Paper chase

Paper" was the code name for Japanese fire balloons launched from the Home Islands and aimed for North America - traveling via the jet stream. These things were silverfish in color and made of some form of impregnated paper. Suspended below the balloons were packages of incendiary bombs which the Japanese hoped would start major forest fires on the west coast. Some of them actually accomplished their mission and if the Japanese had been able to launch thousands at one time, they may have become a major problem for the American military.

We had standing orders to shoot them down whenever possible. We always had two of our guns loaded on every flight - just in case.

It was early 1945 and my squadron, VF-2, had been ordered to Holtville in the California desert for gunnery, bombing, and rocket practice. This was mostly done over or near the north end of the Salton Sea.

Holtville was an oven! Always over 100 degrees in the shade (if you could find any). We could only fly from sun-up until about 10 am and then from 5 pm until dark. The planes would be so hot you could not climb into the cockpit without flight gloves. It was just too damned hot.

We had a Goodyear FG-1D Corsair available to anyone who wanted to check out in the "bent wing bastard" or "ensign eliminator" as it was frequently called. At the time, VF-2 was flying Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats.

I was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from not having flown a Corsair in over a month. Plus, I really liked the FG-1D variant. I checked the Corsair out and took off around 6 am and headed to Yuma, Arizona, to see if I could find any P-39s to dogfight. The Army had a squadron of Bell Airacobras based at Yuma.

I had been off the ground less than 15 minutes when Holtville tower came on the air with "Attention all pilots with loaded guns. There is a 'Paper' directly over the field. Go get it!"

I responded and stated I was on my way. So did my friend Bob Mattress who happened to be up in a Hellcat. I could see a silvery object over the base - gleaming in the early morning sun.

I put on the oxygen mask I always carried, shoved the Pratt & Whitney's throttle into climb power and headed upstairs. While I was doing this, my mind wandered back to an incident, or a strange happening as I liked to call it, at NAS Jacksonville. In our first month at Jacksonville, Bob Mattress and I were up practicing some aerobatics. We always did this in pairs just in case there was some form of problem.

We were flying F3As (Corsairs built by Brewster) when an abnormal feeling came over me. I was light headed and had a strange taste in my mouth and throat. I checked my lips and finger nails for any sign of blue but that made no sense since we were below 8000 feet. It could not be anoxia but I was also feeling a bit giddy.

I did not have an oxygen mask with me so I put the oxygen hose in my mouth and cranked the dial to 100 percent and headed back to main side with Mattress flying wing. Bob called the tower saying we had a "semi-emergency" and got clearance to land. I did a short field procedure and lined up with the runway. However, I was going hot as hell and must have touched down at over 100 mph. The Corsair, naturally, bounced, got airborne, bounced, got airborne, then finally stayed down. We used up nearly all of the runway. Later on, the duty officer said I was smoking the tires in an effort to stop the Corsair.

The duty officer put me in his jeep and drove directly to the dispensary so Doc could check me out. Guess what they found? I had carbon monoxide poisoning! A few more minutes in the air and I would not have made it back. Mechanics checked over the Corsair and found a hole in the firewall that was feed

ing fumes directly into the cockpit. I was grounded for three days until it was all out of my system.

The lesson I learned was always, always take your oxygen mask on every flight and that's why I had mine in the FG-1D's map case when the order came to intercept our intruder,

Ben had joined up and was about 50 feet below the Corsair as we climbed through 15,000, 20,000, and the tower came on and said, "It's just above you. Keep climbing!"

We went through 25,000 then 30,000. "It's still above you," said the tower. We kept climbing. We got to 35,000 feet and the Corsair would not go an inch higher. Plus, the engine was in full power and getting hot. Bob was having the same problem.

The tower started to come on again but I interrupted with "I know! It's above us!" Well, it turns out that the fire balloon was the planet Venus glowing particularly bright in the morning light. Both the Corsair and Hellcat needed major overhauls for the P&W R-2800s.

After this little incident, we carried on with our training which included a rocket firing contest. We had 36 pilots each firing 24 five-inch rockets. Eight of the rockets were fired in a 15-degree dive, eight at 30 degrees, and eight at 60 degrees.

We carried four rockets under each wing panel and fired two at a time. We could salvo all eight at once but not in this contest.