About a month after turning 19, I went into the service. I was going down the street and saw a picture of Uncle Sam with his finger pointing at me with the words: "I want you." So, on 7 August 1940, I enlisted in the United States Army Air Force, and then went home and told dad what I had done.

At that time, I had to take a test to qualify to get into the Air Force or have two years of college. Even though I was afraid I might not pass the test, I went over to El Paso to sign up and be sworn in and take the test. In some way, I was able to qualify.

I went into the military with full intention of becoming a pilot. I had my heart set on that, but color blindness prevented the fulfillment of that dream. That was also a big disappointment.

I had a physical exam at Fort Bliss. Then I was assigned to Lowry Field, Colorado, for basic training. I saw a lot of new airplanes come out. I attended aircraft armor school. It was a fun class which lasted about three months. This is where I was when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Every plane that was serviceable in any way took off from Lowry Field for the West Coast and the anticipated Japanese attacks.

While I was at Lowry field, I went to gunnery school and to armor school. We had just finished our basic when I was assigned to go to armor school. The classes were held 24 hours per day. Anyone going to school had to go when the schools were open. Our school started at 12 o=clock midnight. It was a real rough time because we would go to town and stay out until about 10 or 11 o=clock and then rush back to the base, change into our fatigues (casuals) and get to class. We got out of school at 8:00 a.m. and got cleaned up and went back to town. We returned at 10 or 11 o=clock at night, took a shower and put on fatigues. We attended school until 8:00 a.m., went to eat, got cleaned up and went back to town.

I did that three days straight at one time. The last night of school, I had not been to bed for three days. Being tired, I’d get up and go out of class and put snow all over my face and neck. I’d sit down at the desk and soon be out again. The instructor paid no attention to our leaving and returning to class. I got so sleepy I couldn’t hold my head up, and I had bruises on my forehead from banging the desk.

I became a gunner instructor.

I stayed at Lowry Field for about two years, then 42 aircraft armors were shipped out to Kearns, Utah. I was transferred to Kearns with them.

After 40 days, the entire group of 42 men was shipped to Chicago. When we arrived in Chicago, the officers didn=t know what to do with 42 aircraft armors, but learned later that we were supposed to go to the airport to maintain planes that were in transit and going through the Chicago airport.

In Chicago, because they didn’t know where to send us, they attached us to an M-P (Military Police) outfit on a temporary basis. We stayed in Chicago for only about six weeks. By the time they figured out where we were, they had already brought in some more aircraft armors to do the job we were supposed to have done.

From Chicago, we went to Dyersburg, Tennessee, and stayed there for only ten days then we were sent to St. Louis, Missouri, to Jefferson Barracks, where we stayed for about two weeks. From there, we went to Lake Charles, Louisiana, for approximately ten days, and then we were sent on to Avon Park, Florida. We spent about 2-1/2 years at Avon Park.

Mosquitoes on the Beach: While I was stationed at Avon Park, Florida, some of us would go down to the beach, which was only a hundred feet behind our Quonset hut, to swim. The beach couldn’t be seen from the hut because of the dense jungle. A little corridor had been cut through the jungle from our Quonset hut to the beach. It was a nice beach, a pretty beach, about four or five miles long and covered with white sand.

One day while we were swimming, someone said, “Listen.” Everyone stopped to listen, and we heard what sounded like a group of B-17 bombers a long ways away. We were looking around to see if we could see them. Then, one of the fellows looked down the beach and saw a shadow. We learned that it was a huge swarm of mosquitoes. We had left the water, but when the mosquitoes got to where we were, we hurriedly went back into the water.

Usually there were little alligators, which we played with. They were about one or two feet long. We didn’t think much about it as we played with them, but I have thought since that there probably was a mother alligator somewhere nearby. A man shot a 12-foot gator one time.

We climbed around on P-47s. When the temperature hit 115 degrees in the shade, the skin on the airplanes was 180 to 200 degrees.

Our group was four squadrons a training group. Two squadrons did the first phase of training, and the other two did the last phase of training. There was such a Ahot@ airplane that it was frightening to fly it. There were very few accidents in the air, but accidents occurred when they came in contact with the ground or the water. They used to make torpedo runs out of the water in Tampa Bay. Flying above the water was very deceptive, and the planes were supposed to fly 50 feet above. Hitting the water was like hitting concrete. There were a lot of P-47s and P-51s that fighter squads trained in. Many times when we would go out on missions, a fighter squad would try to break us up. One squad would fly protection for us, and another would take the part of the enemy. Their purpose was to literally break up our formation. They would dive down and fly right through the formation. Most of the time they would dive from the front and come in to meet us. One time a P-47 came in and the pilot lost his nerve at the last second and tried to pull out. His plane hit the co-pilot=s compartment of the P-51. It knocked off the top turret and took a vertical stabilizer off the plane. We were flying at about 8,000 feet, and we watched the plane go right into the ground. The P-47 plane went on to a safe landing back at the base a different base from the one we landed at. This was a good thing because the guys in our group were so upset, I think they might have killed that pilot.

One time our plane was nicked by a P-51 trying to break up the formation. Just as the plane went between our plane and the planes next to us, the pilot raised the wing just a little bit to miss him, and the tip of his wing sliced through the metal on our wing. If you don=t think that=s close. There was no room to spare.

Every day in the service was an adventure. We used to say,”A plane a day in Tampa Bay”, because just about every day one of the planes went down in the bay and the members of the crew were lost. For three years, we left in the mornings never knowing if we would come home at night.

One fellow had his plane on the runway to take off. He had waited for sometime for another plane to take off. When the plane took off, the fellow cut his engines and climbed out by himself, leaving the crew in the plane. Our pilot knew the man, so he cut the engines on our plane and climbed out to see what was the matter. The fellow, in tears, said, “I just cannot do it any more. Send me (this is missing from the text) if they want to, or do what they want to, but I can’t fly that plane any more.@ I have no idea what the outcome was possibly they gave him a desk job.

I think the closest I ever came to getting killed in an airplane was when we had all kinds of pilots come in. One time a group of P-40 pilots about seven or eight transferred in and had to learn to fly multiple-engine planes, so they had to be retrained. When we wanted to do something for a break, we would sometimes take a ride with one of these pilots. We all had pilots that we liked to ride with.

One day when a pilot I knew was going to take a P-40 pilot up for training on a multi-engine plane, I decided to go with him. The regular pilot took the plane off. This was the plane I was assigned to B I was responsible for any guns, bombs and ammunition that went on that plane. We got in the air and the pilot turned it over to the co-pilot and had him turn one engine off and fly with just the other engine. The pilot in training was playing around with the controls to the propeller. The blades on the propellers could be turned in different directions. The pilot turned the blades in such a way that he ran the engine away while we were flying with just one engine. When that engine ran away, the pilot, who was reading a funny book, threw the book on the floor, called the co-pilot trainee a bunch of names and took the controls. The plane fell 8,000 feet in about 30 seconds. It wasn’t flying it was falling. The plane fell and fell. The pilot cut the engine on the run-away propeller, feathered (turned the prop to cut air) the prop, and started up the other engine, which already had the propeller feathered. The pilot kept cursing the co-pilot trainee. He didn’t do it on purpose, but we might have all been killed. We went from 10,000 feet down to 800 feet before the pilot pulled us out of the predicament. We were a very nervous group of people in that plane. It was a real blessing that we had the 10,000 feet in order to get the other engine started. So many things happened there one wouldn’t believe how many different things happened there.

One time a sergeant became hysterical. He had been going to launch an A-20 target for me, and the tie at each end of the target broke. I was working the break (break the target down). A target is rolled up and as it is launched, it falls away from the plane. As it unrolls, it gives a terrible jerk, so it has to be launched gently. The sergeant had got the target in the bomb bay okay, but he broke the bands and the slip stream was coming up into the bomb bay, and he didn’t know what to do to push it out. I left the brake off on the torn target and went to help the sergeant get that out. I was screaming at the top of my voice to be heard above the wind, telling him to climb up on it and push it out all at once with his feet. Holding on to the bomb racks, we got up on it and started pushing it out. The other guy just started screaming like a frantic idiot. As soon as it got out, I had to get back in the bomb bay and start breaking the target. We got it out without breaking the cable, and then I pulled the target up to where we wanted it. We were surprised that the cable hadn’t snapped. There were 5,000 feet (nearly a mile) of cable on a winch. It cost $1 per foot in those days.

From Avon Park, we went to New York and then overseas to Glasgow, Scotland. We still didn’t know where we were going, but finally departed on 30 November 1944 for Iceland. We arrived in Iceland on 15 December.

We left Iceland on 9 June 1945 and went back to Scotland where we boarded the Queen Mary. There were 18,000 troops on board. This was her first trip after the war. Sleeping quarters were six-bunks high all around the swimming pool. The first three grades (Master, Staff and Tech Sergeants) were assigned rooms. Since there were not enough for everyone, the bunks had to be traded. One would sleep eight hours, then

turn the bunk over to someone else. The rest of the people had to be up on deck. We arrived in the United States on the 20th of June. The war finally ended.

After landing in New York Harbor, most of us were sent home for a two-week furlough, and then we went to Santa Ana Air Base in California, with the idea of going overseas to the Pacific. This was about the time the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and because of that, we were sent to Brownsville, Texas, rather than to the Philippines.

I was awarded a Battle Star on 8 October 1945. On 25 October 1945, at Ellington Field Texas, I received an honorable discharge from the United States Army Air Force after having served 5 years, 2 months and 19 days in the military. I had the rank of Staff Sergeant.

David T Cates