Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [105]
“Yeah,” I said, “but from what the girl says the flight is full.”
“I’m on that flight,” he said. “You can have my seat and I’ll go later, or I’ll fly my own plane.” His exact words.
TWA used four-engine Constellations. The trip would take all day, with a fuel stop in St. Louis. I got to sit with Frank Sinatra and two of his bodyguards. I didn’t know much about Sinatra either, except that in Omori Duva had told me, “He’s the top singer in America. The bobby-soxers are rolling in the aisles.”
In those days the flight attendants checked in each passenger by name after takeoff. When ours got to Sinatra, he gave her a look and said, “Russ Colombo.”
The woman knew who Sinatra was, but she had to maintain protocol and wasn’t about to give in. “Sir,” she said patiently, “I want your real name.”
“Russ Colombo.” Real snotty. I thought it unbelievable for a grown man to treat the hostess like that, trying to get her to say, “Oh, that’s okay. I know who you are.” I felt like punching him in the nose, and I might have, but she went to the captain instead. He sauntered up and told Sinatra, “Fella, one more disturbance and you’re off the plane in St. Louis.”
Sinatra turned red and told the attendant, “Frank Sinatra.” She wrote it down and didn’t give him a second look.
Frank’s buddies were nice guys and talked to me during the flight. I wore my uniform, and without really knowing much about me they wanted to hear my war stories. “You survived two plane crashes during the war?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Every time I get in a plane something seems to happen.”
I was just kidding, of course, but they got all excited: “Hey, Frank. Frank!”
Frank turned to me and said, “I tried to get in the service but I had a punctured eardrum.”
“So did I,” I said. When I was a kid someone shoved me off a twenty-foot platform at the Redondo Beach saltwater pool, and I hit the water sideways. My ear swelled up for a month or two. I had to wear an earplug forever. If the army noticed at my physical, they didn’t care, and I wasn’t about to remind them.
Sinatra thought I was being clever at his expense and just clammed up.
After we left St. Louis, I had my own run-in with the flight attendant. I don’t know why, but the number-three motor on the Constellation sometimes leaked oil and caught fire. I looked out the window and spotted oil trailing.
I said, “Uh-oh.”
Sinatra said, “What’s wrong?”
“She’s got an oil leak. And this is a Constellation.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he said.
“Well, the Constellation has had problems with the number-three motor.” They called the attendant, and she bawled me out for getting the passengers aroused. I didn’t care. “Young lady,” I said, “you better call the captain right now.”
“Sir, you’re disturbing the passengers.”
I said, “You better get the captain, or I’ll get him.” This time he came to see me. When I pointed out the problem, he ran like mad back to the cockpit, turned the ship around, and flew back to St. Louis. TWA put us in a hotel for the night. The next day I took another flight. Sinatra and his group took a train.
THE ARMY AIR Corps gave all returning prisoners of war two weeks of free R&R. I had no complaint about the nightlife and good times in Hollywood, but I thought a change in scenery might shake off my nightmares. We could select from a list of four approved resorts. One was Hawaii, but I’d just returned from Hawaii. Another was Miami Beach. I’d never been there. They also said I could take a guest. A family member would curtail my activities, and I had no steady girl, so I asked the ideal companion: my fun-loving buddy Harry Read.
We checked in at the beautiful Embassy Hotel in Miami and in the room found a long list of optional activities for soldiers on the loose. For instance, every day Ron Rico Rum held a party. You went to their headquarters—beautiful layout and bar—and let them mix you one fancy iced or frothy drink after another, sometimes