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Preface and Acknowledgments
- The Kent State University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
xv If you’re looking for macho, fighting-man talk, you’ve picked up the wrong book. As you may guess when looking at my photos, I’m not that kind of fellow. And you won’t find lurid romance or exaggerated dramatization of fairly ordinary events—I hope. Not that I don’t like drama, I just can’t write it. This is just an honest narration of some of my experiences, observations , thoughts, and acquaintances during my service in the U.S. Army between 1940 and 1945, during first years of what became a new branch of the Army: Army Aviation. If I’m not a very remarkable fellow, why do I bother writing my story? Well, while I was not the first, I was among the earliest pilots in the Army Ground Forces organic air observation program that began in 1942, proved itself of great value on the battlefields of World War II, and eventually evolved to the highly sophisticated combat and logistical element that it is today. Few of my contemporaries have written their personal experiences, so not many people know what we really did to earn our pay. Therefore, I think that I, who probably was a fairly typical Army pilot, can and should help give the public some idea of what it was like. Besides, I enjoy telling my little stories. prefAce And Acknowledgments xvi preface and acknowledgments I was born in 1921 on a small tobacco farm in Nicholas County, Kentucky . We were very poor people, and times were hard all over when I was growing up. My parents divorced when I was eleven, and I dropped out of school before completing the ninth grade. After working on various farms and in two or three futureless small-town jobs, I enlisted in the Army on 6 September 1940 for duty with the 8th Field Artillery at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, where I arrived in December. A year later, I was there as a radio operator when the Japanese attack opened our full participation in World War II. That’s where this book begins. It was Lew LeGrand who tracked down former members of the 89th and brought them together into an informal organization called the 89th Field Artillery Battalion Association. My wife, Dorie, and I attended its annual reunions in the late eighties and through most of the nineties, and I served as publisher of Thunder, the association’s newsletter. It was good to be in contact with these old friends, and I am deeply grateful for their kindness and friendship. In many cases, they helped make it possible for me to recall and record the experiences in this book. My recollection of events, names, and dates was often refreshed by reference to Sanford Winston’s The Golden Cross, a history of the 33d Infantry Division in World War II. Rafael Steinberg’s Return to the Philip pines provided some background information on Russell Volckmann. Don Vineyard of Mansfield, Missouri, my partner in the 122d Field Artillery Battalion, read and critiqued the manuscript for this book and prompted my memory of some adventures we shared. Floyd Erickson of Pleasant Hill, California, was a former flying friend whose own L-4 exploits would put mine to shame if he had ever written them down. Floyd put me in touch with Tom Baker of Tijeras, New Mexico, a flying son of Don Baker, another old artillery pilot. Tom read and critiqued my manuscript as well, then put the whole thing in order and submitted it for publication. It would never have seen the light of day without Tom’s personal dedication over a period of several years. [54.224.90.25] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:15 GMT) preface and acknowledgments xvii I’m also grateful to Tom for writing the introduction to this book, which establishes some historical context. At this writing, Tom and I have never even met face to face, yet I count him among my closest friends. ...