At this point I remember flying over the Fort Lauderdale water tower. If he hadn’t done this, the plane would have banked, lost speed, and dove in the ground. Feeling the jolt of the plane he quickly returned the lever to the flaps up position and the plane resumed normal flight.
He stated later that he never takes his hands off the flap-operating lever until they are completely down. My pilot was able to adjust with the regular ailerons. The flap acted as an aileron causing the plane to lurch to the side. The wheels appeared to come partially down and one of the flaps came partially down. On entering the landing circle my pilot, Ensign Fuller, tried to lower the landing gear and flaps. We had an exciting experience returning from a night flight. On returning to the airfield and entering the landing circle there is a point where the pilot puts down the retractable wheels and lowers the flaps to lower the speed and get additional lift. I would get into the turret from the radioman’s compartment. I don’t even know if I could fit into the side opening of the plane into the radioman’s compartment. My radioman Robert Jensen said, “Jack, if this and something happens to the plane don’t expect me to ride the plane down with you. At my age then (19) it did not bother me. They took off the side panel of the turret and were able to wiggle me out of the turret in that position. The ground crew observed us landing with me in this position and came right out to the plane. After about one and a half hours we landed back at Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station. I reported to the pilot Fuller and he asked if I wanted to go back to the base. Here I was in the ball turret on my back, no way to get out. I turned on the turret and it malfunctioned and the gun pointed straight up into the air perpendicular to the body of the plane and it wouldn’t come down with the control. machine gun pointing to the rear of the plane, I could easily get out of it by letting down an armor plate and dropping down into the radioman’s compartment. It’s like sitting inside of a large ball. In one of the torpedo run flights I asked the pilot for permission to operate the turret. The plane would nose over and, so help me, we would dive at a vertical angle, 90° to the sea for quite a length of time and pull out of the glide at about 1,000 feet. We had many interesting flights practicing torpedo runs, gunnery firing at slicks in the sea and at targets being towed by another plane, navigation flights and glide bombing. We took off and it was excitingly pleasant. Once the engine warmed up, it ran smooth. The engine ran very rough on starting and I could see the tail section shake and vibrate because of the engine running uneven. They started the engine and smoke poured down the side of the plane from the exhaust. The first time in the plane (TBF) at my position in the turret I could observe the tail section very well. We would supposedly stay together through combat. The plane didn’t burn but was sunk in the mud nose first up to the wings–scary.Īt this point I was assigned to a crew–a pilot, Ensign Fuller from Boston, Mass., a radioman Robert Jensen from Salt Lake City, Ut., and myself a turret gunner. They took us to a TBF that had crashed into the Everglades. This is where I started flying in TBF Avenger torpedo bombers and a lot of interesting things started happening.
#Uss sleep now in my arms how to#
I finished radar school and was sent to Hollywood, Florida, for aerial gunnery school, where we learned all about the 50-caliber machine gun, trap shooting for learning how to lead the targets and operating the gun with the ball turret firing at range targets and targets being towed by planes.Īfter about six weeks of aerial gunnery school I was sent to what they called operational training at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Our instructor wanted to give it up at that time and had to look for someone to take his place. I could have stayed on as an instructor but did not want to. I graduated in January 1944 and went to airborne radar operators school at the same base. I was sent to aviation ordnance school at Memphis, Tenn. We did get our leaves after an extra week’s training. I saw men coming out of the chapel crying, thinking there was a big sea draft coming.
Usually we got a week’s leave after boot camp. Here they announced that all leaves were canceled. I remember going to the chapel one week before graduation from boot camp. I was given a flight physical and passed. It was here I volunteered to fly as an aircrewman. Here I went through marching, swimming, discipline, calisthenics, medical physicals, shots, aptitude test, and interviews. My first duty was at Sampson NY Naval Station for boot camp. So you see they didn’t give me much time after my high school graduation. I received my high school diploma on June 23, 1943. I was inducted into the Navy on June 22, 1943.