanted us to feel that we were an important part of the Mission, etc. The Sunday session had all the Servicemen, the Missionaries and the Korean Saints in attendance.  The Church purchased property near Seoul which was very beautiful, but was actually a red light district for the American G.I.’s.   It contained many acres of land and it was heavily wooded.  Our Sunday meeting was in the ballroom of this place.  Although they had taken the gaudy sign on the outside down, you could still read the name from the shadow left on the marquee, but right now, I can’t remember what it was called.  I think it was named “The Broadway.” When you entered, the old bar was right in front of you, then the coatroom, and by turning right, you entered the huge ballroom.  President Hinckley told us that the Church was taking this worst place in all of Korea and was making it the best place of all.  And they did, too.  It was really an honor to be able to spend all this time with President & Sister Hinckley.   President Carr spent lots of time with the Servicemen and was always available to counsel the Group Leaders such as Eugene.  When I left the Alert Pad for the last time, I went to the Mission Home where I would spend my last night in Korea, even to this date.

 
SPECIAL STORY-- OSAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS PAD

This event took place at Osan Air Base, Korea that is about 20 or 30 miles south of Seoul, Korea.  Late in the night, possibly around 0100 hours Saturday in the year 1962, probably October or November, the Intelligence Officer, Captain Harley Wright who was the Chief of the Intelligence Section knocked on my door where I lived while serving as the Commander of this Alert Pad.  This Pad had 24 F-100 Aircraft on alert all the time in the event that war broke out between the U.S. and Russia.  When the following events transpired, this information was highly classified, but since then, it is now public knowledge.  This particular position was a great help to my career.  While there, I changed many AF Regulations because I had a better method of doing the job correctly.  Oft times, some high ranking AF General visiting our pad would remark to me, “Major Butler, I notice that you aren’t following AF Regulations, such and such, can you tell me why?  I always had a quick answer and it was simply this, “Sir, that Regulation has been waived for this Pad.”  And if any who asked this question would have asked me who waived it, I was always prepared to tell them that I did, and then would have drawn on the board to explain why my method of doing it was better.  Guess what?  I was never asked once.  They always said, “Okay.”

Now back to Captain Wright.  He asked me to come down to Intelligence as he wanted to tell me something.  When I arrived there in about two minutes, he stated the following:  “I don’t know what is going on, but there are hundreds and hundreds of messages flying all over the world, but as they are not for this office, I have no idea what it could be.  But I just know something BIG is happening, and I want to recommend that we go up RED ALERT right now, and if I am wrong, we can always call it a practice alert, as we do these all the time as part of our regular routine.

RED ALERT means you are ready to go to War when they tell you.  In other words, all the aircraft are fully loaded with fuel, the Nuclear Weapons have been loaded on the aircraft, they have been checked for leaks, etc. and the aircraft have been run up, all systems checked and they are correct and that we have a qualified Pilot on duty who is ready to fly the aircraft to the intended target.  I agreed with Captain Wright.  We pushed the practice alert warning button and informed all personnel to take their time and make sure everything was perfect, and to do a thorough job preparing for this Alert.

The biggest job was towing the six F-100 aircraft that we were flying each day inside the revetments, load the fuel tanks, load the Nuclear Weapons, start the engines to check out all the systems of the aircraft and the weapons, then shut the aircraft down and fill them completely with fuel, including the two 350 gallon external tanks that were just loaded. 

I need to mention at this point that we also had another Alert Pad at the other end of the Runway from us which was normally located at Kunsan Air Base.  Kunsan is also on the West Coast of Korea, but farther south from Osan.  As their runway was being resurfaced, it was necessary to move them to Osan.  Normally, two Alert Pads dealing with Nuclear Weapons were never located in the same proximity.

As quickly as I could after we started preparing to go up RED ALERT, I drove to the other Pad Commander’s Quarters, woke him up, and asked him to come out to my pickup truck so we could talk in private.  I then told him what we were doing and why, and highly recommended that he also go Up RED ALERT.  He was a very lazy, don’t care Lt. Colonel who would never be promoted anyway, and in essence, told me to Drop Dead.  So I left and hurried back to my own Pad to see how the Alert was progressing.  It was going even smoother than I had imagined.

As each aircraft on the Pad is fully ready, the Pilot (But called Bomb Commander when sitting alert for Nuclear Weapons) calls the Duty Officer from the cockpit of the aircraft, and states “Number One” or whatever his number is from one through twenty-four is UP!”  This exercise on this particular night took us just a little over two hours that is considered excellent when everything is done correctly and thoroughly and not rushed.

When the last of the 24 aircraft called in, this meant we were now Officially RED ALERT.  In less than five minutes after our last aircraft had checked in, we received a message from Air Force Headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. to go up RED ALERT and to notify them when we were UP.  In less than five minutes after they instructed us to go RED ALERT, they received our message that the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing Alert Pad was UP.

Early the next morning, two Colonels flew to Osan, landed and shortly thereafter, arrived at my Alert Pad and said they wanted to talk with the Commander and the Intelligence Officer.  We escorted them to the Intelligence Office.  They stated that the Air Force just knew there had been a serious leak in the Intelligence System and that we had been privy to it.  Otherwise, how could we go up RED ALERT in less than five minutes and also informed us that we were the very first Alert Force in the entire world to get up RED ALERT.

They looked at me and I told them Captain Wright would explain to them how we were the very first to accomplish this.  They then asked me if I had informed the other Pad Commander at Osan that he should also go up RED ALERT!!  I told them that I urged him to do so shortly after we started, but he refused and went back to bed.  They told us that his Pad was the very last in the entire world to get up RED ALERT!!  This didn’t surprise me one tiny bit.  I am sure he was relieved of his Command and he should have been.

Well, this turned out to be the infamous Cuban Crises that occurred under President John F. Kennedy.  Needless to say, Going up RED ALERT at the very instant the decision was made to do so by me, surely reflected favorably upon Captain Wright and Major Butler.  But more importantly, we did a quality performance when it counted the most.  During the Cuban Crises, we came very close to going to war against Russia.  It is just spooky, to say the least.  (Captain Harley Wright was an Honor graduate out of Texas A&M College, and he was one brilliant individual.  He was not a rated pilot, but worked extremely well with us.  Because he was so very intelligent, we jokingly called him “Hardly Wright.


The day I was to leave the Alert Pad to return to the U.S., my replacement arrived.  We were all set up to thoroughly brief him.  First, I took him to all the different sections so he could see first hand his total domain.  Then all the heads of these sections such as the Weather Officer, Intelligence Officer, Chief Duty Officer, Maintenance Officer, Weapons Officer, etc. met with him for a final briefing and to answer all his questions.  This was much better than when I arrived.  The Old Commander had departed and nobody briefed me at all.  When he said that he had no further questions, I told him goodbye and the pickup was outside waiting to take me to Seoul.  He looked very startled and said, “What if I have more questions?”  I told him he would learn a lot faster once I was gone, and assured him he would be fine.  

Just as I was about to walk out the door,.Captain John Westphal, a wonderful Friend of mine walked up to me and said, “Major Butler, Colonel Obenshain wants to talk to you, shall I tell him you are gone?”  

I almost said yes, but something prompted me to tell John that I would immediately go in the other room to see what he wanted.  As far as I was concerned, I had never liked this repugnant officer since I first met him at Clovis several years ago. He was always getting on my case, had a very dirty mouth, and was just very uncouth.  When I approached him, I thought to myself, I’m in for a bad time, and I don’t need this right now.  This is what he said in essence, “Major Butler, ever since I first met you, I have been most unkind and utterly mean to you and always did my best to make you tell me off, and to use filthy language on me such as I always did to you.  But always, without exception, you were true to your faith and your religion and were always a true gentleman. Will you please forgive me?  We surely need more of your kind in the Air Force.  Just keep being the kind of individual you have always been to me.” 

 I was touched by all he had just said, and I had difficulty in thanking him, then wishing him Godspeed and telling him goodbye.  I never saw him again.  I know that he finally made full Colonel and I was informed that he suffered a horrible stroke later on in his life, and I would presume that he is now gone.  What a wonderful lesson he taught me that day.  Elder Richard L. Evans once asked, “Are you slow on the comeback when somebody makes a cutting remark to you?  Yes, Good!”  Oh, that I could always hold my tongue in cases like this!!
 

  SAGA OF HOW WW III WAS ALMOST A REALITY

This true story occurred during the Cuban Missile Crises In Late 1962.  All the material contained herein is now unclassified, thus I can write this as it occurred and was related to me by the person I will tell you about later.

The U.S. Air Force had deployed a large number of F-100 aircraft from Luke AFB to Homestead AFB, Florida which is to the south of Miami extremely close to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.  These aircraft were armed with nuclear weapons in the event they needed to be deployed against Fidel Castro and Cuba.  If you are a historian, you will know that President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Kruschev were “Eyeball to Eyeball” over Russia having Nuclear Missiles stationed in Cuba, and nobody will ever realize how very close this event almost took us headlong into World War Three.

The main character in this intense drama was Major James Reynolds, a Fighter Pilot who was well known in the Air Force.  He had been a member of the Acrobatic Flying Team in Europe, was a terrific Fighter Pilot, and for some unknown reason was in one kind of trouble or another for most of his career.  He worked for me in the 4515th Combat Crew Training Squadron at Luke AFB, Arizona as one of my five Flight Commanders.  He was an expert in teaching young Jocks to fly Fighters, but more important, he was just Super in helping them to become an important part of the Legacy of being true Fighter Pilots.  His brother, Allie Reynolds was the famed New York Yankees Pitcher of yesteryear.  The Reynolds were part Indian and hailed from Oklahoma.  Major Reynolds dearly loved the Military and especially the Flying.  His call sign at Luke was “Little Joe.”

When I had lived in this home in Provo, Utah about 2 or 3 years (1990 or 1991) a Reporter from the Seattle Times in Seattle, Washington called me on the phone one day.  After properly identifying himself and being fully satisfied that I was Major Reynolds’ Squadron Commander at Luke AFB, he related this story to me:  (He told me he was going to write this story just as he had related it to me, and when it was ready, he would send me a copy of it as it would appear in the Seattle Times.)

After going through the entire episode with me, he asked me if it were possible that this could have happened to Major Reynolds, based on what I knew about him.  I replied, “It certainly could have, and I Am Not One Bit Surprised That It Did, Indeed, Occur.”

At the Command Post during the Cuban Crises, the head General was talking and thinking out loud as to how he could save the United States from being involved in World War Three.  A Captain who was on duty there asked the General what was bothering him so much.  “Well, it is like this.  A short while ago, Major Reynolds and his Wingman were launched from Homestead AFB on a Mission to Cuba.  Both aircraft are loaded with Nuclear Weapons—The Mission---To Drop these two Nuclear Weapons on Downtown Havana.”  As Eugene was in Nuclear Weapons for a long time, I must tell you that in those days, there was no recall once an aircraft was launched with Nuclear Weapons aboard.  The reason—If the enemy could put out a spurious call, then all the aircraft heading for targets could be sent back to their Base of Takeoff, and the U.S. would lose the War by default.

The Captain immediately asked the General if he would permit him to call Major Reynolds in the air, and get him to come back, with the promise the enemy would never know what was going on.  “By all means, do,” replied the General.  The Captain pressed the mike button, and said, “Little Joe, this is Captain Swensen, do you read me?”  Answer, “Roger Boy, I read you loud and clear.”  Captain Swensen:  “Listen very carefully, Three weeks ago tonight, you and your wife Marge and my wife, Sue and I had dinner at Jordan’s Mexican Restaurant In Phoenix.  You ordered Enchiladas with refried beans, Marge ordered Tacos with rice, my wife, Sue ordered Hot Tamales with lots of lettuce and I ordered Beef Enchiladas & beans.”  Are you with me?”  Answer, “Yes, go ahead.”  “You ordered 2 beers during the meal, Marge had a Coke, Sue had Lemonade and I had a beer.  Do you believe that I am Captain Swensen?”

Major Reynolds:  “Tell me the names of all my children and their ages.”  Captain Swensen then rattled all these off exactly correct.  Major Reynolds:  “Tell me the names of all your children starting with the youngest.”  Captain Swensen answered all these correctly.  Major Reynolds:  “What kind of car do I drive and what model and year is it?”  Again, Captain Swensen answered correctly. Major Reynolds: What is your address, what kind of car do you drive, and where did I first meet you and what year was it?”  Again, Captain Swensen answered correctly.  Major Reynolds: Tell me your date of birth, what state you are from, the Flying Class you graduated, the location, and your very favorite joke that you tell all the time.”  Once again, Captain Swensen related all this in correct order and then asked   if Major Reynolds had any more questions.  Answer, “NO.”  Captain Swensen:  “Do you accept the fact that I am really Captain Swensen?”  Major Reynolds:  “Yes, I do, what is your message??”

Captain Swensen: Little   Joe, This is my message to you…Whatever You Are Planning To Do, JUST DON’T do it!!!’  Major Reynolds:  ‘Roger Boy, I read your message loud and clear!!”

Later on, Major Reynolds was calling Homestead AFB for Landing Information, both aircraft landed with the Nuclear Weapons still hung on the bottom of the F-100’s.  For reasons still not known, Little Joe and his Wingman were launched in error, with no Authority from above to Bomb Down town Havana.  Had it not been for the Captain and his true genius, plus the fact he knew Major Reynolds better than anybody else, World War Three was Eminent!!!  This near tragedy occurred just a few days after Captain Harley Wright convinced me to take our Nuclear Alert Force Up RED ALERT AT Osan, Korea on that fateful night prior to the Cuban Crises!!!

Major Reynolds and his Wingman were sent back to Luke AFB immediately after this event occurred.  He later served in Vietnam.  While there, he was driving a Jeep back to his Base.  It crashed, flew up in the air, he was thrown out, and the Jeep fell on top of him, mainly a rear wheel.  This accident almost killed Little Joe.  He was sent home as a paraplegic, retired from the Air Force, and would never walk again in this mortal existence.  He and his family lived across the street from us in Litchfield Park, Arizona, where his widow, Marge Reynolds still resides.  She has lived in this home for over 36 years.  Shortly after Major Reynolds retired, his son, Steven, a Marine, was sent to Vietnam to fight the war and was killed in action there.  On 2 September 1987, Jim Reynolds died in the Phoenix VA Hospital while being operated on for stomach ulcers.  His older brother, Allie, the famous Yankees Pitcher of old, died approximately five years ago.  In talking with his widow, Marge, she never knew anything about this incident, only that her husband was launched from Homestead on some secret Mission, then sent home to Luke AFB early. 

 Note:  What happened to Major Reynolds at Homestead AFB, Florida could not have occurred at Osan where I was the Pad Commander.  Why?  Very simple: Our Pad was completely surrounded by Two Very High Reinforced Fences.  The only person authorized to order the Gates to be opened was the Pad Commander.  In this case, Higher Headquarters would not have issued me any orders that the War had begun and the Gates would have remained closed and locked.  At Homestead, there were no fences, I am sure, so it was just a matter of taxiing the aircraft to the end of the runway and roaring off into the night skies headed for Cuba and Downtown Havana!!!

The Reporter from the Seattle Times never called me again, and never sent the promised story, either.  I would surmise that his boss simply killed this thrilling story, as he might have felt that it would have caused too much furor, but who knows??  Marge related to me that this Reporter had sent her something a long time ago, and she is going to attempt to find it.  If she does, she will send it to me.  I believe in the old adage, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”  And indeed, most of the time it is.

Shortly before I was to leave Osan, Korea, I received the very sad news that my Great Friend and brother-in-law, Marshall Ivey was in a terrible automobile wreck in Apple Valley, California where he, Shirley and their three little children were now living.  I suppose that they moved from New Mexico about the same time as did Bill Butler and D.D. Butler and also Paul Butler and their families.  Marshall died on 19 December 1962.  They buried him in Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky where he was born.  He was just over 30 years of age when he died.  I just wish I had been in the U.S. when he died, then we could have attended his funeral.  As with my other close Friends, I know that I will see Marshall again on the other side of the veil.  I was always amazed at how very much we were similar and how we always got along so beautifully, with never anything but tremendous feelings for each other.  And as I told him on the ramp that day in Albuquerque, we would never fly in the same Jet during this phase of our existence. 
  
 
FOURTH & FINAL ASSIGNMENT TO LUKE

Thank goodness, I received another assignment to Luke, my fourth.  This meant no move for my family and I would be back serving in the Fighter Pilot'’ Heaven, which Luke was in my finite wisdom.  However, this didn’t come without lots of help from my former boss, Colonel Edwin McGough, who was a classmate of my boss while serving on the Alert Pad at Osan, even Colonel Tote Talbot.  I think they even worked together on this change of assignment from McConnell AFB, located in Wichita, Kansas.  I don’t even know why they even gave me this assignment, and I never found out.  My sincere gratitude to Colonel McGough and to Colonel Talbot.  Colonel McGough made 2 stars and Colonel Talbot made 3 stars prior to retirement. They were classmates at West Point and lifelong Friends.   I just learned from Fred Larson who was a student in my Squadron in 1966 that General McGough and his family now live in New Mexico and he holds some elected office.

Well, I didn’t make it back to Glendale, Arizona for Christmas as my tour in Korea was for one year.  This meant that I was home for Christmas 1961.  But right after the first of the year, 1963 in early January, I was home at last.  The children had grown some since I last saw them in June 1962, especially Theresa.  It was good to be home again, and especially to know we would be at Luke again.  I almost felt that I owned Luke AFB.

At Luke AFB, Arizona on 15 February 1963, at 1347 hours local time, DANA DAVID BUTLER was born in the Base Hospital.  When I asked the Physician who delivered him if he were a boy, he said yes, as he was not pretty enough to be a girl.  He was kidding, of course, since he was a very fine looking young baby who would prove to be a quiet, reserved young boy who was exceptionally easy to get along with and all his brothers and sisters were mighty proud of him and awfully glad he arrived safe and sound from Heaven.  He gave us no trouble and fit right in with the rest of the family. Gee, another February baby.  Hal, Leslie, Carl, Theresa and Dana.  The 6th, 15th, 17th, 19th and the 21st.  This is the record Carl would have upset had he been born 20 minutes later at Cannon AFB, New Mexico.  (If one goes by age in this grouping, it is 17, 19, 21, 6 and 15.

This tour at Luke would be the longest assignment in time Eugene would ever have in his Air Force career. This tour began on 7 January 1963 and would conclude on 30 November 1967, exactly four years , ten months plus 23 days.  When I reported to work on this last tour at Luke, they assigned me at the Wing level as the assistant to Lt. Col .Charles W. Reed who was the Chief, Operations & Training Division for the Wing.  I had known Colonel Reed over at Williams AFB in 1950 and 1951.  He was a quiet officer, kept to himself, talked very little, if at all about his family and just hated to notify a family about a serviceman’s demise.  This just blew him away.  He often wondered how the Mormons handled death so very well.  He was easy to work for and he ran an efficient division.  I worked for him from January 1963 until 14 October 1963 when he was transferred.  Then I worked for Colonel Charles E. Simpson who came to us from Cannon AFB.  I had never known him before.  Eugene then became Chief of the Operations Division.  I never did like working on a Staff, as I felt the real action was in the Flying Squadron, and it was!!  In this position, I spent eight months.  The date was now about 15 June 1964.

We had lived in the Glendale Ward ever since coming from 12th Air Force Hq. In Waco, Texas in October 1959.  About the middle of June, 1964, Bishop Melvin Huber asked if I would like to represent the Ward by attending an Alcoholic Seminar at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.  As I thought this would be an interesting experience for me, I jumped at the chance to go.  When I asked my boss at Luke, Colonel Simpson if I could attend, he replied, “Why on earth would you want to attend a Seminar on Alcoholism when you don’t even drink?” When I explained to him that it was to help Alcoholics, he was excited for me to go.  And the Air Force likes events such as this, and I was on Air Force time while attending this Seminar.  

It was a great experience for me.  I met a lot of well known folks there, including Calvin Rampton who was running for Governor of the state of Utah the first time and his nice wife.  They sat at our table for the concluding luncheon of this Seminar, and were very gracious and kind to all of us.  I was driving a 1964 Corvair, about the worst car I ever owned.  We had some outstanding speakers during this week from all over America.  One of the best of them was Marty Mann, who was the head of Alcoholics Anonymous for the state of New York.  She told us many scary stories about drunks.  For example, over 3,000 years ago, a Chinese Emperor decided that if they would throw a drunk in a pit full of snakes, he would be cured.  Well, it didn’t work, but it did scare the drunk half to death!  When she first started her address, she stated, “Alcoholism is the most expensive disease known to mankind.  Have you purchased a bottle of booze lately?”  And just the way she said this made it sound dirty.  She was a wonderful speaker with a deep, heavy whiskey voice.

  We also learned where the name of “Booze” originated.  In early America, the name of the man who made the bottles for whiskey was named Booze.  Thus, soon, people would say, “Give me a bottle of booze.”  And the name stuck.  There was an older man there and I sat next to him.  He was the Justice of the Peace in Manti, Utah.  He told me that in his early years, he was very wealthy, but started drinking heavily and ere he knew it, had gone through three fortunes.  His family quit him and he was really down in the dumps when he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and then made his way back, including his family getting back with him.  He then said to me, “Guess where I am going when we get out of these meetings today.”  “I just don’t know,” I replied.  He pulled a Temple Recommend out of his shirt pocket and told me he was going to a session at the Salt Lake Temple.  His name was Alton Stringham.  A few years later, Ruth Christiansen was one of his nurses in the rest home in Mayfield, Utah and he died in this home.  Even though he had more than 30 years on the wagon, this bad habit came back to hasten his demise.  Marty Mann also told us in one of her lectures that Alcoholism is one of the most painful diseases known to mankind.  She went on to say that the Alcoholic drinks like mad all day and far into the night, finally falling to sleep in a drunken stupor.  Then the next morning, every bone in their body aches, they are mentally and spiritually depressed and just feel rotten.  And what is the only thing that seems to help them??  Another drink, thus the vicious cycle.  I came home a more somber person, but actually elated that we didn’t drink in our family.  Now I fully understood why Jane almost fainted when I invited her to have a beer when I first dated her in early 1944 and was driving that HUGE Packard automobile!!   

 You won’t believe this, but just as soon as I returned from this Seminar on Alcoholism, Colonel Simpson called me in and said I was to be the new Commander of the 4515th Combat Crew Training Squadron, replacing another Commander who was being relieved due to his heavy drinking.  Isn’t this ironic??  This was the latter part of June. And I was back in the very same building where I first served in 1945!!

In just a few days, they held my Welcome To The Squadron party in Phoenix with Colonel & Mrs. Simpson plus other dignitaries in attendance.  I explained that inasmuch as I had just returned from the Seminar on Alcoholism, Colonel Simpson informed me that with my new training, I was ready to assume command of the 15th!!  I thought they would die laughing at my remarks.  This was a wonderful assignment for me, and I truly appreciated Colonel Simpson’s faith in me, as I thought at one time that he really didn’t want me to Command a Squadron, but he did, indeed.  I would Work for Colonel Simpson until 20 May 1965 when he transferred.  Then I worked for Colonel Chenault from then until 20 May 1967, a period of two years.  Colonel Chenault and I were instructors at Williams AFB in late 1950, and we were in the same carpool at one time while at Willie.  He was my best boss, by far, in the Air Force and the one who would get me promoted to full Colonel in due time.  I worked for Col. Simpson both as a Major & a Lt. Colonel.  We lived in our home in Glendale when I was promoted to Lt. Col. 

At all the parties, Colonel Chenault would come up to me and do his best to entice me to take a drink, which I never did.  Shortly ere he was to leave Luke, he told me in his office one day that although he tried his best to get me to take even one little drink, I never did.  Then he said, “If you would have ever given in, I would have lost all respect for you.”  And he meant it, too.  He was totally supportive of our Squadron and was always there to sing our praises to the rank and to all other important dignitaries.  

 

 

I can’t remember the exact date, but during one of the summers of my last tour at Luke AFB, Arizona, probably in August of 1966 or 1967, a very different individual came into my life.  Our Squadron gave lots and lots of rides to our F-100 Crew Chiefs.  This was done to reward them for all the hard work that they accomplished for us in keeping our Birds in excellent condition.  Instead of the Instructor Pilot flying the Mission in a single seat F-100 D, we would order a dual place F-100F, so the Crew Chief could go on the gunnery mission with us by riding in the back seat of the Bird.  One extremely hot day, a Crew Chief whose name I don’t remember was scheduled to ride with me on the Tactical Range southwest of Gila Bend.

This meant the young man had already been trained by our squadron personnel in regard to ejection procedures, oxygen system, and all his personal flying gear that consisted of a flying suit, Helmut & Oxygen Mask, G-Suit, gloves, boots, parachute, etc.  The students on this particular Mission were about ready to graduate and be assigned to regular Fighter Units in the Air Force.  The Crew Chief flying with me that day was a bright, alert young man, who looked like he was the picture of health, and I could tell he was really eager to be with us.  Well, the air was extra turbulent, it was hotter than blazes and the maneuvers on the Tactical Range consisted of being on your back a lot, plenty of G’s on each recovery from the attack, and just was a really rough ride, to put it mildly.  And we normally pulled about 5 to 7 G’s on the pullout from the target. This was a simulated combat Mission and it was indeed, a tough ride!!  Everything pertaining to this particular Mission on this extra hot summer day helped an individual to become ill who was not accustomed to flying Fighters.  Well, this young man did Super well.  I asked him often how he was doing as I didn’t want to make him ill if we could avoid this.  Finally, we left the Tactical Range, climbed for altitude, then I spread the flight of four out so they could take a little break, and I wanted to let this young Crew Chief fly the F-100.  This was his very first ride in the F-100 although he had been a Crew Chief on it for quite awhile.  

 He did a pretty good job of flying the machine and enjoyed it, too.  Finally, I asked him when he had last been ill.  To my utter dismay and surprise, he replied, “Sir, I have never been ill in my entire life.”  What about your childhood diseases, having the flu, or a cold, or an upset stomach due to eating raunchy food, or any other motion sickness?  He had never been ill in his entire life and he was spared all the childhood diseases that all of us have.  WOW!!  I just couldn’t believe him.  Never Been Ill!!  A couple of days later, I asked one of the Flight Surgeons if this were even possible in a human being.  He said that it was possible, and it had been my good fortune to know one in about One Hundred Forty Million people who could honestly claim this.  Many, many years later while conversing with a Physician, I told him this story, and he told me the odds of this is about one in One Hundred Forty Million people!!  To this date, I have never talked with anybody who has known one of these rare individuals with perfect immune systems. I should have asked this young man to write his full name, address, plus other things about him, and to get at least his parents and his grandparents addresses so I could stay in touch with him.  But I didn’t and now I can’t even remember his name or where he was from, etc. Both Physicians I discussed this young man with stated that this individual had a wonderfully strong immune system, thus no disease could enter his body and make him ill.

Each year when the Air Force Academy Cadets came to Luke for training, I was the Project Officer for them.  This was a fun job.  I even took some of them to our Toastmasters Meetings and they were invited to speak to us there.  One young Cadet arose and said to us, “The Air Force Academy is a place where they take away from you all your God-given rights, then give them back to you one at a time as you earn their respect.”  He was right.

We always had Standup Briefing each day at the end of flying.  This was held in a room with no windows, called the Wing Command Post.  Each Squadron had a huge board with all your sorties listed from top to bottom and how each flight went, etc.  All the high priced civilians who worked for Lockheed were there, as the Germans flew the F-104 that was manufactured by Lockheed, and other firms who manufactured weapons systems for the F-104 plus all the F-100 people, including Maintenance, other support people, and all the Flying Squadron Commanders, plus the Wing Commander and his Deputy Commander and our boss, the Deputy Commander for Operations.  In fact, all the important people on the Base responsible for running the Wing.  This made for a huge bunch of Personnel in this meeting.

 

Colonel Gus Hendry was the Wing Commander and he was of Greek descent.  He would always start with the Squadron Commander on his left, then move along until all the Commanders had reported how the day had gone in regard to all the flying sorties.  The 15th Squadron had experienced a perfect day in this regard, so I said in essence, “70 scheduled, 70 flown on time, What else can I say?”  As I was always the Project Officer for the Air Force Cadets and they were at Luke that week, Colonel Hendry asked me,“How many of your Cadets became ill today?”  (This meant while flying in  aircraft) and if I live forever, I will never know why I gave him such a rude, smart aleck reply!!!  I said, “Colonel Hendry, you know that this is classified information.”  

As soon as I said this, I realized I was in deep, deep Kimche!!  Colonel Hendry was no person to joke with at this briefing and in front of the entire Wing where the Wheels were gathered!!  All eyes were fixed on The Old Man and me!! His face turned purple, he bit down exceedingly hard on his cigar and I knew I was in much Trouble!  Then he relaxed the bite on the cigar, his face slowly returned to normal, and very politely, he looked right at me and said, “Well, I am cleared for Confidential,” and immediately I said, “Well, in that case, Only one of them became ill while flying in our squadron today.”  (The Wing Commander has the security clearance of Crypto, the very highest of all clearances and everybody at the bottom of the totem pole has a clearance of Confidential.”  He let me off the hook as he really liked me and had great respect for me and my religion.  That was the most stupid thing I ever said to a ranking officer while on duty.  And henceforth, I watched myself very carefully.  Also, his wife was a Butler and this meant something to him!

Well, he went on to the other Squadron Commanders, and when they were all through, he came back to the 14th Squadron Commander and asked him how many of his AF Cadets became ill that day while flying.  The Commander answered him right away very politely.  Colonel Hendry then Proceeded to give him Holy Hell, chewing him up one side and down the other!!  The briefing for this day was over.  I said to the 14th Commander that I was to blame for him getting chewed out.  He told me not to worry,
He knew the Old Man wouldn’t get on my case as he thought too much of me, but he also knew Col. Hendry didn’t like the 14th squadron, thus he was the sacrificial Lamb.  And he was correct in this statement.  I never did apologize to Colonel Hendry for my rude remarks, as I knew he wouldn’t like this.  But I did appreciate his great tolerance of me in this situation!! Colonel Hendry would make Two Stars before he retired.  He died about February 1999, probably from a terrible stroke he suffered several years ago.

Jane was expecting her last child and informed me in no uncertain terms that although she always received much better service and treatment at the Base than in town, she nevertheless was going to Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, a distance of over 10 miles.  She wanted her very own Doctor to deliver this next baby, and she wouldn’t budge.  Never mind the expense, as the Air Force wouldn’t pay a dime when qualified Physicians were on the Base for delivery of babies. Leslie, Carl, Theresa and Dana were all born at Luke AFB, except for Carl who was born at Cannon AFB in New Mexico.  So on 29 October 1964, the last of seven children came to live with us and richly bless our lives.

JAMES ALAN BUTLER was born at 1830 hours, just over 24 hours later than his dad was born in 1923 in Clovis.  Jim was named after all the James who are in our Butler line, and as I was privileged to name him, I always liked the name of Alan which is spelled a little different than most others with this name.  Poor Jane’s plans went awry as her personal Physician was off deer hunting somewhere, and some Intern who had probably never delivered a baby in his entire life delivered Jim.  But he must have done okay, as Jim came home from the hospital well and happy.  In my humble opinion, Jim had the best of all worlds.  After all, he had six older brothers and sisters who treated him well, and did many nice things for him at all times.  He grew up a very happy child, and I think from day one, he fully understood the principle of forgiveness to the Nth degree.  I can still see him standing in the yard of our home in Litchfield Park during hot weather with the hose running full blast pointed in the air and all the water falling on his head and body.  He dearly loved this pastime!!

When Jim was born, we were still living in the Alsobrook home in Glendale.  Only Dana and Jim were born while we lived in this home.  On 17 December 1965, we moved into our brand new home that Lloyd Fish built for us in Litchfield Park, about a three minute drive to Luke AFB.  It was an excellent home for all of us.  We had just about 2550 square feet of living area, with lots of storage space in the large garage.  This home was over 80 feet long, with five bedrooms, three really nice bathrooms, a spacious entryway, large living room, formal dining room with beautiful built-in cabinets, all wood in the entire house was ash, a very beautiful and hard wood.  Beautiful, functional kitchen & large Den.  Also, a nice laundry room with central vacuum system, covered back patio and nice front porch.  This home was all on one level and was probably easier to keep clean and neat than any home we have ever lived in before or since.  Thus, I am sure that Hal was born in Phoenix, Haynes and Jim in Phoenix, Leslie, Theresa and Dana at Luke AFB, Arizona and Carl at Cannon AFB, New Mexico.

Back to the Jarnigan home for just a minute.  Leslie Jane always wanted a horse from the minute she knew what a horse was and each Christmas list she made always had a horse listed first.  Had we purchased the Jarnigan home, she would have had a horse, as it was zoned for horses and the corral, covered shed and water were already in place.  All it needed was a horse and some feed for the animal.  I have always felt bad that Leslie never did realize her childhood dreams of owning a horse, and this was, in reality, our best chance of all.

While Eugene was still working for Colonel Chenault, our Wing Commander, Colonel Arthur Small was retiring from the Air Force.  A few years before he retired, he was a Wing Commander at Alconbury, England.  One day, one of the B-66 aircraft assigned to his Wing lost all its navigational equipment in bad weather, strayed over the border into Russia and was shot down.  This caused an international crisis.  President Lyndon Johnson personally called Colonel Small on the phone and fired him as the Wing Commander.  Colonel Small would later brag that he was the only Colonel who had ever been personally fired by the President of the U.S.  Colonel Small was one of the sharpest officers I ever knew.  At Luke, he was on the list to make General, and some staff member in the White House redlined him, which meant he was removed from the promotion list.  When this occurred, he decided it was time to retire.

Colonel Chenault assigned me to provide the skit at Colonel & Mrs. Small’s Farewell Party that would be held in the Officers Club at Luke.  First, I obtained his official records from Personnel, then called his secretary and then his wife.  They both told me not have a “This Is Your Life” on him, as he was just too sentimental, and couldn’t take this kind treatment.  When I informed Colonel Chenault what these two women had said to me, he said,  “To Hell with them, do it!!”  We did it.  Believe me, I had all the dirt on him, and all his really great accomplishments, in fact all about him from the time he started school in Oklahoma, through the wars right up to the present time.  The reason Col. Chenault wanted me to do this program was because he knew it would be highly entertaining, and nothing offensive, and also that the Smalls would enjoy it tremendously and so would all those in attendance.

 The place was packed to the maximum.  It was a well received, Happy and also tearful production as we bid this good man and his wife farewell as he retired.  It flowed rapidly, we had really great attention and at the end, I had four officers who could really sing and play the guitars step out from behind a curtain.   We asked the entire audience to stand as all of us joined in with the guitar players when we sang his favorite, “Auld Lang Syne.” For some reason, they had three children who never were close to their Dad, but we handled this in a delicate manner.  Everything in the entire program was positive, and even if you had never met him prior to this presentation, you would have an excellent idea who he was and all the history about him.  Well, he along with lots of us cried, we laughed,  and he told this huge audience that this was the finest tribute ever paid to him and his sweet wife, who was born and raised in Australia.  

Well, in May of 1967, Colonel Chenault transferred and Colonel Benjamin H. Clayton became my boss.  But in the six months that I worked for him, still at the 4515th Combat Crew Training Squadron, I just didn’t have very much contact with him.  I first met Colonel Clayton way back at Tyndall AFB, Panama City, Florida when I was a student in the Air Force Instrument School and he was an instructor there as a Captain.  He was one sharp Fighter Pilot and then I saw him later in Vietnam, although we were in different organizations.

The last day of November 1967 would be my very last day of four assignments I was blessed to have at Luke AFB, Arizona.  Gee, from late 1945 through 1967, a span of 22 years.  And each day I served there, I was privileged to have a flying job:  A rarity in anybody’s book.

 







 
COMBAT ASSIGNMENT TO VIETNAM

From Luke AFB, I traveled to the Philippines.  Previous to going to Vietnam, I went through Survival School at Fairchild AFB near Spokane, Washington.  I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment.  And I am sure that my early upbringing of going without helped me a lot in this school.  I had seen worse days than this school had to offer.  I felt that the school would help any aircrew member who might be shot down in a hostile environment, survive and be able to cope with the enemy much better.  


When I think of Survival in an Enemy situation, I automatically think of my Longtime Friend, Allie B. Burton from Kerrville, Texas and he and I were in Advanced Flight Training at Eagle Pass, Texas.  We were really close Friends there, and we always had a lot of fun together.  Like Eugene, he left the Service after WW II was over.  Then during the Korean Conflict, he was recalled and when he came through F-84 training at Luke, I was his Flight Commander.  On his very first flight in Korea, he was shot down through no fault of his own.  When he was released from Prison Camp, on his way home, he had a stop in Phoenix, called me, and I went to the airport and he came home with me for a few hours.  We had a very long and meaningful and highly interesting conversation.  In fact, we lived at 2010 North 37th place, which was Jane’s home before we were married.

When I asked him how it was being a prisoner of the Koreans, to my surprise, he said that he didn’t enjoy being cold and the food was terrible and not very much of it, but aside from this, he told me it was enjoyable to him.  If you know Allie B. Burton as I knew him, it is easier to understand what he told me next.  First of all, he had no military secrets, didn’t even remember the name of the Unit he was in when shot down or even the Commander’s name.  This made him .a wonderful candidate to be interrogated in our view.  He loved to talk and they knew this, but he didn’t have any information to give them even if he would have. 

 One day, the Koreans decided to put three Interrogators on him in an effort to wear him down and confuse him.  This was their mistake.  Example:  “Where are you from?”  Answer:  “Texas, may I tell you about Texas?  After about three hours in regard to Texas, they would say, “Shut up!!”  “What is your religion?” Answer:  “I’m a Southern Baptist, Let me tell you about my religion.”After another three hours, they would tell him to Shut UP!!  He wore out the three Interrogators after almost 2 days of constant questioning.  When they were finished, they told him they never wanted to see him again, or even speak to him.  Ever!!!   

Upon arrival at Clark Air Base near Manila in the Philippines, we were assigned to jungle survival.  This, too was a lot of fun, and we did learn about surviving in the jungle.  After a lot of training, they turned us out in the jungle and the name of the game was to hide from tiny black men who were native in those parts.  Each Trainee was issued some coins and each time one or more of these small black men caught you, it was necessary to give them one of your coins.  They were given some  rice for each coin they had.  Howard  Eckersly and I were together for this portion of the training, but nobody caught us, we were very comfortable as we had sufficient water and rations and even the rats didn’t bother us at night . If you had the odor of food on your hands when you went to sleep, you were inviting the large rats to come gnaw on your hands and this isn’t cool at all!!  This school was soon over, and I arrived at Tuy Hoa, South Vietnam.  This Base was a “Turn Key” Base.  This meant that the builders went there, built the entire structures and when everything was operational, they turned the Base over to the Air Force, and we could begin operations in earnest.  And it was also brand new, thus a much finer facility.

When I first arrived in Vietnam, I started flying Combat Missions immediately which I enjoyed.  Just think, I had trained Fighter Pilots for about 25 years and had never flown even one combat mission.  Except for the fact that they were shooting back at you, it was exactly as we had taught everybody at Luke.  Of course, Luke had many, many Pilots who had flown lots of Combat Missions who were also training Pilots for combat, so it should have been no surprise to me that our teaching methods at Luke were correct. When I arrived in Vietnam, I had been flying the F-100 for over 9 years and the reason is simple to explain.  The Air Force was really hard up for funds for new aircraft, so they just kept modifying the F-100 so we could keep it forever.  Just look at the B-52 Bomber.  All the crews who now fly this Bird were not even born when this Huge aircraft came into the Air Force Inventory many years ago. 

Colonel Evans, The Wing Commander informed me that I was to be the Commander of the 307th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the one I was already flying with, and I was delighted.  All I was waiting for was the present Commander to finish his tour and leave.  Well, ere he even left, I was on the promotion list to full Colonel.  I knew when my boss came to my hootch on a Saturday night to inform me of my pending promotion that I would never be the 307th Commander, as they just didn’t have full Colonels running Squadrons in Vietnam.  Colonel Evans, the Wing Commander told me right away that he was going to put me in Wing Ops so I could help Walt Turnier who we had just put through our training program at Luke AFB a few months previously, run Wing Operations.  This was a great job because unlike most Fighter Wings who had three flying squadrons, we had five.  When the Delaware Air National Guard Squadron and the New Mexico Air National Guard Squadron were called to active duty, they sent them to our Wing, which was the Wing with the famous motto, “Return With Honor.”  This was the same Wing that Bishop Hales of the LDS Church had served in when he flew F-100’s as an Air Force Fighter Pilot.  

Colonel Turnier was a Catholic with a tremendous sense of humor. He would often remark that Tuy Hua was the world’s largest Monastery because we had all men stationed on this Base.   He had a lot of funny sayings and was very dedicated to the Air Force.  Either he or I had to be in Wing Ops during certain hours each day, seven days a week.  If one of us went on TDY or R&R, then they brought in another ranking officer to help us.  Right away, I became the Group Leader for the LDS Church on Base.  So each Sunday morning, I went to Wing Ops, and Walt Turnier flew a Combat Mission.  He would arrive at Wing Ops about noon.  I would go back to my quarters and prepare for Church at 1400 hours.  On Sunday, we held Sunday School first, then Sacrament meeting.  Each Wednesday evening at 1900 hours, we held Priesthood Meeting.  It was this way when I first arrived.  This was because if any of us couldn’t be there on Sunday, at least we could then be at Priesthood.  We always had really great attendance at our meetings.  

 I met a Colonel Smith, an inactive Mormon from Salt Lake City and we ate lots of meals together in the Officers Mess.  I invited him to come to Church, but he didn’t feel inclined to do so.  Without saying a word to me, he went to the Chief Chaplain by the name of McCoy and said to him.  “I am the Commander of the Red Horse outfit on this Base.  (These Units had lots of manpower and could build you a building or a runway or a bridge or almost anything you wanted in just no time at all.)  If you will give the LDS boys on this Base a private room in your chapel where they can keep their song books and sacrament trays, etc. plus a piano so they can hold all their religious services, I will air condition the entire building for you.”  The Chaplain then reminded him that installing air conditioning in Chapels in Vietnam was against regulations.  “Don’t quote me regulations, I know them better than you do!  Do you want the deal, or don’t you?”  “Of course,” said the Chaplain, when will you start?”  “This afternoon,” Col. Smith replied.
And in about 2 hours, the job was finished and true to his word, we then had our own private room to meet in and it was so nice. 

I thanked Colonel Smith for his kindness to us and invited him to come share the nice place with us.  He replied, “I don’t want the roof to cave in if I attend as they will ask me to repair it.”  Even though Colonel Smith was completely inactive, he surely helped us a lot there in Vietnam.  I am sure he is now gone as he was lots older than I was.  (Lt. Col.) Chaplain McCoy was a very nice man.  His office was just across the hall from our meeting room so he was in his office lots of times when we were in our meetings.  One day, he said to me:  “When I retire and have my own congregation, I am going to teach my flock to sing “Come, Come Ye Saints,” as that is the most beautiful song I have ever heard.

During the Vietnam War, there were many, many protestors who very angry about this conflict and wanted the U.S. out of there.  They should have seen the large drawing that took up an entire door in the 307th Squadron.  

When visitors were in our Unit, we kept the door open so they could not see our favorite drawing: It was a great picture of General Custer standing with one foot upon his dead, white horse who was lying on the ground.  General Custer had his sword in one hand, holding it straight out.  The caption read, “Let’s win this war and get the Hell out of here.”  We really liked this drawing a lot!!  In fact, this said it all about how we felt about being in Vietnam!!

The Personal Equipment Technician who takes care of your equipment that you take with you on a Combat Mission is extremely important.  Among the things you carry with you are your Chute, .38 caliber pistol, two emergency radios, water, food, one-man dinghy, flares, fishing equipment, G-Suit, gloves, helmet, and several other items you might need.  Sgt. Joseph B. Myers always took care of my equipment and he was well qualified in all aspects of this specialized training.  I always knew if I ever needed any of these items in an emergency, they would work, especially the two radios.  He and I became Truly Great friends and we corresponded for many years after we returned to the U.S.  I believe that he was the leader of the Christian Science Group on our Base, but he came to lots of our meetings and all of our picnics.  He really enjoyed the Mormons, but we never could convert him.  He was one of the sharpest young men I have ever known.  We spent many hours together off-duty talking as friends, and he was surely an interesting and highly intelligent young man. 

Joseph Myers should have been used on Recruiting Posters. He was extremely handsome and always neat as a pin in his appearance and in his impeccable manners. I need to mention several young men who were with me in Vietnam and most of them were in our LDS Group.  Randall Christiansen from Mayfield, Utah , Wes Harris, a convert to the Church who is now dead, and several others, too.  But I will relate their stories later on, I hope.  Wes was from Cheyenne, Oklahoma.  Forest Fenn, a Captain who was one of the pilots in my Squadron at Luke and who was in Vietnam with me.  He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a famous and rich collector of art and other valuables.

The worst experience in an aircraft that could have proved disastrous occurred to me on a Saturday morning on takeoff at Tuy Hoa, Vietnam.  Fully loaded with fuel, bombs and ammo, I rolled down the runway.  At 165 knots, I picked the nose gear off the runway, and at 180 knots as I had just started to lift the aircraft off the runway, the engine blew up, losing all its thrust.  The first indication after the explosion was falling forward against the shoulder straps. I immediately deployed the Drag Chute, then punched the big Red Button that lowered the tail hook, let the nose gear back on the runway, shoved the stick all the way forward to put more weight on the main landing gear.  (The throttle was already in idle as that was the first thing I did) then rode the brakes like mad.  

The F-100 has anti-lock brakes so if you pushed them too hard, they would cycle so the main gear tires wouldn’t blow out.  But the seasoned pilot knew exactly how much he could push on the brakes and not ever cycle them.  When this engine blew up, most of the runway was already behind me, so everything had to be accomplished and the brakes used to the very max in order to slow the aircraft down like mad with the really heavy load on the aircraft.  I did not want to jettison the bombs as if only part of them dropped off, it could cause the aircraft to veer off the runway, and I didn’t relish this thought.  Well, the tail hook caught the barrier near the end of the runway, and it stopped the aircraft immediately.  I had already made up my mind if the tail hook didn’t catch the barrier, as soon as the runway was behind me, I was going to ground loop the Bird to the left as there were lots of space to the left, but very little to the right out there in the sand.  If I ran off the runway and kept the aircraft rolling straight ahead, right away I would be in the ocean, and I was not about to allow this to happen.  The F-100 had a huge scoop in the nose of the aircraft that fed all the air to the engine, so the second it hit the water, it would submarine like mad right down to the bottom of the ocean.  The reason that the tail hook could miss the barrier is that it might start bouncing on the runway, and if it were in the up cycle when the barrier was engaged, there was no way for it to catch, and that was bad news!!  Mine worked to perfection.  As soon as they undid the tail hook from the barrier, there was enough power to taxi the aircraft off the runway to the de-arming pits  where the crews would disarm the four cannons with  their 1500 rounds of ammo aboard.  Then I shut down the disabled engine of this aircraft!!

 Sometime later, the young pilot on duty in the Mobile Control unit at the beginning of the runway said to me:  “Colonel, you announced over the air that you were aborting. Just before this, about 200 feet of flame, garbage and you name it were coming out the rear end of the aircraft .  I was going to help you, but immediately after the flame & garbage, the drag chute was deployed, the tail hook went down, you lowered the nose gear to the runway, and boy did you ever stand on those brakes, but you never recycled them once.  (The only reason he knew the brakes were never recycled is because smoke comes out of each main gear about 13 feet long in a downward angle to the runway.  If the brakes ever cycle, the smoke stops immediately as there is no braking left) And he went on to say that I got everything out of those brakes which there was to get, and he was right.”  He concluded by saying that there was just nothing for him to say at all.  After declaring the abort, nothing was said by anybody either in the Mobile Control Unit or the Control Tower, and I even suspected that I also had radio failure, because it was deadly silent until after I had exited the runway at the other end.

 

The mind is a strange thing in an emergency.  First of all, it is very quick to react to what one has been trained to do.  Even though I thought everything that I was doing during the abort was exceedingly slow, it turned out that I was extra quick in each of the several things I needed to do, plus the planning of ground looping to the left in the event the aircraft ran off the end of the runway.  And this was only about five seconds from happening if the barrier didn’t work for any reason.  My children who were old enough to read had drilled me on all emergency procedures thousands of times as we rode along in the car to different places.  They would read the emergency, then I had to tell them the steps in the correct order.  I think my daughter, Leslie enjoyed this task the most, and gee, she knew them perfectly without looking at the emergency book that was used to practice these different emergency procedures.  Well, Leslie and my other children, too, they worked when the real emergency occurred, so I owe you a great debt of gratitude.

 

It is very difficult to describe flying Combat Missions to those who are not Pilots.  First of all, Fighter Pilots are extremely arrogant.  But this is what keeps them alive when near tragedy occurs.  By and large, we perform in the manner of how good we believe we are.  Self- confidence is a necessity if the Fighter Pilot is to remain alive and well.  I spent 25 years teaching young Fighter Pilots and we always tried our best to help them know that they were the very best in the land, and most of the time, they really were!!  And like most everything else in life, if you do not enjoy what you are doing, then you are not as proficient as you need to be, especially under duress, when you are bone weary, and at other times, too.  

While writing a letter of recommendation for a young man, I wrote the following which I think describes best of all what we tried to teach the young Fighter Pilot:  “As an officer in the U.S Air Force who trained young Fighter Pilots for almost 28 years, we tried to instill in them total self-confidence, courage under fire, integrity, honesty, bravery, patriotism, and always, the will to win.  Indeed, Duty, Honor, Country!!”


The tour in Vietnam was most rewarding to me.  If my memory serves me correctly, I was at Tuy Hoa for just over one year, arriving there in late November 1967 and departing on 3 December 1968.  And I was the Assistant Wing Operations Officer for the entire time.  Altogether, I flew 247 Combat Missions and was never injured.  Many times, the aircraft I flew was all shot up and at other times while making bombing runs in extremely low altitudes due to poor weather, the aircraft received damage from my own bombing runs.  This is due to being too low, and also at times to being too slow to escape the bomb blast caused by your own bombs.  But I never had to abort a Mission due to damage to the aircraft.  One day I returned to the Base and was thinking what a boring Mission it really was.  As I walked away from the Aircraft after landing, I turned around to look at the aircraft, not knowing why I had looked back.  Well, the aircraft was leaking all the fuel they were putting into the tanks.  What had happened was that when I was hit, those particular fuel tanks were empty, otherwise I would have lost fuel like mad in the air.  I had times when the FAC (Forward Air Controller) would tell us to pull off the target, due to extremely heavy ground fire, but we never did. I always felt we could evade those dastardly folks on the ground who were trying to shoot us down.  And we always did !!  

 


At Tuy Hoa, A young pilot walked up to me one day in Operations and said to me:  “Just over two years ago, you were my Squadron Commander at Luke and you were a Major, now you are a Bird Colonel.  Am I correct?”  “Yes you are,” I replied.  When I returned to active duty in August 1950, I was a Captain.  Then In 1954 while serving on Formosa (Taiwan) on TDY from Korea, I was promoted to Major.  Shortly after this, the Air Force discovered that many officers who had a break in service such as I were being promoted more rapidly than those who stayed on board after WW II ended.  To prevent this from happening, they put a freeze on officers like me by requiring that we have so many years of active duty before we would be eligible for promotion.

Because of this I remained a Major for about 11 years.  A friend of mine who was in the same boat as I often remarked, “I am a career Major.”  And he almost was.  Leslie Jane asked me one time in all sincerity, “Dad, were you a Major in high school?”  I told her that I wasn’t but would have enjoyed this very much.  When our children were quite young, they would ask us if we came across the plains in the early days of the Church.  I guess we looked pretty ancient to them.  Once I was eligible for promotion, I was promoted to Lt. Colonel the first time I was eligible.  And also to Colonel the first time I was eligible.   I was a Lt. Colonel for just over two years.







Early in my Air Force career, I discovered that success in the military was based on working hard, running an exceptional organization, being a sharp executive and enjoying your job with much, much enthusiasm and dedication. And always surrounding yourself with highly motivated, dedicated and brilliant personnel.  Everything I needed for success in the Air Force I learned from Clint Dickerson on his farm in Fairacres, New Mexico.  Had he been given the opportunity as a young man to be in the military, he would have been a top -ranking General, there is no doubt about this.   Being a member of the LDS Church in the Air Force was definitely a huge plus.  And everybody on the entire Base who knew you always knew you were LDS.  I am sure that they talked about us when we were not present, otherwise how could they know?  

 

How did Ernie Van Allen know when we first met during that early morning encounter in the Instrument Squadron?  Could the personnel in the Gunnery Squadron possibly have briefed them just before they came to my Squadron?  It was included on some of my Officer Effectiveness Reports about me being a non-smoker, non-drinker, and they would write about our family’s religious activities.  And they always praised the fact that I was a member of Toastmasters International.  The main purpose of Toastmasters is to help you to think and speak better and to evaluate those who are speaking.  We met at a café in Litchfield Park, Arizona and we were called the “Too Early Toastmasters.”  I enjoyed this very much.

It is tradition in Combat when you fly your last Combat Mission, they always have the fire truck there when you alight from the aircraft and hose you down and give you a bottle of wine or some other alcoholic beverage in honor of you still being alive and well.  Sure enough, they hosed me down from the fire truck, but handed me a bottle of Seven-up.  This tradition is a lot of fun.  The nice thing about flying in Vietnam is that you are plenty wet just from flying the Mission, as there is a lot of humidity there and a pilot is really busy in the air, which helps the perspiration to gather.  Just as I taxied into the pits at the end of the runway to have my cannons de-armed (You were required to hold your arms outside the cockpit so you wouldn’t pull the trigger during this time and kill somebody) I thought to myself;  I have been flying the F-100 for almost ten years now, I am still alive, I was never injured, I flew this Bird as a Major, Lt. Col. and as a Colonel. I had learned to really love and respect this hard-to-fly machine and finally, this is the end of an era.  I will never be in the cockpit of an F-100 for the remainder of my mortal days.  Sure enough, I have never been in this Bird again!!

 

A great friend of mine by the name of Kirk Waldron was on TDY to Tuy Hua while I was there.  We met in our Church Group.  He was a C-130 pilot (We called them Trash Haulers).  But in Vietnam, they had a most dangerous mission.  They flew right above the tree tops and the crew in the belly of the aircraft pushed out napalm and other kinds of ordnance, which was very dangerous.  Kirk earned more medals there than I did, and he deserved them.  Anyway, one day, he asked me if he could fly a Combat Mission with me in the F-100 as he was returning to the States soon.  This was his last Mission that he would fly in Vietnam.  So on A Saturday afternoon, we flew a dual-placed F-100 and the Mission was quite interesting.  When we were back on the ground, I asked him if he enjoyed flying in the F-100.  He told me he loved it.  Then he said, “What impressed me the most was the fact that during the actual combat, we were on our back more than we were right side up.”  I never thought about this, but it was true.   Much, much later, I would learn that Laurie Butler’s Mom, LaNette Thomas went all the way through school in the Tremonton area with  Kirk, so she knew him well and said he was the sharpest young man she ever knew. Kirk and his wife, Carol are now in Africa where he is serving as a Mission President.  I believe it is the Kenya Mission.

While in Vietnam, I was awarded The Distinguished Flying Cross, The Air Medal with 11 Oak Leaf Clusters and the Bronze Star Medal.  

The time arrived to start home from Vietnam.  It was already dark, and I was standing around talking with my friends when the young man who was responsible for getting all of us on Northwest Airlines in a Boeing 707, I do believe, asked me if I were ready to leave, and of course, I was.  He had me board the aircraft first, then all the remainder of the Returnees.  When the aircraft became airborne, there was a terribly loud cheer from most of the folks who were returning home.  This is the only time I ever heard this on all the flights I have been on, both in the military and on civilian aircraft.  Just before they started the engines on the ramp, Colonel Abner M. Aust, Jr, the Wing Commander came on board to thank all of us for the important jobs we did while at Tuy Hua. As the VC (Viet Cong) had blown up our fuel lines coming into our Base, they gave very little fuel to Northwest, so we had to stop on Guam for fuel.  Then we flew to Japan, arriving very late at night. While there I was able to buy a new Minolta camera for just over a hundred bucks, including lots of film.  This was on the American Air Base where we took on fuel for the long flight to McChord AFB in Washington.

When we arrived at McChord, they gave us transportation to SeaTAc Airport south of Seattle.  I had trouble making connections to Los Angeles, but finally did, then on to Phoenix, landing on 4 December 1968.  I knew then that I would never serve overseas again for the Air Force.   When the aircraft landed at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, Jane, Haynes, Leslie, Carl, Theresa , Dana and Jim were there to meet me in our  Cadillac.  I am sure that Hal was at BYU by this time.

It was a glorious thing to be home again and be with my loved ones.  I had last seen them about August 1968, as I took an R&R to Hawaii, but flew on home to be with my family.  We weren’t supposed to return to the Mainland while serving in Vietnam as they thought too many of us would not return to Vietnam, but this never crossed my mind.  I flew Pan American from Hawaii to the U.S. and return to Hawaii. So not too much time had elapsed since I was with them, nevertheless, it seemed that the younger children had grown some in that short space of time.  My favorite Officer and Fighter Pilot of them all in my career, Even Major General Henry Russ Spicer died in Tucson, Arizona the very day I arrived home from Vietnam, 4 December 1968.  He had served his Country with great honor, had touched many lives for much good, and was indeed, a True Patriot in every sense of the word!!!  You read about him when I related the story of Lt. Ernest Edward Van Allen, my wonderful Friend & fellow Fighter Pilot in the Air Force.
  
Our family had a really wonderful Christmas and celebrating 1969 being ushered in. All the children and Jane were glad I was back from the war in one piece and not too much more insane than when I left Luke for the last time.  And we were all together again.  It was so very nice to get to visit with Grandma Irene and her wonderful husband, Silas L. Fish who would soon be in his 90th year and in relatively good health.  
 
 


CONCLUDING AIR FORCE ASSIGNMENT

In January, our vacation was over, and we loaded in our 1963 Cadillac Sedan deVille and our 1968 blue Firebird (A very speedy car) and headed for Del Rio, Texas.  This would be our last assignment in the Air Force.  I did NOT want to be a Base Commander at all, and my new Wing C.O. knew this.  I had asked General Cateledge who was the C.O. at Luke to hire me as his F-100 Deputy Commander of Operations.  I had just about as much experience as anybody in the Air Force in the F-100, and had just returned from Vietnam so I knew all about the kind of Pilots we needed in this war and they were being trained right there at Luke.  But he had already promised the job to another officer, so I was out of luck.  Shortly after arriving at Laughlin AFB, Texas, I received a nice letter from him stating that he wished he had hired me, as the other guy didn’t work out, and he had to release him.  But the Air Force would not stand still for a transfer for me back to Luke due to the heavy expenses involved in our move.  It was the fault of the Assignment Personnel when they didn’t take advantage of my vast experience in Operations.  There is no doubt about this..  
 
As the Base Commander, I did learn a lot of new things as in this position, I was over The Civil Engineers, The Staff Judge Advocate, The Security Police, All the Recreation on the Base, The Chaplains, The Commissary, the Base Exchange, The Base Hospital and lots of other jobs, too.  I had great success in working with all the agencies on the Base.  We had about the nicest Base in all of Training Command.  We kept it extremely clean, we saved millions of dollars for the Air Force, as we knew how to eliminate useless projects, not waste funds, and insist on strict honesty from the troops all the time.  

 

My first Wing Commander was a SAC man, and believe me, TAC & SAC officers did not enjoy working with each other.  Colonel Goade, the boss didn’t believe in exercise at all, and this really turned me off in regard to him.  Plus other things about him such as his lack of personality, not much of a sense of humor and too impressed with his own ability.  But soon, and guess what?  A Fighter Pilot Supreme became the Wing Commander and he and I hit it off really fine.  His name was Colonel Don Ferris who had lots and lots of flying time in Fighters and also in combat.  He was a hard worker, left you alone, and didn’t try to run your business.

All the leading citizens of Del Rio were terrific supporters of Laughlin AFB.  And several of them knew and had the ear of former President Lyndon Johnson, so this did nothing but good for this Base.  Dr. John R. Brinkley was a physician in Kansas in the late twenties of this century.  He claimed that he had perfected a goat gland operation for men who could not be fathers.  A man of his acquaintance who had been married several years and this couple was childless came to Dr. Brinkley one day to request Dr. Brinkley to perform the first operation on him, which he did.  In a little less than a year, the first child was born to this couple.  WOW!  Dr. Brinkley’s fame spread like wildfire.  But the state of  Kansas and the American Medical Association brought much pressure to bear on him. 

This is when  he closed his medical clinic, and lock stock and barrel, he and his family which consisted of his dear wife and son, John and guess where they settled?  You guessed it.  Del Rio, Texas.  He purchased a one hundred thousand watt radio station across the border in Villa Acuna, Mexico and started broadcasting all over the U.S. all the way to the southern tip of Florida all the way up to upper Maine, across the top of the land to the extreme northwest corner of Washington all the way south to San Ysidro, California just north of the Mexican border and all points in between .He had several programs of his own, which had to do with medicine and he rented space to several others.  For example, Rose Dawn became vastly rich In her simple message:  “Just send one dollar in cash, and we will pray for you.”  She raked in the Bucks.  Another advertiser would send you a personally autographed picture of Jesus Christ for only one dollar.  In those days, the price of the service included postage, if goods were delivered to you.  In the days when a general practitioner earned about $3,500 annually and a Surgeon earned about $4,500, Dr. Brinkley was raking in the huge bucks with all his weird things he was selling to the public.  His mail order business became so huge, the postoffice at Del Rio had to be upgraded to a very large one, just to handle all his incoming mail and his shipments of goods to his customers. 

Dr, Brinkley died early in 1942 while returning to the U.S. from a flight to Mexico where he had been working with the Mexican officials to keep his radio station on the air. 

I had always wanted to meet his widow who still resided in their mansion there and had become a recluse.  When I informed my PR folks that I was going to become acquainted with her, they told me to forget it, as she would allow no visitors in her palatial home.  One day, dressed in my blue uniform, and taking about three children with me, including Carl, we knocked on her door.  I told her I was the new Base Commander and had come by to meet her. She took one look at my children and asked, would you like to see the mansion?”  “Yes, thank you.”  She took us on a tour of the entire place, carefully explaining where most of the furnishings had been purchased, including many parts of Europe.  We became good friends with her, and almost each time we went to see her, she took us on a tour of the mansion.  I always made it a point to invite her to our functions on the Base.  She was a very gracious lady and always very kind to each of us.  She informed us that she, too, was a Doctor. 

And she always referred to her late husband as “Dr. Brinkley,” or the “Doctor.”  But never as “My husband, John, or any other title.  The Brinkleys gave much to charity in Del Rio, including a shoe store that was to give any needy child a new pair of shoes when they came in, and then Dr.. Brinkley would pay for them.  I never read in the papers that she had died, but I am sure she is long gone, as she was quite aged when I first met her in 1969.  She and her son, John didn’t get along very well as I think he was always asking her for money.  When Carl and I left Del Rio for the last time, we went by to see her.  As we approached the front door, we heard loud noises from within, so we knew they were having a violent dispute.  When she came to the door, she apologized that she couldn’t invite us in.  We just explained that we were going back to Arizona, had retired and just wanted to express our gratitude to her for her friendship.  She thanked us for being such good friends to her.  We bid her goodbye, and never saw her again.  In a book written about Dr. Brinkley, the author stated, “When it came to conning money out of people, he was an Eagle among Sparrows.”  What an Awesome comparison!

In the spring of 1970, Leslie asked me if she and Haynes could attend Glendale Community College in the Fall and live with some of their friends there.  I told her we would do them one better than this, that I would retire and we would move back to our home in Litchfield Park.  This pleased them a lot, and the decision was made.

Haynes and Leslie both graduated from Del Rio High School that year.  When Haynes had rheumatic fever as a very young boy, he lost a year in school so this put them in the same grade henceforth.  Silas and Grandma Irene Fish came to Del Rio for their graduation, so this really pleased us a lot.  We all had a good time with them at Laughlin AFB, Texas. 

In September 1969, President Richard M. Nixon came to our Base as he was to dedicate the new Diabolo Dam.  But officials on both sides of the Rio Grande felt that “The Devil Dam” was too much, so they agreed to rename it, “Amistad” which means friendship, thus it was so called.  On 8 September 1969, Jane and I were at the dam site where the President dedicated the new dam.  Having the President coming to Laughlin AFB meant a lot of extra work, but nobody minded it.  We spent lots of hours with his advanced crew, and they were just splendid to work with and all went well with the entire event.  The Chief of the President’s team told us that President Nixon was very easy to please and after he returned to Washington, we would receive a very nice letter from him praising us for all the hard work that went into this event, and sure enough, we did.

 

  

While at Laughlin, I flew both the T-37, a very small and slower than molasses in January in Cache Valley, Utah aircraft and the T-38 Talon.  The T-38 was a beautiful, speedy aircraft to fly.  If it had one fault in training students, it was simply too forgiving.  In other words, you had to work hard to kill yourself in this Bird.  But my job at Del Rio was not to fly, so this made this assignment anti-climatic in the worst way possible to me.  By and large, I was quite bored with my position at Laughlin, and would never recommend this type of assignment for any Fighter Pilot worth his salt.

Just after Haynes and Leslie graduated from high school, we packed up, cleaned up our Capehart house spic and span, and drove out the front gate towards home.  By this time, we still had our blue Firebird, but had sold the 1963 Cadillac and purchased another cheap Chevrolet, even though it was brand new.  In another part of this story, I already told of our previous journey to Phoenix, via Abilene, Texas, Las Cruces & Fairacres, New Mexico, our unforgettable visit with Mrs. Poole, and our arrival in Phoenix for a great assignment to Luke with a fantastic boss, even Colonel Dewy Bower.  That was when we left Waco in October 1959.  Our older children coined a phrase that I like a lot when they stated, “Happiness Is Del Rio In The Rear View Mirror.”  They didn’t really mean this at all.

When we were in Las Cruces, New Mexico, we purchased all the paint at Fed Mart we would require in painting our Litchfield Park home, so when we arrived early in the afternoon, the folks were moving out.  They were so afraid we were going to keep their small deposit they gave us when they moved in, I said to the husband who was from France.  “If you will let us go into each room as you empty it, we will give you the full deposit, even though you burned our formica, did a few other things and let our yard burn up due to lack of water.  Gee, he liked this a lot, so we started work in earnest.  After Haynes paid Nanci Harris a short visit, he returned to help us.  Gee, we worked hard and fast.  Besides painting all the interior walls, we put lemon oil on all the ash wood we had in that house, vacuumed and shampooed all the carpeting, vacuumed and mopped all the terrazzo.

By 0300 the next morning, we had lots of the furniture set up, as Mayflower arrived shortly after we did, and unloaded us completely.  All the children surely gave it their best, and that home shined and was ready for occupancy in nothing flat.  Carl was always the rapid worker, and he enjoyed projects, just like his Dad.  The ages of our children in July of 1970 were as follows:  Hal, 23 years plus 5 months: Haynes 18 years plus 10 months: Leslie 17 years plus 5 months: Carl, 14 years plus 5 months: Theresa, 9 years plus 5 months: Dana, 7 years plus 5 months: And Jim, 5 years plus 9 months:  Hal was attending BYU when we moved back to Litchfield Park.  As I look back on this era, I do believe that it was a relief for me to be retired and to be back in Arizona again.  

As I had requested to be retired on 1 August 1970, this meant after the family was settled in our home in Litchfield Park, I went back to Del Rio.  Carl wanted to go back with me, as he had lots of friends still at Laughlin, so we went there in the Firebird, stayed in nice quarters at the BOQ, and ate all our meals at the officers club, or anywhere else we desired. While I worked, he spent time with his Friends, and he always left me a note telling me where he was.  They were mighty kind to us at the Base.  Finally, during the very last part of July, Carl and I hopped in the car and headed for Phoenix.  I did not want to stop in El Paso for fuel, so we roared on towards Las Cruces.  Just short of the exit from I-25 we would take to purchase fuel, we flamed out---Yes, Fuel Starvation.  We coasted up the off-ramp & parked the car.  Immediately a man came by, took us to the fuel station, and then took us back to the car, and refused any pay for his kindness.  I was always amazed how very willing folks were to help us when we needed assistance.  I think Carl thought it was pretty funny that his Fighter Pilot Dad who always preached watching the fuel actually ran out of fuel on a freeway.  We then stopped to eat at our favorite café, Nopolito in Las Cruces.  Then we hopped off to Arizona and arrived on 1 August 1970, my date of retirement and also Jane and Eugene’s 20th wedding anniversary.  We were extremely happy to be home at last.

Just a short while after I retired, Colonel Don Ferris was fired as the Wing C.O of Laughlin AFB.  Major Wise, the chief test pilot on the Base was flying a T-38 and thinking it was disabled, he punched out of it.  But the Accident Board ruled that he should NOT have bailed out, thus losing a very valuable aircraft. The Commanding General of Air Training Command at the time, whose name was Lt. General George B.Simler, known to all of us as “Big George.”  He fired Col. Ferris.  This was most unfair, but this happened so many times in the Air Force, you can’t even count them.  This was supposed to fix the problem.  I had known General Simler while I was the Alert Pad Commander at Osan, as he was the Wing C.O. of an F-100 outfit on Okinawa.  Each time they had a typhoon alert, he brought his nuclear force to my pad, and immediately I was in command of his strike force, as they were on my pad.  He respected the way I ran the Alert Pad and always praised me to everybody. 

 And I know beyond any doubt that if I had still been at Laughlin, I would have become the Wing Commander upon the departure of poor Don Ferris.  If you are a Wing Commander, run the Wing effectively, treat the Troops as you should, and don’t screw up, you will make Brig. General.  This is a well-known fact in the military.  This also gives you 35 years guaranteed service (As an officer over age 21 when you were commissioned).  But as I had over six years to serve had I desired, this meant I could stay another 11 years plus if I made the decision to remain.  Now that I have said this, I really don’t regret having retired when I did, due to Jane’s overall health.  If I had stayed on active duty with the Air Force, I probably would have stayed until at least 1975.  In 1970, she was failing rapidly, and actually getting worse by the day.

My favorite flying poem of them all was written by a young American who volunteered to train as a Pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.  Upon graduation, he was then sent to England to fly with the Royal Air Force where he was killed in combat.  His father was a minister who surely believed his son was an Agnostic due to his attitude.  Shortly before John was killed in combat, he sent a copy of his poem to his dad.  Upon reading this immortal poem, his father knew for a certainty that his beloved son actually did believe in God. It should be noted here that this famous poem was included in every graduating class flight book in the Air Force for all of World War II and even beyond, too.  Elder Sterling W. Sill, one of the General Authorities in the Church often quoted this poem in his visits to Stake Conferences during his time.

HIGH FLIGHT
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds---And done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of---wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.   Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew,
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

 

 


This life story of Eugene Haynes Butler started the day he was born in Clovis, Curry County, New Mexico on Sunday, 28 October 1923 and has concluded the day of his retirement from the Air Force, even 1 August 1970 in Litchfield Park, Maricopa County Arizona.

 
 
HISTORICAL NOTES

''For historical purposes only, Eugene lived at the following places during the following dates:

•14 October 1957 to 14 October 1959  5112 Live Oak, Waco. Texas
•l6 Oct 1959 to 14 Mar19 60  Maryvale, Arizona
•14 March 1960 to 20 July 1961  2910 Sioux, Luke AFB, AZ
•20 July 1961 to 7 Jan 1962 Glendale, AZ
•7 Jan 1962 to 7 Jan 1963, Osan, Korea
•7 Jan 1963 to 17 Dec 1965, Glendale, Az.
•17 Dec 1965 to 4 Dec 1967, 502 Redondo Dr So. Litchfield Park, AZ
•4 Dec 1967 to 4 Dec 1968, Tuy Hoa, Vietnam
•4 Dec 1968 to 17 Jan 1969, Litchfield Park, AZ
•17 Jan 1969 to 29 July 1970, Laughlin AFB, Del Rio, Texas
•29 July 1970 to 27 Dec 1972, 502 Redondo Dr So, Litchfield Park, AZ
•27 Dec 1972 to 14 Oct 1988, 2045 N 1250 E, N Logan, Utah
•14 Oct 1988 to the present time, 2919 Indian Hills Dr, Provo, Utah

All Presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are listed in the order served:

NameBornDiedYears ServedChurch PopulationStakesTemples
Joseph Smith Jr.12/23/18056/27/18441830-184426,14622
Brigham Young6/1/18018/29/18771844-1877115,065201
John Taylor11/1/18087/25/18871880-1887173,029312
Wilford Woodruff3/1/18079/20/18981889-1898267,251404
Lorenzo Snow4/3/181410/10/19011898-1901292,931504
Joseph F. Smith11/13/183811/19/19181901-1918495,962754
Heber J. Grant11/22/18565/14/19451918-1945979,4541537
George Albert Smith4/4/18704/4/19511945-19511,147,1571918
David O McKay9/8/18731/18/19701951-19702,807,45650013
Joseph Fielding Smith*7/19/18767/2/19721970-19723,218,90958115
Harold B. Lee3/28/189912/26/19731972-19733,306,65868015
Spencer W. Kimball**3/28/189511/5/19851973-19855,919,4811,58236
Ezra Taft Benson8/4/18995/30/19941985-19948,700,0002000+45
Howard W. Hunter11/14/19073/3/19956/5/94-3/3/959,024,5692,00847
Gordon B. Hinckley***6/1910present1995-present11,000,000+unk104+



*Was born when Brigham Young was still alive. Dedicated Provo, Temple
**Dedicated Jordan River Temple plus 20 more.
***He instituted building numerous small Temples.


Presidents Of The United States Since Eugene was born in 1923:

NameOrderYears ServedFrom
Calvin Coolidge30th pres.1923-1929Plymouth, VT
Herbert C. Hoover31st pres.1929-1933W Branch, LA
Franklin D. Roosevelt32nd pres.1933-1945Hyde Park, NY
Harry S. Truman33rd pres.1945-1953Lamar, MO
Dwight D. Eisenhower34th pres.1953-1961Denison, TX
John F. Kennedy35th pres.1961-1963Brookline, Mass
Lyndon B. Johnson36th pres.1963-1969Stonewall, TX
Richard M. Nixon37th pres.1969-1974California
Gerald Ford38th pres.1974-1977Michigan
Jimmy Carter39th pres.1977-1981Georgia
Ronald W. Reagan40th pres.1981-1989California
George H.W. Bush41st pres.1989-1993Texas
Bill Clinton42nd pres.1993-2000Arkansas
George W. Bush43rd pres.2000 to presentAustin, TX