Memories

Air Classics, Dec 2001 by Yingling, L D

I was overwhelmed by two of your fine articles in the February issue. They have taken me back in time and made me feel young again.

When I read "Pulp Fiction," I couldn't help but relive those days in the late 1920s when I was mesmerized by The Lone Eagle and G-8 and His Battle Aces along with the comic strip Tailspin Tommy. I spent those early years making model airplanes and drawing pictures of the same. Then one summer a pilot by the name of Art Davis came into town in a Waco biplane. My Dad allowed me to take a 30-minute ride (the cost was 50 cents). I knew then I wanted to be a fighter pilot and sure enough I received my wings and checked out in the P-47 at Westover Field, Massachusetts, in February 1943.

Then, like William Chatham's story about Dwane Morris, I too was relieved of my position of Flight Leader for leading a buzz job on Jones Beach, Long Island. Then, while stationed at Groton Point, Connecticut, we would come in from a night on the town about 5 am, get into our planes and breath oxygen and be flying with a clear head about 6 am.

L.D. "Bob" Mingling 366th FG