CLASSMATES: The luck and fate of three WW II pilots

Flight Journal, Feb 2004 by O'Mahony, Charles

On December 7, 1941, Maurice Neher was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge to visit his brother when the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came over his car radio. Neher, 22, was a traveling salesman who peddled fabrics to furniture makers.

William Patton was a "pineapple soldier" stationed at Hickam Field on Oahu-a 23-year-old sergeant in the Army Air Corps and already a veteran of seven years' service. A farm boy from Missouri-"Junior" to his family-he had enlisted at 16 without finishing high school, and he was committed to a career in the military.

I was also in uniform. Seventeen years old and fresh out of high school, I was working as a bellhop in the Shoremede Hotel in Miami Beach. On that "... date that will live in infamy," we three Depression kids were thousands of miles apart, but not too far down the road our paths would converge, and fate would deal us dramatically different hands in a war that began, for our country, on that Sunday morning.

With WW II came gasoline rationing-three gallons a week for civilians-and Neher could no longer be a traveling salesman. The nearest Air Force base was Hamilton Field, and he went there to sign up for the Air Corp's aviation cadet program. Meanwhile, after Pearl Harbor, Patton flew combat missions in the B-17 as an aerial gunner. Now a master sergeant, he decided he wanted to be at the controls of a Flying Fortress, and he applied for flight training. The War put an end to luxury vacations, and at my posh Miami Beach hotel, every reservation was canceled. Broke and out of a job, I hitchhiked 1,200 miles back home to Pittsburgh. In July 1942, I, too, enlisted as an aviation cadet. I languished at home for six months, sure that the War would be over before I got my chance for glory, but in January 1943, I was called up.

I arrived at the classification center in Nashville on my 19th birthday. Tennessee was in the grip of a bitter cold spell, and the base was snow-covered. We kept the two pot-bellied coal stoves glowing red to try to heat our tarpaper barracks, but lying in our cots listening to taps, we watched the white clouds from our breath hang like ghosts in the air.

After two whirlwind weeks of testing, we were classified as pilots, bombardiers, or navigators and sent our separate ways for training. Our class of pilots boarded a troop train, and five days later, we were in Santa Ana, California, for preflight training. Neher and Patton were there, too, but the base had 28,000 cadets in training, so we never met. After nine weeks of classroom time, drills, physical training and vaccinations, we were ready to get down to the business of learning to fly an airplane.

The three of us completed all of our flight training in California. From Santa Ana, Neher and Patton shipped out to Cal-Aero Field in Ontario for Primary Flight and continued Basic at Gardner Field in Taft. I soloed a Stearman in Santa Maria and then completed Basic in the blistering heat at Chico in the San Joaquin Valley. As we neared the end of Basic, it was decision time: did we want to fly fighters or bombers? We opted for bombers and were given our orders for multi-engine Advanced Training in Stockton, California, for the homestretch of our cadet training.

Our one-story barracks at Stockton was divided into stalls, not unlike a stable, and we slept two to a "stall." I bunked with Willie Owens. To one side of us was William Patton, and on the other side was Maury Neher. The alphabet had at last brought the three of us together, and Maury and I became close friends, while William was a casual friend. It was August 31, 1943, and Advanced Training would last nine very intense weeks. We flew the Cessna-built AT-17-a docile twin-engine plane powered by 245hp Jacobs radials. It was officially known as "The Bobcat," but we called it "The Bamboo Bomber." It was not exciting to fly, but we were there to hone our skills at instrument and formation flying and navigation, and for that, the AT-17 was as good a vehicle as any other. We were busy from 0530 until 2000 hours, flying twice as long as we had in Primary and Basic, and we still maintained a full classroom schedule and went to PT and the drill field. We went everywhere "on the double." We got six to 10 hours off on every eighth day, and in the two months at Stockton, we were given just one overnight pass.

On November 3, 1943, the class of 43-J-215 strong-graduated from cadet training. The flying classification on our Form 5 record was changed from "Student Pilot" to "Pilot," and we were awarded those coveted silver wings. We put on our gold second lieutenant bars for the first time, and all the GIs on the base clustered around to take advantage of an Army tradition: to get a dollar for popping us our first salute. After having been a GI for nine years, this was a special treat for Patton.

Patton shipped out to Hobbs, New Mexico, for B-17 training; his dream had come true. Neher and I, by choice, reported to Laughlin Army Air Field in Del Rio, Texas, to fly the Martin B-26 Marauder, aka "The Widow Maker" and "The Flying Coffin." The leap from the Bamboo Bomber to the B-26 was flat-out scary. We went from 70mph on final approach to 150mph and from 450hp to 4,000hp! The big Pratt & Whitney engines blocked our view of the wingtips and put a lot of guesswork into formation flying. The Marauder's cockpit was a bewildering wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling array of handles, knobs and instruments. Its wing loading was 56 pounds per square foot-almost double that of most fighters. In an emergency, the plane had hardly any safety factors-nothing "left over." Even Gen. Jimmy Doolittle admitted that the B-26 was "an unforgiving airplane."